"Adrenaline Rush" sensation as I drift off- Sleep Apnea? Need Relief

I have been experiencing exactly the same thing, I've been dealing with it for 2 months and I managed to deal with it but unfortunately it came back in the last few days. I suffer with anxiety and that's why it happens to me, its adrenaline that rushes through your body, and the more you're scared of it or think about it the more it will happen. What I found works for me is I focus my mind fully on a word or a phrase when I'm going to sleep and repeat it over and over in my head and eventually you'll fall asleep and won't even realise. It's because you're focusing so much on whether you're falling asleep or not that when you notice you are your brain notices, gets excited and wakes you up over and over again.

I think know exactly what you mean!! I don't have sleep apnea, but I do have epilepsy (nocturnal seizures) I often get 'brain zaps' as im drifting off to sleep... feels like a small amount of electricity pulsating through my body... A few times I've had a big one whilst asleep and it was so strong it woke me up, and it felt exactly like you'd described. Try searching brain zaps and see if anything sounds familiar, as far as i'm aware they are harmless! (But very uncomfortable!)

hi, i have the same thing happening to me . i was told i had sleep apena , i was waking at 3am with my heart in palpations called afib. i lost 5 stone and i belived the apena had gone but then i started getting these electric adrenaline feelings , i can feel it start in my stomach and it wakes me up , i would go into a panic state and have blood pressure spikes. i would get them within 60 minutes of falling asleep . i was trying to figure out are the related to sleep apena or panic or aniexty attacks as i get them mid day sometimes . its confusing but reading your question is 100% like i get

hello josh,

i feel so sorry for you I have the same thing and I can´t live my life anymore. It can keeps me awake for 2 to 3 days so I so I'm tired I can´t work anymore

i've tried many things but nothing work (XANAX, natural remedies)

i will try to take an adrenal supplement and to tzke vitamin C / Magnesium for the adrenals (maybe high dose vitamin C in IV can help)

i have lyme disease and chemical sensitivity. It gets worst if my body is in contact with a chemical I don´t tolerate.

I need to find something to stop this horrible sensation otherwise I just want to die because I can´t sleep at all and it feels terrible ...

Posted this in a similar thread as well:

Hey there! I don't think I have fixed this issue totally, but a few things have helped. taking Magnesium Citrate a couple hours before bed relaxes me, about 300mg. Then I take 200mg of L-Theanine (quiets the mind) and 1mg of Melatonin. Both around 1 hour before bed. Before going to sleep, I perform a few minutes worth of breathing exercises to stimulate the vagus nerve. Give it a google. It regulates our parasympathetic nervous system. I can still feel them slightly but they're much more manageable and I'm usually asleep relatively quickly. I also have a backup of Propranolol 10mg tablets just in case but since incorporating these things I haven't needed to use them. Hope it helps 😃

I had this for a few nights, i think due to doing the keto diet and stressing out about certain things. I was able to get relief when i stopped the diet. I also took some magnesium citrate which also helped. Someone mentioned that certain insulin levels could cause a release in cortisol at night. perhaps you should get your blood chemistry looked at to confirm this.

Since these symptoms sounds like sleep apnea maybe a CPAP machine might provide you that relief or even acupuncture. I hope you will find this helpful, and get relief soon.

Hi @josh95969

I've registered here to give a full account of my story and its almost exactly the same as everyone else here. I will follow up - this is an area i'm going to continue researching thoroughly in the next 12 months.

Thanks

James

Started this year all of the month of May,in June it went away,

July, August, Septembet, October, Novermber: Nothing happened

December 16 started to come back

My symptoms:

I go to sleep I’m in a dream, suddenly I wake up, as soon as I wake up I feel an adrenaline rush to my chest from my stomach, heartbeat skyrockets. I stay calm and take deep breaths and it subsides and heart goes back to normal, I get some neck pain from this it is very stressful. I try to fall asleep again and either one of two things happen 1. As soon as I start falling asleep it happens again usually I get the common hypnotic jerk or 2. I fall asleep for about 30 minutes to an hour Im dreaming and it all happens again. After the second time it happens I feel this taste in my mouth like stomach acids and bile something like that. Last night was worst happened about 6 times. I ended up falling asleep eventually for probably 3-4 hours. I wake up exhausted like if I ran for miles. Im tired throughout the day and sleepy.

All medical blood tests good but one of my blood count was high usually happens when you have a virus. Maybe I got a virus again. When I get sick from stomach I get anxious. I don’t know what it is , it is horrible.

have you been tested for Phaeochromocytomas? my neuro said it can present like this. ive had the exact same symptoms for 6 months now and it's no fun at all. last night I had severe jerks in my right leg which led to my entire body seizing up.

Here are two, separate remedies that are effective for me:

1. Valerian (NOW brand) - Take a complete dose before bedtime and whenever you wake up completely in the middle of the night.
2. Melatonin (Thorne brand) - Take between 5 and 10 mg before bed. Oftentimes, people take too little and it isn't effective.

Sweet dreams!

Just want to add my own story to this thread as I seem to have many of the same symptoms people describe.

About 3 months ago a would occasionally be woken up at around 05:00 each morning with a jolt of adrenaline often in my chest or stomach and would have to get up to alleviate the feeling. This was also twinned with jolts of adrenaline at the moment of drifting off to sleep. These symptoms became more frequent over the course of a few months and I began to feel the heightened levels of adrenaline throughout the day as well.

Over the last month I have also started getting occasional pains in my chest on the right hand side which coincide with the adrenaline during the day which is usually followed by a stabbing headache, also on the right side. These 'surges' throughout the day often seem to come on randomly but are also certainly brought on by food, i've tried to cut sugar out of my diet entirely as that seems to be a trigger.

I'm currently speaking with my GP who doesn't seem to have the first idea about what it is, I have a 24 hour ECG lined up and have been prescribed triptans (my GP wonders if it's a development of the infrequent migraines I get perhaps once every few months). I'm yet to try the triptans but I don't hold out much hope that the whole thing is migraine related. I am planning on asking for a Phaeochromocytomas test as it's the only condition that has even the slightest fit for these symptoms.

I'll update if I discover anything useful that might help others!

I don't know. But I've been having the same feeling for the last two weeks. Tonight is especially bad and really scary.

I tried to book an appt with my Dr (soonest mid-May) and recieved a cancelation yesterday because it's not important enough 😡

I don't know if it's an adrenaline rush feeling... or if I stop breathing just as I'm falling asleep... but tonight everytime I drift off I startle awake and breathe deep. 😔

Looking at sleep Apnea symptoms, you have a few symptoms... It wouldn't hurt to get tested for that.

I have something similar. It is a serious condition that can get dangerous with time if not treated. But again, this doesn't mean that's what you have.

I'm going to get my diagnoses for this shortly.

My symptoms: randomly(only once or twice a month) for a year now... only at night and here's what happens.

I fall asleep,, then not long afterwards, I suddenly wake up and feel: vertigo, short of breath, tremors.

Those are the first symptoms... then I have to go use the bathroom not long after.

I come back to bed, the tremors get worst! It takes a good 20-45mins before that finally go away. Chest is usually a bit tight(but no pains) as well with the tremors.

Sometimes it literally takes me days to recover my energy from this "attack"! It's exactly like an Anxiety attack but with bonus symptoms! Look it up!

I can't wait for my dr to take care of this problem... note, I also developed high blood pressure in December 2020, within the year of it beginning. It is also one of the symptoms people can get once it's more serious. Which is apparently where I stand now,

Hi I know this was awhile ago but about a month or 2 ago every so often I would wake up feeling weird in my chest as soon as I drifted off to sleep. I was wondering if anyone felt like their body was pulsing or similar but wasn't visibly shaking, its hard to explain.