Wake Up In The Middle Of Night

[shanying418]

Hi all,

This past week, I've been waking up in the middle of night or early morning (3:00am) finding myself literally bend over with shortness of breath. The shortness of breath isn't the severe kind like asthma, it's more of a feeling that there's no enough oxygen going into my chest. I'm wondering has this happen to anyone?

[dianne.fraser]

Shan

I get respiratory symptoms at night during exacerbations of my illness - sometimes I've woken gasping for breath, as though my body has forgotten to breathe; sometimes it feels as though I'm trying to suck oxygen out of a thick fog; sometimes, as I'm drifting off to sleep, I become aware that I'm not breathing; and sometimes I wake in the morning feeling oxygen-starved. When my symptoms are at their worst, I often have dreams about suffocating or drowning - many years ago, during one of these dreams, my boyfriend at the time was trying to wake me because I wasn't breathing.

My respiratory symptoms come and go, depending on how well-controlled my illness is. I've had a sleep study, and I wasn't symptomatic enough at the time to show more than a few harmless hypopnoeas.

As long as you're symptomatic at the time, a sleep study will generally capture any respiratory problems - this is something you could discuss with your doctor.

Good luck and best wishes

Dianne

[toddm1960]

I'm like clock work, I'm up around 2am........back to sleep around 4am. I've been doing this for 4 or 5 years now, when I was working this was a killer, now that I'm off it's not as big a deal.

[shanying418]

Thanks! So... I guess this is just another POTS symptom?

[issie]

It could be sleep apnea. There are two kinds. One is obstructive and one is central. Both kinds can wake you up to make you breathe. There has been a thread on this in the past. Do a search on it and you will find the comments. You probably are gasping for breathe. We also had a discussion on how it seems allot of us don't breathe right even when awake. Don't know if it's autonomic system issues or we just need to re-train ourselves in our breathing patterns. Something to think about!!!