Heart racing when I wake in the night. Help!

[KG70]

HI, and thank you for reading my post. Sorry its a long one, but I want to give as much background as possible in case this post also helps someone else. Please bear with me and read it to the end!

So. I had my first identifiable (slow) AF event 2 months ago after having a few episodes of fluttering and not feeling great occasionally after exercising intermittently over about 5 years. I had never heard of AF so thought I was just unfit.

When my first significant one happened 2 months ago I went to A+E and they medicated me back to NSR with Flecanade and put me on a ward for 2 days while my HR and BP came back down. They discharged me with Bisoprolol and Apixaban. I struggled with terrible trembling when I tried to sleep which went on for weeks and I was very anxious and depressed and felt ill all the time.

I started to feel better after about 6 weeks and thought I was turning a corner, but then BAM, one morning out of the blue I had a sudden attack of very fast HR and big ectopic beats intermittently, it was like a shoot out in my chest. It was very frightening, and thank God it only lasted a few minutes. It had stopped by the time the ambulance came. They didn't take me in, but then the following night it happened again in the middle of the night and woke me up. Again, short and stopped by the time the ambulance came but they took me in for checks and all normal so came straight home. Spoke to 111 who said increase Bisoprolol to 7.5. The events kept coming every night, sometimes 4 a night, so they increased my Bis to 10 which made me feel really unwell and my anxiety level was dreadful. I was shaking constantly and in a really bad way emotionally. Not sure how much anxiety was my situation and how much was the Bis, I suspect 50/50. But the events kept coming in varying degrees, some bad, some more mild and didn't escalate to when the ectopics would kick in.

I was fortunate to have already had contact with a private cardiologist who had done a 7 day holter and eco for me as the NHS is not currently able to. So I managed to speak to the cardiologist and she recommended to my GP to switch me from Bisoprolol to Diltiazem 60mg. 2 days in and although feeling much better generally, the events were still happening but milder. The GP had me admitted to hospital to an observation ward, who increased my Diltiazem to 120mg which put my heart rate up to the high 90s all night and it pounded like a piston in my chest all night. They reduced it to 90mg and sent me home saying there was no point me being there, which I agreed with as it wasn't a ward with cardio expertise.

So, I have been on Diltiazem 90mg once a day for a week now, and while I feel ok during the day apart from my HR being a bit on the high side and often sits around 90 when I'm just chilling, I'm still having these episodes of my heart pounding and racing for a short burst each time I wake in the night, even just to change position in bed, my heart goes wild and I have to do breathing exercises for about 10 mins or so until it settles back down. The GP has now given me Pregabalin 25mg twice a day to try to reduce any adrenaline in my system in case that's driving the events, but it didn't help last night after my first day on it, even though I was pretty chilled yesterday

Has anyone else experienced this? And if yes, did you resolve it and how? I'm not experiencing any day time events of AF or racing heart so it's just bizarre that my nights are so volatile.

Thank you for reading if you made it this far!

Kind regards,

Katrina

[Padayn01]

How are you feeling now?

[Hidden]

Hi Katrina I have had PVC's for 45 years and have felt your stress.

I am aware that when mine get bad I take a dose of Gaviscon and 40 minutes later they have settled right down. This ALWAYS happens.

I also know that putting weight into my stomach can have a significant effect on my symptoms, so a decent meal and or a really big drink of water also helps.

Gaviscon is not a ppi so is harmless.

I had an ablation two weeks ago and now the frequency of my PVC'S is far higher than they have ever been, but on the good side they are less powerful so in time I could get used to them.

But I also saw a gastroenterologist last week and mentioned how the addition of weight into my stomach had often significant effects on my symptoms.

He was stunned. He assured me that there was a good reason for that and what was happening is the weight was now causing the stomach to move down and away from the vagus nerve, so there could be no stimulation of the nerve coming from the stomach.

So try the Gaviscon and the water and eating something and see what happens.

There's also an app out there called Symptom Checker which you can record every thing you eat and when and what happened after.

See it there is a pattern.

Rgds Cliff in Australia.

[EngMac]

My experience tells me you have spine issues. Unfortunately heart doctors don’t consider this. Now all the drugs probably got you really messed up. I suggest you get off the drugs and see a good chiropractor. You might get a solution. If not, you can go back to drugs. I did another post on this on a topic near yours. Heart doctors will not like it if you don’t take their advice but it’s your life so do some research, look at some of my posts. You are unlikely to die if you stop the drugs. You did not before so you probably won’t now. Only you know what your body is telling you.

[Emgee]

Katrina, I know you must be so very frightened, but I was a work and had bent over my desk when I experienced my first tachycardia, and when I had a ECG it read that my heartbeat was just over 200. I was taken to the hospital and while I waited in ER (Canadian) all of a suden it stopped on its own. The cardio doctor who examined me, told me it may be a 'once in a lifetime' episode, and never happen again. Of course, it happened many more times over the years and my cardio doc. put me on various meds to keep it within safe limits so I didn't have to leave work so much to go to ER. In ER, at different time, I had it

stopped with injection which made me feel awful for a few seconds, and once when I was told my heartbeats were all over the place, they used the paddles on me, but it would not stay in NSR, so they booked me in for an ablation.

I ended up with a tamponade, from being poked through the top of my heart and almost died. After a long stay in hospital with all kinds of tests, it was felt my heart had stopped bleeding, and I was released. I had many trips to the emergency after that, but then it disappeared for almostt 3 years, before I woke up one morning with A=Fib again, but thankfully it stopped by taking small sips of cold water and dome deep breathing (suggested by my sister). So far everything seems well, but the tachycardia was a better feeling than the A-Fib. I wish you well and hope find a way to help calm you down when you have an episode. I always felt indigestion from certain items I'd eaten caused my tachycardia episodes which I had for over 25 years. Never felt dizzy or weak just felt I shoud be running to keep up with my heart.