needing some advice with cardio symptoms

[wabi-sabi]

Hi Everybody,
I've been working with a cardiologist on my orthostatic intolerance issues. I have the typical issues of not being able to stand up very long without feeling faint, my HR going up, needing to sit down and being short of breath.

Lately, I'm getting a new symptom. I wake up in the night with a racing heart and elevated BP (for me). It's still really in the normal range, but feels awful. What can be causing this? I am pushing fluids and salt as the cardio recommended. I need some research I can present to him, since he doesn't understand that being woken up in a flood or adrenaline is problematic.

Thanks!

 

[nerd]

I don't think it's related to sodium or fluids in CFS/ME. CFS/ME is associated with tachycardia (racing heart) and this is probably due to calcium signaling issues (not calcium levels).

There is also another possibility, i.e. intracellular vs. extracellular potassium-sodium balance. In this case, you would have elevated sodium/natrium and decreased potassium levels intracellularly. At the same time, your extracellular levels might be inversed relative to the intracellular levels. This might be due to the B12 metabolism, as I've read here, but I haven't found the evidence for this yet. Maybe someone can provide a source?

 

[Sushi]

Lately, I'm getting a new symptom. I wake up in the night with a racing heart and elevated BP (for me). It's still really in the normal range, but feels awful

Have you checked to see if your rhythm is steady? Ruling out an arrhythmia could be important. You can usually tell by manually palpating your pulse.

 

[wabi-sabi]

Yes, it's steady, just too fast.

 

[Booble]

Hi Everybody,
I've been working with a cardiologist on my orthostatic intolerance issues. I have the typical issues of not being able to stand up very long without feeling faint, my HR going up, needing to sit down and being short of breath.

Lately, I'm getting a new symptom. I wake up in the night with a racing heart and elevated BP (for me). It's still really in the normal range, but feels awful. What can be causing this? I am pushing fluids and salt as the cardio recommended. I need some research I can present to him, since he doesn't understand that being woken up in a flood or adrenaline is problematic.

Thanks!

Wow, this was me 100% about 12 years ago -- like exactly. I always had the not being able to stand long without feeling faint, and heart rate going up, and getting dizzy on getting up from lying down. And then -- just as you describe I starting getting that waking up with racing heart and elevated BP -- mine also normally very low. I also would sometimes get uncontrollable shaking along with the racing heart. Clearly massive adrenaline and not from thinking about anything like one would expect from normal anxiety because it would wake me up out of the blue every night.

I also had a period around that time that I got really bad short of breath. Like ridiculously so where it was hard to say words that require a lot of breath output. My arms felt heavy where lifting light things like a plate would feel abnormally heavy. (That was the strangest symptom.)

I never knew for sure what it was. I think it was either or a combo of MOLD and/or Perimenopause.
Both cause those symptoms. I was a little young for perimenopause but my hormones were dropping early.


The only thing that I could do to help during that time with the racing heart was engage my mind in some kind of complex thinking. I now that sounds bizarre but when the adrenaline is going your amygdala (lower part of your brain) takes over and pumps out more. Also walking it off and moving your legs as best you can helps lessen the strain on the heart.

Good luck.....let me know if you want to talk privately about it.

 

[wabi-sabi]

@Booble Thanks for the advice.

I'm certainly getting to that perimenopause age myself, so that could be going on. Mostly I'm trying to sort out is this a panic attack that's waking me up (which I am not prone to) or if something about upping my fluids and salt as the cardio recommended is freaking my body out. At first I felt better with more fluid and salt, so or course I did more, meaning this could be a new sort of crash symptom too.

The only thing I know is that the doc really isn't any help and keeps telling me I'm normal and I just need to stand up more. Sigh... We know how that goes.

Did it eventually stop for you? Do you know why if it did?

 

[Booble]

@Booble Thanks for the advice.

I'm certainly getting to that perimenopause age myself, so that could be going on. Mostly I'm trying to sort out is this a panic attack that's waking me up (which I am not prone to) or if something about upping my fluids and salt as the cardio recommended is freaking my body out. At first I felt better with more fluid and salt, so or course I did more, meaning this could be a new sort of crash symptom too.

The only thing I know is that the doc really isn't any help and keeps telling me I'm normal and I just need to stand up more. Sigh... We know how that goes.

Did it eventually stop for you? Do you know why if it did?

I did that whole thing too --- "Why am I having panic attacks?" It was very confusing and made no dang sense.

It could be from the fluids and salt but I don't think so.
"Stand up more" --- UGH.

It eventually did stop for me but it sure felt like it never was going to stop.
I got a new mattress because there were mold/mildew spots (probably not related but, hey, willing to try anything to stop waking up every night with my heart pounding) and oh, wow, just remembered --- we had to get our house tented (unrelated to all of this) for termites (I live in tropical location) and unbeknownst to us it also kills mold. That timed well with when it abating. Plus I had to get my female parts removed (also unrelated, endometriosis that the docs thought might be ovarian cancer from looking at the CT scans.)

So both of my potential instigators - -mold, and goofy hormones --- were removed around similar time and then the wild, uncontrollable heart pounding and breathlessness stopped.

 

[wabi-sabi]

@Booble What a time you've had! I'm certainly glad that's cleared up for you. Bodies are so mysterious sometimes. It's hard to figure out why they do what they do.

I have some sleep monitoring stuff coming up soon, so hopefully that will give some good info. This experience does make me nervous to go to sleep too.

 

[Booble]

@Booble What a time you've had! I'm certainly glad that's cleared up for you. Bodies are so mysterious sometimes. It's hard to figure out why they do what they do.

I have some sleep monitoring stuff coming up soon, so hopefully that will give some good info. This experience does make me nervous to go to sleep too.

Hope you get overs your soon.
I remember that being afraid to go to sleep knowing it would happen feeling as well.

Maybe it will help to know that it WILL go away. At the time it felt like it never would. And also you get extra tired from not sleeping, from heart working hard and from the adrenaline. So it's kind of a crazy cycle

I didn't know how I would ever get it to stop -- but now it has been a dozen years later and it doesn't happen anymore. I only had a repeat for a short period of time when I had an actual real anxious situation with my Dad being diagnosed with illness.

 

[Judee]

Are you taking a supplement with thiamine in it? Thiamine also makes my heart race.

Sometimes when my heart is going too slow, I'll take just a small amount but if I take too much I send it back in the wrong direction--both conditions feel awful.

 

[wabi-sabi]

I'm not taking any thiamin supplement. I think the heartrate is partly due to some mental health stuff-looking at you medical gaslighting- and partly due to crashing.

My heartrate has gone scary low with crashes before, but now it seems like it can go too high too.

 

[percyval577]

Lately, I'm getting a new symptom. I wake up in the night with a racing heart and elevated BP (for me). It's still really in the normal range, but feels awful. What can be causing this? ...

I often have something like that in the morning, strangely when I stopped drinking caffeine it appears at the time I lastly had been drinking caffeine.

A few years ago I had heart issues during spring only (probably from newly drunken beer). It resolved without intervention in summer, but the cardiologist was even quite concerned.


What does me help here, btw, and with brain fog in the morning are some sips from:

MgCl (only two drops from 33g in 1L water), maybe with tiny bit of Mg from am eff. tablet with HCO3
B12 (three drops in 0.5L)
Vit C

[corrected Mn -> Mg}

 

[hapl808]

My resting heart rate is near 80, but with any activity (mental or physical) it can often go up to 120-140. Even a difficult computer problem causes me PEM. I've thought about trying beta blockers or something like that as I wonder if my PEM is directly tied to heart rate, or if heart rate is just a symptom, or totally disconnected.

 

[hapl808]

I often have something like that in the morning, strangely when I stopped drinking caffeine it appears at the time I lastly had been drinking caffeine.

A few years ago I had heart issues during spring only (probably from newly drunken beer). It resolved without intervention in summer, but the cardiologist was even quite concerned.


What does me help here, btw, and with brain fog in the morning are some sips from:

MnCl (only two drops from 33g in 1L water), maybe with tiny bit of Mg from am eff. tablet with HCO3
B12 (three drops in 0.5L)
Vit C

Manganese chloride? What made you decide to try that and where do you get it?

 

[Sushi]

As someone who has had a bunch of cardiac issues....having a HR over 100 for prolonged periods isn't good for the heart--episodic tachycardia is a different story. Also, there is a thing called tachy-brady syndrome where you get alternations between tachycardia and bradycardia.
Tachycardia-bradycardia syndrome: Electrophysiological mechanisms and future therapeutic approaches

Dysfunction of ion channels responsible for initiation or conduction of cardiac action potentials may underlie both bradycardia and tachycardia; bradycardia can also increase the risk of tachycardia, and vice versa.

Just bringing up possibilities in case they "stick" for someone.

 

[percyval577]

Manganese chloride? What made you decide to try that and where do you get it?

I got confused from all the M´s, I meant MgCl, corrected it.

In fact I improve from low manganese.


Magnesium- chloride I got from the pharmacy, it was my first intervention after one year low manganese.
I wanted the chloride, as it is an inhibitory electrolyte. And it worked for three days even wonderful!

Now it is one part of an inhibitory fivefold, with also K and acetate. But it might be no good to take all five of them.