Tachy/Palps

[Jacquie802]

Hi guys,

Sorry, I had this post all typed out and my cat decided to jump on the keyboard and delete it all! Hopefully it doesn't come up twice.

Anyhow, for the past few days I have been getting severe tachy and palpitations upon waking up from a nap or a nights sleep. I am used to the palps, tachy, numbness, etc. but it has been getting ALOT worse. I have switched the med times around like my cardio suggested and I just called to leave him a message saying that I am not feeling better. I always had problems with the tachycardia and palpitations, but they are more severe then ever upon waking up...This is ever before I get out of bed. Just laying there I feel really aweful.

If anyone has any advice I am ready to hear it! THanks

Jacquie

[kmpower]

I am so sorry you are going through this, Jacquie.

When I started laying on an incline, my symptoms got better. I cannot lie flat or I cannot tolerate the palps -- and I used to love massages!

Also, the less food in my stomach, the slower and easier my heart beats. Do you lie down soon after eating or eat large amounts at a time? Maybe grazing will work better if that is the case.

Hoping you get over this "revoltin' development" (for the oldies).

OLL

[Jacquie802]

Hi, I get the symptoms even if I haven't eaten for a while. I really don't know why it's happening all of a sudden.

Jacquie

[Be Still]

When I'm in a more symptomatic place, I get these wake-up surges (which is where I'm at now ) I have found it related to eating salt, oh yeah!, and MSG and other free-glutamic acid food items (i.e. soy sauce, natural flavors etc.).

Also this worsens with PMS. If any are over forty, welcome to perimenopause. Now they come with being soaked with sweat to the point of having to change. Yea! (Now that I'm monitoring, I see that BP and HR are raised.)

If the surge wakes me from a nap, that's it, I can't get back to sleep to save my life. My family knows that if they are responsible for waking me, they will have a cranky (and even tearful, if I'm frantic to sleep) mom in the house.

If I eliminate salt, this greatly reduces the surges. This may be because I'm more of a hyperadrenergic type (Had catecholamine study done today, if they did it right. ) Alprazolam/Xanax helps too, even in tiny doses. I've also found success with sublingual GABA, Source Naturals makes one.

In my twenties, when the surges were the worst, I would have what I've seen others describe here, waking up from sleep as if I was fighting to wake up (like fighting your way to the surface after diving to deep, trying to catch your breath) and lay there shaking and fearful for no good reason. Then the GI riot would start . . .

I have life-long what I call "shake awakes," the medical term is sleep myoclonus. Anybody else? When trying to go to sleep or when waking from sleep, I have the whole/part body twitch that feels miserable and wakes me, repeatedly. Sometimes it's very shocking and I dream that I've fallen, and sometimes it's accompanied by a noise in my head (though not as bad as Exploding Head Syndrome. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploding_head_syndrome See? There's always something worse!) In my twenties, I had times where this happened fifty times before I got to sleep. I have found these related to overdoing it, my cycle and food allergies.

You know, I just want to sleep!

(Geez, I get dx'd with POTS and the whining starts.)

[worththewords]

Without fail, whenever I wake up I have palpitations. I've just started to assume that these are some sort of "surge" or startling of my nervous system. My doctors seem to ignore this when I complain about it.

I have also been getting the "shake awakes." It's interesting to hear a medical term for it. I'm not sure if that is what I have but I will be talking to my cardiologist about it on Thursday. Occasionally when I wake up I feel this strong internal shaking/tremors, sometimes my hands and legs are shaking. They don't last too long but they are definitely bizarre. I talked to my neuro about it, thinking he would be the one to address it. He asked me if I'd like to take Zoloft for this anxiety. I tried explaining that I was not anxious when it occurred, I was just concerned about it. I don't think I'll be seeing him again. He claims to understand POTS but apparently this probem is "all in my head." I don't need a doctor like that! I also get the jumps in my sleep, especially when I'm trying to fall asleep. I wish someone would just thoroughly explain to me what is going on so I know whether or not it is worth worrying about.

Any more insight on these problems are always helpful!

[dawn]

My heartrate is always irregular when I get up from sleeping. I do sleep flat and am really thinking about trying to sleep on an incline (I tried it in the past and always woke up on the foot of the bed).

I just had a 30 day event monitor and recorded these heartrates when I get up. It showed PAC's around 78 per hour. It was read as "normal."

I guess I need to adjust my thinking to it's normal, it sure doesn't feel like my heart is pumping good enough, but my echo was fine.

My psychologist says I'm just to focused and aware of my physical body.

I would like to see her awakened from sleep with her heart beating 150 and skipping.

I jerk alot and talk alot as I'm falling asleep. I also know what you mean about the shakey feeling inside, I have it every morning for a few hours. HATE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This just *****, all of it.

Dawn

[bamagirl]

I had this as one of my first POTS syptoms. I would would wake up with my heart rate going about 150 with me lying there doing nothing. Also, I started taking my bp as soon as I woke up and it was high!!! Normally, my bp is really low. Try taking your bp and I bet it is on the high side. I personally think it is hormones because specific hormones spike early in the morning, or it can be that the little surge from our autonomic nervous system that makes us wake from a sleep state is cranked up to 1000. Nothing really helped me except for time. Mine doesn't do it anymore. Maybe you can take a beta blocker first thing in the morning and see if that helps. I too, had a monitor that recorded all of this and the doc wasn't concerned. Please know that it will get better in time and it isn't serious. You are not alone!!!

Take care,

Bamagirl

[kmpower]

I am going to research normal sleep and hormones, neurotransmitters, etc. Something is wrong when we wake up palpitating and we cannot just "picture Hawaii" (as my doctor told me to do) and have it go away!

And the surge as we fall asleep, that is a bummer, too! I get sooooo sleepy and drop off deliciously and in a moment --sometimes less than a moment -- I surge awake and that is that! If it happened every night I would experiment with all sorts of herbs, tryptophan, GABA, etc., but it doesn't, so there is no way to know what works.

There must be an explanation.

OLL

[Be Still]

Lady of Light (ain't callin' you OLL)

Thank you for offering to search this out! I have a feeling it is related to adrenaline, our oversensitivity to it, and the elevated norepinephrine. Now, I'm ignorant of all of this, just starting to study it, but if I get these surges more on a day that I have been overactive for me, maybe there is more norepi circulating and it interferes with sleep?

I?ve read that we build up a ?sleep load? (or need for sleep) all day and our brain balances that with an alerting signal. As darkness comes along, melatonin gets produced and dampens the alerting signal until we fall asleep. Maybe we have the alert/relax signals going on all the time, and our body is confused?

If things that bind to GABA receptors (ie GABA, alprazolam, melatonin) which help the parasympathetic side do its job of rest and relax are the things that help, then we need to look at being too alert. Sympathetic activity is the alerting part, right? And, ours are overactive. Also, in my case and certainly others, my beta receptors are oversensitive and respond to adrenaline with a heightened action. It's probably normal to have a little burst of adrenaline to jump start us when we wake up and then our beta receptors zap us with it.

But, my question is, what is waking us up? Is it, as some suspect, a 'crash' or our BP or HR? Something that could never be duplicated in a sleep study, because we would be more 'alert' overnight in a hospital (lights, noise, pain from EEG leads and restriction on sleep positions) compared to the routine and comfort of our own bed at night.

I read (most of) a fascinating book called ?Lights Out: Sleep, Sugar and Survival? by T. S. Wiley, et al. a few years ago and it had interesting stuff in there about the stimulation of artificial light interfering with our sleep cycles. If many of us are light sensitive, this, too, could contribute.

Sorting out the meat computer . . .

[Jacquie802]

Hi, I was taking my bb in the am then my doc told me to take it at night since I was waking up with palps/tachy, sweats, etc. So now I am still stuck in teh same boat as before except that I don't wake up in the middle of the night anymore.

Jacquie