nocturnal panic attacks with fatigue?

[mary jane]

Hello,

Just wanted to ask whether anyone here experience panic attacks during the night, about 1-2 hours after falling asleep, where they wake up suddenly feeling extremely fatigued but without a rapid heartbeat or breathing, just extreme fatigue where you feel like you are about to die from fatigue and weakness...

This happened a few times after interrupting amitriptyline which I had to take for nerve pain in the past ...

Is it a panic attack? I have had my blood checked and heart and everything is fine.

[MadWomanintheAttik]

Hi there! Sorry you're not sleeping very well. I REALLY know the feeling. I've been suffering with panic attacks since I was 19 and I'm now 33. Occasionally I will wake up 1-2 hours after falling asleep with a pounding heart. The pounding heart scares me, thus inducing a panic attack. Sometimes when I'm only half asleep, I notice that if I'm not sleeping correctly, I tend to snore a little. I think a lot of this has to do with sleep apnea, but I don't think I have it bad enough to warrant a doctor's visit. If I sleep on my stomach or on my right side and have my pillow elevated, I tend to not wake up with the symptoms you've described.

I've also found that I sleep a lot better when I'm actually sleepy. If I try sleeping when I'm not very tired, then I wake up with the pounding heart and then have a panic attack.

On these nights when I wake up like this, I am utterly exhausted the next day. I think you might try sleeping in a different position to see if maybe you're waking yourself up due to sleep apnea. Your body will naturally wake you up if you stop breathing, but to people with anxiety like us, this scares the crap out of us and we are not able to go back to sleep !

I hope this helps :)