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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).
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.
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