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Tachycardia When Falling Asleep?
Something strange happens to me now and then. I will be falling asleep or asleep for no more than an hour when something sends my body bolting upright. I awaken as I am forced upwards, gasping for breath with the whole bed shaking from tachycardia - it is beating that fast and hard. Once I almost fainted within the first thirty seconds. When I wore the holter the cardiologist said I was having a tachycardia but didn't know what triggered it. Has anyone experienced this during that early phase of sleep (REM?) I wake up disoriented and sure I am dying and eventually I realize "oh, it's just that thing happening again". It's very terrifying when it happens though, especially when I am so out of it and can't think straight. By the way, I have never had tachycardia when I am awake (knock on wood).
Hi!
For all of those affected, TRY the Valsalva maneuver just after being waken up; it will decrease your beating rate immediately.
It's basically: inhale, pinch your nostrils shut with your fingers and then try to blow the air out strongly (hold for a sec, then release the air normally and check your pulse, repeat if necessary). The increased pressure in the throat will be perceived by the carotid baroreceptors, which control heart rate.
There was a time I had some of these (I'm not having for quite a while now, yay!), always when sleeping, and I couldn't find a cause, except for anxiety or stress, which one never knows at the moment.
I am truly glad I found this webpage and see I'm not the only one. This worked for me so well and it's so simple that I had to share it with you.
Hope it helps!
For all of those affected, TRY the Valsalva maneuver just after being waken up; it will decrease your beating rate immediately.
It's basically: inhale, pinch your nostrils shut with your fingers and then try to blow the air out strongly (hold for a sec, then release the air normally and check your pulse, repeat if necessary). The increased pressure in the throat will be perceived by the carotid baroreceptors, which control heart rate.
There was a time I had some of these (I'm not having for quite a while now, yay!), always when sleeping, and I couldn't find a cause, except for anxiety or stress, which one never knows at the moment.
I am truly glad I found this webpage and see I'm not the only one. This worked for me so well and it's so simple that I had to share it with you.
Hope it helps!
I have been having this since 2005. This is the first time I have found a board with so many others experiencing the same problem. I have the exact same symptoms and it is not anxiety. At times I want to go to sleep so badly, that I am nearly in tears, as this issue keeps waking me up.
Fortunately, I just now have insurance again after several years and I look forward to getting a doctor to listen to me. I am hoping for the Holter Monitor.
**I will add something that I get an eye roll about when I mention it. Back in 2009, I watched an episode of Diagnose Me on some cable channel. I don't normally watch this show but the preview intrigued me. This woman had the EXACT same symptoms. It took her years to find out it was Cushings Disease. I think she went to UC Berkely and finally had it diagnosed. I have several of the symptoms of Cushings so it makes me wonder. Anyone else? I have heard on average it takes a person seven years to finally get a diagnosis. What a shame.
One other thing I have noticed helps is sleeping with an ice bag and making sure my body is fully cooled down before bed. Heat seems to aggravate it. This summer has been hard for me with high humidity. I advise caution with this. Some people cannot do this for fear of injury from the ice. It doesn't cause a problem for me. A triple quart zip lock bag, with a saturated sponge inside. It stays cold long enough to help me cool down. I had read something about Cushings causing a problem for the body to cool down for sleep. Some kind of short circuit. I cannot remember the problem exactly, so please don't quote me.
Anyway, thanks for posting your experiences. It's a horrible feeling. I hope to get this behind me. No one should have to be afraid to go to bed each night.
Fortunately, I just now have insurance again after several years and I look forward to getting a doctor to listen to me. I am hoping for the Holter Monitor.
**I will add something that I get an eye roll about when I mention it. Back in 2009, I watched an episode of Diagnose Me on some cable channel. I don't normally watch this show but the preview intrigued me. This woman had the EXACT same symptoms. It took her years to find out it was Cushings Disease. I think she went to UC Berkely and finally had it diagnosed. I have several of the symptoms of Cushings so it makes me wonder. Anyone else? I have heard on average it takes a person seven years to finally get a diagnosis. What a shame.
One other thing I have noticed helps is sleeping with an ice bag and making sure my body is fully cooled down before bed. Heat seems to aggravate it. This summer has been hard for me with high humidity. I advise caution with this. Some people cannot do this for fear of injury from the ice. It doesn't cause a problem for me. A triple quart zip lock bag, with a saturated sponge inside. It stays cold long enough to help me cool down. I had read something about Cushings causing a problem for the body to cool down for sleep. Some kind of short circuit. I cannot remember the problem exactly, so please don't quote me.
Anyway, thanks for posting your experiences. It's a horrible feeling. I hope to get this behind me. No one should have to be afraid to go to bed each night.
Late 30s and I have similar experiences (waking up with my heart racing or offbeat after being asleep for just a little). Another aspect for me is being disoriented. I'll wake up and the light from the window or doorway seems odd and I feel like I'm seeing things that aren't there. I've had some really weird sensations like people being in the room or out in the hallway - freaky stuff. Once I get my bearings I settle down and can get back to sleep but it's super unsettling. I've had tachycardia issues for a few years and have been on metoprolol for about 7 months (had an ablation that wasn't effective). The met keeps my PVCs mostly under control, but this waking up after 30-45 min. of sleep is a relatively new deal for me. I've noticed that I have a sinus symptom along with my heart issues. It's almost like when your ears pop or clear out from altitude - but it's my nose doing that when my heart starts acting up. In one sense it's comforting to know that others have these issues but it's frustrating to think about having this go on for years without a solution. I do feel like I've got some sleep apnea issues because my wife says I snore. My main comfort has been prayer and trusting that God is in control and that he is good and cares for me.
1 Comments
That is exactly what happens to me, just before the fast heart beat episode I see odd things in the room, like a curtain on the wall that it's not there, or a scary face, different things that makes me feel disorientated and then the speeding of the heart starts.
I have suffered with waking up in the first hour of sleep breathless followed by my heart pounding since I was 27 years old and I am now 68. It still frustrates me but I handle it differently than I did in the first years so that has helped the pounding heart. I still wake up terrified every time and I do think I am dying until I wake up enough to know it is another attack. I experience these attacks differently, sometimes it is as if someone hit me in the stomach and knocked the air out of me and other times it is as if the air was sucked out of me. I can calm myself down pretty fast, unlike in the earlier years, and get back to sleep. Had a sleep study years ago. The only thing they detected was very active leg movement. I can go, what seems to be, a month without one and then have several nights of them in a row, which I am experiencing right now. I have talked to doctors about this many times with no answers and don't even bother anymore. if figure if it hasn't killed me by now it probably won't. Wish I had the answers. MB from FL
Hi
As I understand it, if you are having sleep apnea, your body will signal a big breath to get some oxygen in. At the same time your heart rate will increase for the same reason, ie to get oxygen to you tissues.
If this is the trigger for you to wake violently, then at that point you are also getting a surge of adrenaline, which will increase your heartrate more.
If you have a heart condition on top of that, it can trigger it, for me it is tachycardia.
I've been taking Magnesium supplements and it seems to help with my heart issues. This is possibly because it also has a beneficial effect on the operation of one's nervous system. I take orotate and chelate forms since I have signs of a Mg deficiency.
On Mg my ectopic beats reduced to only a couple of times a day compared to every twenty minutes.
Just a thought, our bodies are systems where everything interacts with everything else so it can be hard to pin down a single solution.
As I understand it, if you are having sleep apnea, your body will signal a big breath to get some oxygen in. At the same time your heart rate will increase for the same reason, ie to get oxygen to you tissues.
If this is the trigger for you to wake violently, then at that point you are also getting a surge of adrenaline, which will increase your heartrate more.
If you have a heart condition on top of that, it can trigger it, for me it is tachycardia.
I've been taking Magnesium supplements and it seems to help with my heart issues. This is possibly because it also has a beneficial effect on the operation of one's nervous system. I take orotate and chelate forms since I have signs of a Mg deficiency.
On Mg my ectopic beats reduced to only a couple of times a day compared to every twenty minutes.
Just a thought, our bodies are systems where everything interacts with everything else so it can be hard to pin down a single solution.
This is the first place I've ever found where more than one person described the exact same symptoms as me. Perhaps it's because the original question articulated the problem well, or perhaps I should have been looking at tachycardia earlier. In any event, this is not sleep apnea and you are not "freaking out." Know that there are others who are experiencing the same thing. The problem, in my view, is that we are few in number and, as far as I can tell, no one has defined and named this syndrome yet.
Some decades ago, for example, most doctors would have told a sufferer of obstructive sleep apnea that his or her problem was insomnia or too much stress. The patient would have been given sleeping pills, etc., while today this problem is better understood and treated with mouthpieces, CPAP machines, etc. Looking back, Howard Hughes was a classic sufferer of OCD, but that ailment wasn't sufficiently understood during his time. In my experience, that's where we are with the problem being described on this page.
Here is my own story: I first began to wake up suddenly (usually bolting upright as others have said and often screaming and/or gasping) in the summer of 2006. My heart would be in a panic after that happened and it would be difficult to relax, let alone get back to sleep. The experience is so traumatic it leaves one terrified. It happens, as described above, just as I am falling asleep. I would say in my case it's even less than an hour. If I can get half an hour into sleep, I'm fine for the night. I've watched this happen for over three years now and can say that it is almost certainly the transition into REM that triggers the horrifying event.
I went to a number of doctors and the pigeon hole they were most likely to want to put my problem in was sleep apnea. I understand the doctors' perspective--they listen to symptoms and try to match the pattern with something that they know or have heard of. (I'm sure that more often than not patients are confuse their own symptoms, but it was frustrating for me because I had kept a very careful watch over what was happening yet the doctor's tendency was to minimize certain aspects and stress others to make my problem fit something in their books.) Sleep apnea typically involves a patient waking up throughout the night often without realizing it. As the posters on this page know, WE REALIZE IT, plus if we can get through the first hour, we'll sleep till morning without incident.
I did at least three sleepovers where I was monitored (and at one of these, I actually had the bolt upright event happen when at the beginning) but these sessions are geared toward genuine sufferers of sleep apnea and that's what the technicians are measuring, so in the end my ailment wasn't really understood despite careful explanations and I was given drugs and told to sleep on my stomach, use a special pillow, close my mouth, irrigate nasal passages, etc. The one clinic that witnessed the bolt upright event explained that I have mild sleep apnea but am hyper sensitive to not breathing when I'm first falling asleep so they suggested a sleeping pill to get me through this part of the night.
Anyone that's suffered through this knows that you don't want to be drugged when it happens. My paternal grandmother actually died in her sleep from a heart attack and it occurs to me that if this horrific shock that we get when this happens triggered a heart attack in one of us, the actual cause would not be understood even today. When I told a doctor in the UK of this, he wrote me a prescription for valium, thinking I was overly stressed out. Needless to say, I never took the valium. Sadly, doctors don't know what to do when they hear stories like these and typically look for ways to calm us down and ease the terror, rather than treat the thing that is causing the terror.
Is there anyone out there who has found a doctor that understands this problem? I would jump on a plane and go to anywhere in the world to meet someone specializing in treating what ails the people on this page. Is there any young med school graduate who would like to build a career on helping us and defining what we have? You can name the syndrome after yourself if you want--just giving it a name would be a great benefit to everyone who this happens to. I've suffered with it for three and a half years and have found people who describe similar symptoms here and there around the internet. If you have this problem, you are not misunderstanding what is wrong with you, you are not crazy, you don't have something like sleep apnea which you're just stressing out about. My belief is you are suffering from something that has yet to be written about in the medical books. ---Dan
Some decades ago, for example, most doctors would have told a sufferer of obstructive sleep apnea that his or her problem was insomnia or too much stress. The patient would have been given sleeping pills, etc., while today this problem is better understood and treated with mouthpieces, CPAP machines, etc. Looking back, Howard Hughes was a classic sufferer of OCD, but that ailment wasn't sufficiently understood during his time. In my experience, that's where we are with the problem being described on this page.
Here is my own story: I first began to wake up suddenly (usually bolting upright as others have said and often screaming and/or gasping) in the summer of 2006. My heart would be in a panic after that happened and it would be difficult to relax, let alone get back to sleep. The experience is so traumatic it leaves one terrified. It happens, as described above, just as I am falling asleep. I would say in my case it's even less than an hour. If I can get half an hour into sleep, I'm fine for the night. I've watched this happen for over three years now and can say that it is almost certainly the transition into REM that triggers the horrifying event.
I went to a number of doctors and the pigeon hole they were most likely to want to put my problem in was sleep apnea. I understand the doctors' perspective--they listen to symptoms and try to match the pattern with something that they know or have heard of. (I'm sure that more often than not patients are confuse their own symptoms, but it was frustrating for me because I had kept a very careful watch over what was happening yet the doctor's tendency was to minimize certain aspects and stress others to make my problem fit something in their books.) Sleep apnea typically involves a patient waking up throughout the night often without realizing it. As the posters on this page know, WE REALIZE IT, plus if we can get through the first hour, we'll sleep till morning without incident.
I did at least three sleepovers where I was monitored (and at one of these, I actually had the bolt upright event happen when at the beginning) but these sessions are geared toward genuine sufferers of sleep apnea and that's what the technicians are measuring, so in the end my ailment wasn't really understood despite careful explanations and I was given drugs and told to sleep on my stomach, use a special pillow, close my mouth, irrigate nasal passages, etc. The one clinic that witnessed the bolt upright event explained that I have mild sleep apnea but am hyper sensitive to not breathing when I'm first falling asleep so they suggested a sleeping pill to get me through this part of the night.
Anyone that's suffered through this knows that you don't want to be drugged when it happens. My paternal grandmother actually died in her sleep from a heart attack and it occurs to me that if this horrific shock that we get when this happens triggered a heart attack in one of us, the actual cause would not be understood even today. When I told a doctor in the UK of this, he wrote me a prescription for valium, thinking I was overly stressed out. Needless to say, I never took the valium. Sadly, doctors don't know what to do when they hear stories like these and typically look for ways to calm us down and ease the terror, rather than treat the thing that is causing the terror.
Is there anyone out there who has found a doctor that understands this problem? I would jump on a plane and go to anywhere in the world to meet someone specializing in treating what ails the people on this page. Is there any young med school graduate who would like to build a career on helping us and defining what we have? You can name the syndrome after yourself if you want--just giving it a name would be a great benefit to everyone who this happens to. I've suffered with it for three and a half years and have found people who describe similar symptoms here and there around the internet. If you have this problem, you are not misunderstanding what is wrong with you, you are not crazy, you don't have something like sleep apnea which you're just stressing out about. My belief is you are suffering from something that has yet to be written about in the medical books. ---Dan
1 Comments
Perfectly said bro
I started having these around 2008, it always happens within a hr of me falling asleep. I started having these right after I started having bad panic attacks .. My doctor put me on a beta blocker for fast heart rate/ skipped beats and anxiety and now I very rarely wake up with racing heart. I also went to the heart doctor and wore a heart monitor and he couldn’t find anything wrong with my heart.
Did you end up finding out what it is? I suffer from the exact same thing and it's ruining my life
2 Comments
Not yet. I'm going this summer for a sleep study and to a cardiologist - that's what my physician recommended for me.
I have a diagnosis! (Sort of). After undergoing an echocardiogram at my cardiologist's office, and wearing a heart monitor for 4 weeks, my cardiologist says I have what is called "Inappropriate Sinus Tachycardia" - she says the cause is unknown. That it usually has to do with your nervous system or I am hypersensitive to the adrenaline hormone.
This all makes sense, as I am a very anxious person and my heart rate will shoot up during normal day-to-day activities. My cardiologist still believes I have Sleep Apnea and suggests these "attacks" as I have always called them are a combination of the apnea (not breathing during sleep) and the IST (heart racing fast). Those two combos are not fun.
I am just starting a beta blocker prescription and I hope I see results. From what I've read, it's very discouraging...but here's to holding onto to hope.
What happens to me during the night is terrifying. I am still scared to go to sleep. I really feel like these episodes are life or death. It's miserable. So now I just have to pray and hope with this diagnosis, I'm working towards a normal life.
This all makes sense, as I am a very anxious person and my heart rate will shoot up during normal day-to-day activities. My cardiologist still believes I have Sleep Apnea and suggests these "attacks" as I have always called them are a combination of the apnea (not breathing during sleep) and the IST (heart racing fast). Those two combos are not fun.
I am just starting a beta blocker prescription and I hope I see results. From what I've read, it's very discouraging...but here's to holding onto to hope.
What happens to me during the night is terrifying. I am still scared to go to sleep. I really feel like these episodes are life or death. It's miserable. So now I just have to pray and hope with this diagnosis, I'm working towards a normal life.
I have been suffering from something very similar for months now. I never actually fall asleep but as I'm just about to nod of ill see a bright light in my head Al my limbs shoot wildly out and inside it feels as if I'm on the edge of a heart attack, wildly beating heart.
I am 27 and I've been dealing with this SAME issue for about 10 years. I've always been overweight, and more recently, have been severely overweight. I know I need to lose the weight and maybe I'd might feel better. But even when I was much thinner, I'd get these attacks.
They vary, but usually it happens like this: I wake up between 30 minutes - 1 hour after just having fallen asleep, and I am JOLTED out of bed. Sometimes I just jolt up, and sometimes I am already out of bed in a panic. I am usually disoriented from having been asleep, as well. My heart rate is incredibly fast. I've never measured because of the fear. Sometimes it goes away 1 minute later, and sometimes it takes longer than that...which of course...it feels like forever to calm myself down.
It's awful. I feel tormented and alone. Like I am the only one out there. No one in my family or my fiance understands what I go through. I'm always afraid to fall asleep. It's caused anxiety and depression.
Once, when I was 21, it was so bad that my mom took me to the ER. After careful review, the doctor suggested I had acid reflux...because apnea was for "very" large people. I went to my general practitioner at the time, got tested, and no reflux. The strange thing now though is that I feel like I may have developed acid reflux later in life. When I have these attacks, sometimes I belch, and feel MUCH better...and my heart rate goes down. This is only half the time though. And then, I'm not sure if I am forcing a belch to make me feel better or not (like it may be a placebo effect).
I'm scared. I can go a year with 1-2, or 3-4, but lately as of the past few months, I've had 5-6 "attacks" already.
I guess the next step is to rule out apnea, and lose weight. It is terrifying going to sleep. I try to hold out for as long as I can.
If anyone has any advice or suggestions, it would be greatly appreciated. I am so glad I found this post from forever ago. It makes me feel at least a tiny bit better.
They vary, but usually it happens like this: I wake up between 30 minutes - 1 hour after just having fallen asleep, and I am JOLTED out of bed. Sometimes I just jolt up, and sometimes I am already out of bed in a panic. I am usually disoriented from having been asleep, as well. My heart rate is incredibly fast. I've never measured because of the fear. Sometimes it goes away 1 minute later, and sometimes it takes longer than that...which of course...it feels like forever to calm myself down.
It's awful. I feel tormented and alone. Like I am the only one out there. No one in my family or my fiance understands what I go through. I'm always afraid to fall asleep. It's caused anxiety and depression.
Once, when I was 21, it was so bad that my mom took me to the ER. After careful review, the doctor suggested I had acid reflux...because apnea was for "very" large people. I went to my general practitioner at the time, got tested, and no reflux. The strange thing now though is that I feel like I may have developed acid reflux later in life. When I have these attacks, sometimes I belch, and feel MUCH better...and my heart rate goes down. This is only half the time though. And then, I'm not sure if I am forcing a belch to make me feel better or not (like it may be a placebo effect).
I'm scared. I can go a year with 1-2, or 3-4, but lately as of the past few months, I've had 5-6 "attacks" already.
I guess the next step is to rule out apnea, and lose weight. It is terrifying going to sleep. I try to hold out for as long as I can.
If anyone has any advice or suggestions, it would be greatly appreciated. I am so glad I found this post from forever ago. It makes me feel at least a tiny bit better.
2 Comments
I have been dealing with this same thing since 2011. My symptoms match yours exactly. It is SO SCARY. I can go months without having one and this week alone I have had many. I do have sleep apnea but it is not that because it still happens after wearing my gear which I do every night. Feels so discouraging.
I'm sorry that even your sleep mask doesn't help. I'm going to be having a sleep study done this summer and going to the cardiologist to see if everything is ok or not. It's discouraging especially since it's not like it happens to me every night. I've actually been doing really well and haven't had "an attack" (as I call them) in a couple of months.
Hello just posting to say I share these symptoms.I've developed all day numbness and slight tingling in my feet and hands, a little worse at night as I struggle through repeated episodes of bouncing out of falling asleep
1 Comments
Hi just wondered if anyone on this thread has had any answers yet? I've been suffering with this problem for years now I have to wake myself up as I have stopped breathing and my heart rate is super fast! I have felt as though I was near to death at times it's so scary. I have a heart rate of around 90 bpm anyway during the day and I have had the heart monitor on during the night but it didn't show up a great deal surprise surprise.The doctor had no clue why this was happening to me and said it was not sleep apnoea. I am 39 and not overweight and I have fibromyalgia. I am already taking a muscle relaxant for pain which is not having any affect on these sleep episodes and they are getting worse.
Happens to me! Scary too so I know what thats like. Sleep on your side because it happens more when laying flat on your back. I have orthostatic hypotension and 2 heart conditions. Maybe you might have something similar but maybe not but, changing position while sleeping may help.
I have had these same systems for a couple of years now. Wake up the first 1/2 to and hr of REM sleep, starts sometimes like heat rising from my feet to my head, as little numbness, than get of feeling like out of breath, fainting and heart pounding, this last around 30 seconds to a minute. What I now do is I grasp for air and raise my legs to get more oxygen to my brain. The Feeling I get is like I am going to die but I have realized it hasn't killed me yet. I can get one episode per month or sometimes could go without one. Now I know that I am not alone. I wish we could get this cleared out but for now we will have just have to deal with it.
2 Comments
I also have started with this just as I seem to nod off to sleep I am awakened suddenly hearts racing 100 mile an hour I'm dizzy blurry vision I feel asif I am dying it lasts around 5 mins but then leaves me too scared to go back to sleep is there tablets or anything I can do to stop these episodes????
In my case when this happens it is only in the first two hrs in my sleep, so I do not believe is has to do with Sleep Apnea because then it could happen any time. When this happens elevate your legs and the symptom will quickly go away and then just chill out and go to sleep. At least this has worked for me.
I have just had an online consultation with a cardiologist and it appears that we have a string of PVC's (extra heart beats) when asleep which triggers the waking response and then our heart over compensates by beating strongly. It is usually benign but worth getting a holter monitor to check this is what is happening. very common apparently.
I am very relieved to know that I'm not the only one with these problems. I've learned that "sleeping" is a complicated process where the heart and brain do their own thing for reasons not well explained on the internet. Most doctors simply do not have the expertise on the subject and we are left to fend for ourselves. I am monitoring myself and trying to figure out what works best for me. I have a Phillips CPAP machine that allows me to download my APNEA events every day. I now have a BASIS PEAK watch (since Xmas) that allows me to download my heart rate data daily and plot all results using EXCEL. So far, my APNEA events (defined as periods of not breathing lasting longer than 10 seconds) do not correlate to my episodes of rapid heart beat (RHB) at 150-190 bpm. Through minor lifestyle changes and 10 lb weight loss, I have my APNEA mostly under control but I still monitor and analyse the data. Over the next few weeks, I will be analyzing my RHB in great detail to see how I can control it. Everyone concerned with RHB should get one of these BASIS PEAK watches (<$200) which you can use 24/7. Good luck everyone.
So glad to have found this forum. Sounds just like my symptoms. Waling with rapid heart beat usually around two hours into sleep. I do sleep with my cell phone under my pillow and I will now move it. I usually wake up hot too so I am always asking myself is this a hot flash or heart attack. Dr. said to take a valium and if it goes away it's not your heart it is a night panic. It doesn't happen every day but I just know I am dying when it does. I am a 66 year old female. I have an appointment with a cardiologist in a couple of weeks just to check it out. My primary physician said my heart seemed fine but if I felt the need to pursue it see cardiology. Just to ease my mind I am going. Thanks for all the info it is so comforting
My last post was Jan. 2013. I am now 70 and continue to suffer with these same attacks. Have had them real frequently lately. Like I said in my last post I was 27 when all of this started. A long time to be suffering with these and I have the same feeling of dying as I have always had just handle it differently. I don't get upset like I use to. Sometimes it does happen as I am drifting off to sleep and then it is not as bad. I rarely have more than one a night but it has been almost nightly lately. I did go off a hormone patch and am really suffering with hot flashes which is probably not helping. I would love an answer but I don't think there is one. Maybe someday a brilliant doctor will come up with an answer. MarMB
I agree, I have moderate sleep apnea. One night I was also drinking (niged) and my friend found me and called an ambulance. I was semi unconscious and all of a sudden stopped breathing. I rose up, gasped and opened and closed my eyes quickly then dropped back down. My freind almost had a heart attack and thought maybe that was my last breath. I could hear things but could not respond. He was scared. Yes i agree, I have started falling alseep then all of a sudden gasped and even at times rose my body.
I have anxiety panic on meds. I had a 24 heart monitor for precaution which showed 150 bpm times while I slept. Doctor put me on metropolol 50 mg. This is scary!!! I am afraid I am going to die in my sleep.
I know your post is old, but it helped me a lot, so I was wondering if you have been diagnosed with anything yet? My symptoms are almost IDENTICAL, and it's very strange...with one exception...I am typically very dizzy when this happens, and like you very very disoriented. Last night when this happened, it felt like the room was moving closer to me, and then further away from me...REALLY fast, and lasted probably 20 seconds? Then, the hart palpitations started. I typically also wake up soaking wet...sweat literally dripping off my face/hair. So, I wake up 30-45 mins into sleep with Tremors, Sweats, Disorientation, Heart Racing with Palpitations. Sometimes I wake up right as it starts, and I can get it under control...like I can stop it if I wake up soon enough. I lay in bed at nights sometimes and watch YouTube with headphones on...via my cell phone. I wonder if this has anything to do with it. It was REALLY REALLY bad last night, and I fell asleep with my headphones on...but nothing was playing...the video I was watching had ended a long time ago.
I feel like I am dying when it occurs, and I have a phobia of dying from a heart attack, so this makes things 100 times more scary for me.
I will end it here...I appreciate your write-up and was just curious as to your progression over the last couple years since this post?
Thanks!
I feel like I am dying when it occurs, and I have a phobia of dying from a heart attack, so this makes things 100 times more scary for me.
I will end it here...I appreciate your write-up and was just curious as to your progression over the last couple years since this post?
Thanks!
Hi guys this happened to me for the 1st time last night...I was asleep for one hour when I woke up in a shock and my heart was beating crazy fast, my whole body felt numb and I thought I was dying of a heart attack but there was no actual pain in my heart....I walked around for a while and then I Googled and found this site...my experience was so similar to the very first post on this subject which made me feel a little bit better....I am suffering from an erratic heart beat which I thought had caused the panic attack last night.....I have been taking nexium for about 10 years now for a hernia which used to cause me to choke when sleeping...I have been through the sleep apnea issue and this is most certainly something different....do any of you guys take nexium? I am led to believe it reduces the calcium and magnesium in our bodies and this affects the heart.
Hey there, lay off College Girl. Go look up SVT and you will find out that it can be caused by a type of panic attack while sleeping, you wake up with the pounding heart etc. So just chill, maybe you need to. . . .
It does happen in my sleep and its not that rare, I have a been on a monitor 24/7 several times which proves it. Collegegirl your post and the comment about getting all worked up into a panic is an ignorant comment, maybe you need to go back to college for about 15 years. Sleep causes my SVT attacks all the time.
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Fish oil, folic acid, vitamin C. Find out if these supplements are heart-healthy or overhyped.
Learn what happens before, during and after a heart attack occurs.
What are the pros and cons of taking fish oil for heart health? Find out in this article from Missouri Medicine.
How to lower your heart attack risk.
