Waking Up in the Middle of the Night with Rapid Heart Beat and Dizziness

[MarkyMark88]

I'm not sure where to post this but since I'm a long time health anxiety sufferer I'll put it here.



Last night I woke up after about an hour or two of sleep feeling dizzy, like I was going to pass out and with a rapid heart rate. My first inclination is to go to the kitchen to get something to drink. After about a minute or two everything is back to normal. I was able to go back to sleep with out this happening again. This isn't the first time I've had this episode. I can recall it happening about every other night about a year ago for what seemed to be a couple or few weeks and maybe sporadically after. This was at the height of my health anxiety. It was weird that this happened again out of the blue. I went to sleep fine, not stressed or worried about anything. So I don't know what could have caused this. I can't recall dreaming about anything to put me into distress. Could I have a had a panic attack in my sleep? It's just the dizziness that really freaks me out. Does anybody else here have this happen to them or have had similar sensations?



Mark

[ocdbaking]

It does sound a panic attack that started while you were asleep. I developed these randomly a couple of years ago but have stopped since. The dizziness was also what freaked me out at the time.

[MarkyMark88]

I don't wake up sweaty or clammy like you might find yourself with a daytime panic attack. I'm worried it could be sleep apnea. I've read articles linking anxiety to OSA. But I'm not overweight and am only 30 and my girlfriend says she has never heard me snore or stop breathing in the middle of the night. Also the fact I was able to fall right back asleep and not have another episode is boggling. So I don't know what to think.

[ocdbaking]

I won't repeat what I said, but I also wasn't clammy.

I ended up in hospital with one episode. The doctor said it was a nocturnal panic attack. I believed him. They stopped with medication.

[MarkyMark88]

I guess I will chalk it up to that. Odd how it started up again. I haven't had a daytime one in god knows how long and all of a sudden I'm having them in my sleep. Effing terrifying.