Waking with Heart Racing and Sweaty

[nopanickedpotatoes]

Has anyone experienced this and it not meant something terrible? I'm very panicked!

For several weeks now I've woken up at all sorts of hours of the night - either woken up on my own, or been woken up by noise - and almost every time my heart is absolutely racing (I measured 150bpm the other night) and I'm usually sweaty. What is happening?

I'm on Sertraline - any chance this could be the cause? I'm currently freaked out about bowel symptoms and worried I could have bowel cancer. I'm not sure whether to worry this could be related (night sweats and cancer?!), or whether to worry about heart problems! I laugh at myself, but I'm equally terrified.

Any and all reassurance, particularly from others who've experienced similar, is very welcome. Thank you.

[NoraB]

I have nocturnal panic attacks (I had one early this morning)

So it could be this, or it could be your medication..

In my case, I wasn't on anti-anxiety meds so it was down to sensitisation because my body was constantly pumping out the stress hormones. This meant that my fight or flight alarm system was reacting when it didn't need to react. Someone closing a car door would be enough to trigger an attack and my symptoms were usually, palpitations, sweating, feeling sick (occasionally being sick) clammy, needing the loo, sometimes chest pain etc and sometimes I would wake up with a feeling that something awful was going to happen, and then the symptoms would kick in..

Once I understood what was happening (and that I wasn't having a heart attack etc) I taught myself how to deal with them by breathing properly, getting up and moving about to discharge the adrenalin etc and by accepting that, while they're horrible to experience, they won't harm me. In reality, my body is protecting me because it thinks I'm in danger (even though I'm not) that's the reason we have this fight or flight response. Just think of it as a car alarm that's too sensitive and is going off when somebody walks past, rather than is trying to break in...

By doing this, I went from having these nightly panic attacks to having an occasional one, like this morning at 2am...