Adrenaline Surge/panic Attack Feeling On Waking Around 5-6Am

[Machair]

I am in a relapse at the moment and was wondering if any of you have adrenaline rushes when you wake up in the morning. I will often feel like I am in a panic and am sometimes also dizzy even before I have tried to get up.

It is always when I am feeling at my worst, and it settles with calm breathing and fluids and a very gradual return to being upright. I am wondering if the one pillow I sleep on is enough and if I am lying too flat for too long. Anyone else have this horrid symptom?

[E246]

Sorry you are getting these - it is particularly unpleasant. There are quite a few posts about adrenaline rushes - it is one of my worst symptoms and i have posted a few times about it - you are not alone. Don't really have it in bed mine - unlike everyone else it seems come on from lunch time - i am at my best in the morning. If you wake in the night maybe drink a bit more so you are better hydrated when you wake.

Hope these pass soon.

[MomtoGiuliana]

This is a typical symptom for me when I am in a flare. For me it can be one of the most uncomfortable symptoms!

Increasing fluids, moving around a little, helps. Sleeping with my head more upright never seems to help me, but it is worth a try.

[ramakentesh]

yeah definately. A terrible way to start the day ehj?

[brethor9]

every morning for the last 4 years! its crappy......I actually dread waking up in the mornings for that reason..I also have nights where they wake me from sleep and go on for hours

...the only thing I have found to take some of the edge off is magnesium

Bren

[ramakentesh]

Florinef is helping me with this a bit. But its a real shocker because it makes it hard to make a good day of it when you wake up like that every morning. i can actually tell when im getting better because I wake up relaxed for the first time in six months or I wake up with Ank Spond pain so its like my body starts attacking my back instead of my pots things LOL

[redoctober]

I seems to wake at 3-4am every day...and can't really get back to sleep (even on Clonazepam .5mg). My HR goes from mid-50's in bed, to 90+ immediately when I stand up. Heck, even tossing/turning in bed gets my HR up in an instant. Very frustrating...I'd pay good money to get a decent night's sleep for once.

[Lemons2lemonade]

Honestly, i used to have this ALL the time, day or night. Until I started taking celexa. It has helped soooo much. I was really against it at first because it is a behavior modifying drug--but after taking it, i am more like my previous self than i ever was with pots. One thing i really noticed is that before i go to sleep, i am totally relaxed and sleep through the night, which is an indescribable change from where i was. And to be honest, i feel much more relaxed most of the time--especially during pots attacks. It has helped with the sweating, the panic feeling, and the adrenaline rushes. Plus, celexa is supposed to be a vasoconstrictor, so i think it is helping me with my pots as well. Also, i prefer it to some of the more opiate type sedatives because it seems to keep me balanced (whereas with barbituates i felt like a wave--up and down) and it is WAY less addictive. One more thing to note is that i was on a beta blocker when i first started it, and with the two of them, my pulse actually was slowing down too much 40's-50's. So, i was able to get off of the beta blocker (which is awesome) and just use the celexa and florinef. It surprised me that it slowed down my pulse so much, i didn't think that it would be capable of making such a difference, but it did. My quality of life is so much better now. Only bummer is that it makes you nauseated for the first couple of weeks, but promethazine or zofran really do the trick in controlling this. I hope this helps and i hope you feel better soon. There is nothing worse than waking up in the middle of the night feeling like you're running for your life from a tiger. If nothing else, i would try at least drinking 16oz of gatorade or water before bed. One more question, do you take a beta blocker? The reason i ask, is because i think the beta blocker was actually making my pots worse for awhile there (before i started the celexa). It was full blown attacks 3-4 times a day, every day, and all night long. I took metoplerol when this was going on. I think the beta blocker was actually lowering my blood pressure too much, triggering the "reboot" mechanism that we all despise so much. It was TERRIBLE.

[icesktr189]

Just like lemons, an SSRI (lexapro sister to Celexa) got my life back a couple years ago. I worked great until I got pregnant and stopped. However, if you have to get off WEAN over months or those adrenaline surges will come back with vengence!

[Allene]

Eurgh. I used to get this (or something like it) every night. For me it's like waking up from a nightmare, and your emotions are still strung up from that monster chasing you or whatever. Except it would happen with benign dreams, or even no dream. My doctor suggested that it was my ANS causing my fight or flight instinct to go off. I'm not entirely sure why it stopped, but I haven't had an episode in a few months.

[LindaJoy]

Every time I wake up, whether it be in the middle of the night or in the morning, I have this. I feel hot, panicky, my heart races, sometimes my mind does, I feel breathless. It's awful. When I'm in a flare of whatever is wrong with me, possibly mast cell, combined with my Addison's and POTS, these reactions are so bad, I hate to go to sleep at night because I know what I have to look forward to. I'm sorry you're having them. I know how terrible they are.

Linda

[jenglynn]

Mine seem to be much different than most of what I have been hearing from the above stories. Mine ALWAYS happen right before bed. Usually around midnight or so and so I am awake ALL night. I usually end up finally falling asleep around between 4am-6am in the morning. Being up all night with that adrenaline rushing through my veins is an absolute nightmare. And I still have to get up at a somewhat normal time (to take morning meds) so I am LUCKY to get four hours of sleep a night. I am not a napper, NEVER have been, so I am always tired. Always, always tired. Which, added with the normal exhaustion that goes along with this condition, doesn't help matters at all.

I really wish I could find something to help with this. It is wearing on me. I take Klonopin at night for anxiety but it isn't helping. I have also tried Xanax but didn't help at all. I have tried Benadryl but it didn't help counteract the adrenaline either. If anyone has a suggestion for SOME medication that has helped I would really appreciate the help. Thank you!!!

Jen

[ramakentesh]

Once I went and had a coffee like this and I felt great and fell asleep - paradoxical? Well I think it has to do with impaired blood flow.

[Wendy C.]

I have this happen, too. I typically fall asleep at about 11pm, sleep deeply until around 5:30am, then wake up overheated, breathless, with tachycardia, and scared, as if from a nightmare, or how you feel when someone peeks from around a corner and says "BOO" to you. Is that adrenaline, you're all saying? After a few minutes, my immediate symptoms go away, but I don't usually fall back to sleep for at least an hour. (Luckily, my baby lets me sleep until about 8am on most days!) Sometimes, during that time when I am trying to fall back to sleep, if my husband moves his arm, rolls over, or makes any kind of tiny sound - I get startled as badly as if he had surprised me around a corner. Then it all starts over as I try to calm down and fall back to sleep. Also, I might be passing out during those times on some really bad days, since it seems like a state of semi-consciousness occurs that feels different than just falling asleep and awaking. I'm not sure... I do wonder if it has to do with salt and fluids being stopped as I go sleep, and by 5:30am my body is just desperate for those things and freaks out. I know that during the day, I have to take my salt tablets about every 6-7 hours to supress symptoms, so that could explain it. I am going to try and take my salt tablets immediately before bed instead of an hour earlier to see if it helps me get to 6:30am or not. A bit of an experiment. Problem is, my husband's alarm goes off at 5:30am, but I'll try it anyway! I do keep Gatorade, water and salt tabs at my bedside, but I am usually too out of it during that startled awakening/going back to sleep time to even be able to sit up and drink.

[abbyw]

I also go to sleep feeling fine and wake up feeling like I have tightness in myc hest and that tensed up/ frightened type feeling. It is awful to wake up all jittery in the morning. I feel like I want to go abck to sleep until it all goes away, but I am too wound up.

I find that forcing myself to get up and going for a brief walk actually calms things down, as if forcing my body to be in the same state as my heart rate evens things out. I am sure that doesn't make any sense, but when I get back from my walk and after a brief recovery period, my body seems to get somewhat back to normal.

Like Dani and Lemons, the Lexapro (also an SSRI) seems to be helping this,although not completely.

[Kellysavedbygrace]

The sympathetic nervous system is designed to gradually release very small amounts of adrenaline starting around 1-2 am that allow the normal person to awaken gradually. For us, because our ANS is disregulated, we get an adrenaline dump so we wake up running from that tiger with palpitations, etc.

I have this prob too- every 1.5-2 hrs. One of my docs says we have to get my nervous system to gradually relax. Not sure how. Am interested in the earlier comments about getting off BB and onto SSRI. Might consult my doc about that idea.

[ramakentesh]

yeah its interesting how an SSRI has helped people here. I might talk to my doctor about it. Midodrine is helping me but I feel totally wired on it and i cant relax.

[brethor9]

My specialist also just recently mentioned Celexa as the next step; although 2 years ago I was put on several types of those drugs and they just made everything worse so I am really hesitant to go that route again; I think I will wait until the MCAD testing is done

Bren

[julieph85]

In every person there is a sudden adrenaline rush immediately prior to waking. However, most people don't feel it. A lot of docs believe a big component of hyper pots is hyper sensitivity to catecholamines. That's why hyper pots people feel this adrenaline rush with symptoms (I do as well). And non pots people do not realize it. This is also why drugs like celexa help the adrenaline rush symptoms.

[MomtoGiuliana]

I took low dose Prozac for awhile. After the rather lengthy adjustment period it helped I believe. I stopped having adrenaline surges and the wired feeling stopped. Maybe I was getting better anyway, not sure, but I am glad I tried it and believe it did help me.

[julieph85]

My psychiatrist wants me to take that. I think I'm gonna try it. It will be interesting if you and I both got improvement from it since our pots seems to be identical.

[MomtoGiuliana]

If you decide to try it, I hope it helps you julie!

[Guest Alex]

do any of you experience an increase in bp on top of the tachycardia with these episodes? As this is a new symptom I have developed lately. I've always had low bp, and now I wake up to read 147/90 and even higher - it subsides either by itself, or with propranolol, and it doesn't only happen in the morning, it also happens during the day at times. Are these adrenaline surges? Is there anything that can be done to prevent them?

thanks

alex

[julieph85]

Yes, and actually that's how you know it's an adrenaline surge- norepinephrine and epinephrine increases blood pressure by constricting the veins.

[Guest Alex]

Yes, and actually that's how you know it's an adrenaline surge- norepinephrine and epinephrine increases blood pressure by constricting the veins.

thanks julie, they are frightening to say the least.

Alex