Unable To Move Upon Waking, Anyone Else?

[sleepy_lady]

lately when i wake up, i cant do anything without the activity increasing my heart rate to an extreme degree.

this is while laying down!

stretching my legs, arms, grabbing something, rolling over--its all out of the question.

and it takes around 25+ minutes to go back to normal.

i havent counted, but i would guess my heart rate is 120+ when this happens.

as far as im aware, this isnt POTS. but could it be?

input would be greatly appreciated, thnx

[MomtoGiuliana]

When my POTS symptoms were more severe I would experience this. I do think it can be part of POTS. My specialist told me I should drink fluid and salt load on awakening b/c fluid is lost when lying down for long periods.

[Always hoping]

I have noticed this sometimes just by rolling over at night. Usually when I am sleeping on my back and then turn onto my side. My heart rate increases greatly, but comes down again within a few minutes. Maybe try leaving a Gatorade or equivalent on your nightstand and drink it as soon as you wake up. Maybe this would shorten the length of time that it occurs. Good luck!

[aaron.parks]

Hi sleepy_lady!

I have experienced this. I think it's very normal (not just POTS normal...) to see dramatic pulse rate increases when you move around at night or just after waking. Here's a point of reference:

http://completingbutnotcompeting.blogspot.com/2010/02/overnight-heart-rate-monitoring.html

For me, early on my "symptom anxiety" actually worsened things like this... I'd wake up to find my pulse rate high, then get anxious that I was having some sort of unstoppable POTS attack, which caused further symptoms. These days, when I feel or observe something odd happening with my body, I just take some slow and deep breaths (to stimulate that Vagus nerve, which calms things down) and often times things will return to normal. This helped me figure out which things were actually symptoms of POTS (standing pulse rate increases, blood pressure shifts, headaches, etc), and which were growing out of my "symptom anxiety". If you don't already do this, next time try 10-20 long, deep breaths (with a few seconds' pause between breaths), and see if things stabilize faster for you.

I'm not trying to downplay what you're feeling as just anxiety-related (I absolutely understand the strange stuff POTS can make your body do), just sharing my own experience and what helped me when I experienced something similar. My feeling is that many of us do probably have a propensity for anxiety, because our body chemistry is a bit screwy from the actual autonomic dysfunction.

Also, if you feel this may be due to overnight dehydration, you can increase blood volume retention by elevating the head of your bed slightly (just several inches). This decreases the pressure in your kidneys at night, which leads to less overnight blood volume loss. It also should improve smooth muscle tone in the vasculature of the lower body (this is according to my neurologist) which can help a lot with POTS symptoms.

Have a good week,

Aaron

[cmreber]

Even on beta blockers and with my symptoms very manageable right now, this still happens to me. I think for me it's mostly because I take my meds first thing in the morning, so they have worn off by then, and also because I don't drink enough through the night I'm sure I am pretty dehydrated first thing when I wake up. I wear a FitBit at night so I can make sure my heart rate isn't too crazy, but once I take my meds, drink some water, and fully wake up, everything seems to calm down again.