Nocturnal Adrenaline Surge/Rush
It's 3:32am as I start to write this.
Tonight, not long after midnight, I woke up and had another wonderful episode of adrenaline surge/rush which has resulted in me not being able to sleep.
I went to bed around 10:30pm feeling ok; had a couple of cups of chamomile and spearmint tea leading up to bedtime, ate dinner as normal, and snacked on a tangerine not long before going to bed. Then shortly after midnight I woke up abruptly with a fluttering feeling in my chest area, I got up and went to the toilet and whilst out of bed could feel the fluttering increase in intensity (it felt like a thousand butterfly's beating their wings inside the chest cavity); then my teeth started chattering together. I checked my pulse to feel my heart rate was increased but not racing.
I got back into bed feeling worse and woke my wife up.
In the last 6 weeks I've had two other episodes whereby I've woken up and suffered from an intense adrenaline surge/rush so I knew the symptoms and guessed it was another one. Within minutes of waking my wife up everything kicked into overdrive...the fluttering feeling got worse, my teeth started chattering more, and my entire body started shivering uncontrollably like it does when you're freezing; it was so bad that you could hear the shivering on my breath as I tried to breathe my way out of it. My wife checked my pulse and decided that it didn't feel too fast, then proceeded to comfort me and talk to me until it passed, she even tried a bit of reiki. The dog even came and sat next to me so I could stroke him!
This episode, like the last two, lasted for around 10-15 minutes and no amount of controlled breathing had any effect (hell, it was difficult to do anything in the moment other than go along for the ride!). They're what I'd imagine a mini-seizure would feel like; I'm unable to get up and move around without extreme difficulty as all my muscles are tensed and shaking. After what seemed like an eternity it subsided and I could feel the wave of relaxation flow through me from head to toe. Normally I am so exhausted afterwards that I can go straight back to sleep but tonight after my worst one yet I am unable to, thus am awake and writing this.
Whilst all this is going on I wasn't undergoing a feeling of traditional panic, like I have to flee etc. but was aware of what it was and my focus was on not having a heart attack or letting it run away with me. As a bit of history, I am having CBT to deal with anxiety/panic attacks and am not currently on any medication following unwelcome side effects from taking Pregabalin for a month.
Interestingly enough I ONLY get these at night, after waking up, never during the day.
Has anyone experienced anything similar?
PS: Apologies for the length of the post!
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