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Does anyone's heart start beating faster AFTER they wake up?

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singingkeys +0 points · over 4 years ago Original Poster Sleep Commentator

Does anyone with sleep apnea have a heartbeat that increases AFTER they take up?

I'm not talking about waking up WITH a racing heart. My brain wakes up first, then a few seconds later I can feel my heart kickstart physically as my body starts waking up after the fact. THEN my heart starts beating faster and I witness that increased beating. Not just while asleep in the bed, it can happen in my computer if I doze off upright or whatever. I pop awake, my heart starts beating faster and my body is asleep for a few seconds after my brain wakes up first. My sleep doc has no idea what I'm talking about. Other people with sleep apnea seem to not know what I'm talking about.

I've been checked by GP doctor and had tons of blood work. All normal. Cardiologist did a full Stress Echocardiogram. Everything was good. I requested a 31 holter monitor and just got done with that. Nothing wrong found. I've been to an Endocrinologist for an exam and blood work shows nothing is wrong. Not overweight, 5'8 and 150 pounds. Very muscular for my size. Active job lifting heavy stuff all day. All of my jobs have kept me active, always. 64 apneas/hour over my last in-lab sleep study. On my side, I was told that I have nothing, but I had bad wakeup events on my side during the study, so I'm puzzled. They didn't see it, but I felt it and it woke me up.

My brain wakes up during the night while my body is still asleep. Shortly after, my body wakes up and I can feel my heart start beating faster since my brain is already awake. This is an odd phenomenon and I can't find anyone with it. Sleep doc doesn't know. Cardiologist thinks it is sleep apnea causing all of my symptoms. I've been pretty dizzy and had POTS and/or Dysautonomia for a couple of months now. Primary care doc put me on Fludrocortisone for Dysautonomia (malfunction of the Autonomic Nervous System). It gets better or worse depending on how well I sleep x days in a row. I have events on my stomach, sides and back. Then my nose stops up at night when I lie down. I've had turbinate reduction and septoplasty in 2018. My ENT doc/sleep doc says the turbinates are swollen. When I exhale through my nose, sometimes I hear "popping" from in the sinuses of one side of my nose. Endoscope showed clear sinuses. I also may have a bit of a soft palate extra lip as I've had this thing since I was a kid where if I breathed out of my nose quickly, my throat would sort of choke itself a little bit as if the soft palate had a part that extended over and choked me.

I feel so tired some days that it feels like my weak and shaky legs are going to collapse me down into the floor.

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Sierra +0 points · over 4 years ago Sleep Patron

I do not monitor my heart rate all that often, just when I occasionally take my blood pressure. However what I do notice is that my blood glucose rises each morning to a lesser degree in the 30 minute or so before I wake up and the 30 minutes or so after. I use a FreeStyle Libre monitoring system for BG and each morning I see that effect to a more or less degree. I think it is normal, and your body's way of waking you up for the day. The liver dumps some glucose which is the sign it is time to get up. Would it also cause the heart rate to rise? Possibly, but like I say, I don't measure that very often.

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singingkeys +0 points · over 4 years ago Original Poster Sleep Commentator

Mine is more so with each awakening throughout the night, even on CPAP. My brain wakes up, I'm on camera looking around in a "What happened? Where am I? Oh, I'm sleeping, go back to sleep" kind of way and then I go back to sleep until it happens again. My brain wakes up, my body is still in a deep sleep and then I feel my heart start beating faster about 15 seconds after my brain wakes up. I'm starting to wonder if I have some kind of sleep rhythm disorder or something. I suspect that most people's heart has already started beating faster upon their awakening, not afterwards. Even sleep docs don't seem to understand what I'm talking about with this.

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