Issues with waking up bloated, short of breath and panic attack

I have recently been having trouble sleeping. I wake feeling bloated and short of breath and it turns into panic attack and takes hours to go away. I have GAD during the day but this happens while I'm asleep. Any ideas what's wrong?

[Ardraven]

Do you take any medication for the anxiety, or for anything else come to that? The panic at night could be a new symptom of the GAD or a natural reaction to waking up short of breath and conversely it's common to feel short of breath when anxious. But I have no idea how feeling bloated would fit in unless it's a side effect of medication, hence my question.

I do think that if you believe these symptoms at all likely to have a physical cause then you should definitely get your doctor to check them out. Even though going to the doctor and discovering it wasn't really necessary can cost money and feel embarrassing, any problem with breathing is not to be trifled with and breathing conditions exists that are irreversible but can be stopped from worsening before they get bad enough to impact your day to day life too much. Take the word for it of someone who would have nearly double the lung function today if he'd gone to the doctors when he first noticed shortness of breath instead of waiting til it caused real problems. Hope you get to the bottom of it soon.

[deborah27]

Hi, do you have support or are you coping on your own?

[Hidden in reply to deborah27]

I actually have a great support system in my parents, siblings and one close friend.

[amyrrt]

Have you had a sleep study to rule out apnea? Could still be GAD as well, do yo every wake up choking and gasping?

[Hidden in reply to amyrrt]

I have mild sleep apnea. But I have used a cpap machine for almost 3 years with no problems until this started a month ago.