Adrenaline rush as I fall asleep, been happening for 8 years now. What is this?

Hello everyone ,

First off congratulations, it seems we are all apart of a secret society, as I thought I was the only one with this disease till running into this thread.

All jokes aside, We are all going to make it. First off if your new here like I am . Take heart in knowing that you arnt crazy and we are all experiencing in almost word for word the exact same symptoms. You are not alone, when you are facing that doom at night, we are all facing it together.

To confirm I will share mine . Right before dosing off into what should be a pleasant night sleep. A rush or what id like to describe is a wave rushes over me. Dreams more like being half awake half sleeping seem more like mental thoughts and more rushes happen till you sit back up and stay awake.

This often comes with a strong feeling of impending doom or as someone else has said terror. I have made my account to share my story to help anyone lurking that your not alone .

I have an undiagnosed autoimmune disease , some naturo drs who say I have lyme .

What I do know is when I flare these episodes come. Many Doctors wont know what your going through because research isnt there yet.

Corinthians

-Though outwardly we are wasting away, inwardly we are being renewed day by day, so we fix our eyes on what we cant see . For what we can see is temporary and what we cant see is eternal

God Bless All

-Nathaniel

I've been following this group for a while now. Will now give share my story.

I've never had panic attacks, anxiety episodes or adrenaline rushes UNTIL I smoked a very nasty weed. I would smoke weed before it all started, but this one I got was sprayed with other drugs so the effects would be stronger. I did not know about that until I smoked it.

After smoking that, I had a massive panic attack minutes later. Heart racing, feeling like I was going to die, extreme doom, fear, etc. It all was triggered by those nasty chemicals. Anyways...

After that first panic attack, I obviously quit with that nasty weed. Then I had another panic attack a week later, in the middle of my day. and then other 2 mild ones. During these weeks after the first panic attack it was when the bedtime adrenaline rushes started to show up.

Nearly falling asleep and BAM! it was like getting an electric shock. heart racing, fear, etc... but only at bedtime.

Now, 6 months after my first panic attack, I rarely experience other panic attacks, but my adrenaline rush persists! It happens pretty much every night, 2, 3 times per night.

However, I wanna share how I manage to curb the panic attacks, and how I'm managing to getting rid of adrenaline rushes at night (after the first ones appear).

Meditation has helped me dramatically. In my meditation, I speak to my organs, to my brain, to my adrenal glands. And they answer me.

Bach remedies helped me control panic attacks, (look for Mimulus, Aspen and Rock Rose). But these rushes at night are being harder to control. In my meditation I get help from my angel and friendly deities. Honestly, I know I'm sounding like a fool some some of you, but when we go to doctors and research the whole web and find no reason/cure/answers, we have to swallow our prides and see if this is really a thing beyond our physical bodies).

Whenever I think a panic attack is in the offing I think of this incredibly bright light above me, which lightens up all the vicinity I am as well as my body. It's like an angel, Jesus... and it kinda sends my brain a message it is all right. That I'm safe and protected. It is working for me. I'm not here telling anyone what to do or to believe in.

When I have the first rush at night, I see the same lights and deities, and the rushes subside.

In my meditation (I not only relax my body, but I give my brain that quite time it needs to "fix" stuff). I meditate during the day though. So at night I guess the load of "worried" is a lot smaller.

btw, when talking to my brain, especially my amygdala and other glands connected to that adrenaline rush, they kinda say it has to do with guilt and the moments of fear and shock I have ignored in the far past. So I'm working on it.

CBD oil also keeps me relaxed during the day.

Hi Ruthie!

Unfortunately I dont have the answer for you, however I can say that I too am plagued with the same thing as you, and for just about as long. I wouldn't characterize what happens to me as an adrenaline rush so much as it feels like a blast of pure sensation. For me, it varies. sometimes it feels like I get struck by lightning, sometimes it starts in my feet and zooms up to my head and explodes, sometimes there are flashing lights, and sometimes they are so intense that no words can describe it. My poor girlfriend has been dealing with me shooting straight up in the bed almost nightly for nearly 7 years (check my profile to see the last time I posted about it). Sometimes its 10+ times a night, sometimes not once. occasionally I'll go a month with none and start to feel like maybe I did something that cured me, but they always come back. Thats pretty rare though, maybe once a year.

I'll tell you what I've learned about this mystery disorder that doctors seem perplexed by. Ive seen probably 4 neurologists, 2 sleep doctors complete with sleep studies, and a bunch of hospital visits. Nothing shows up, nobody knows what could be causing it or how to fix it. Ive tried melatonin, Ativan, clonazepam, sleep medicines, and an anticonvulsant I cant remember the name of as I type it. Ironically, none of that helped. If anything, they made it worse.

Ive travelled down many rabbit-holes in search of an answer myself and Ive convinced myself that it was low brain oxygen, panic attacks, adrenaline surges, medication side effects, etc. A couple of years ago I think I found the real answer though, and if you havent found this yet then this might be helpful for you. There is a condition literally called Exploding Head Syndrome, also known as Episodic Cranial Sensory Shock. Now, if you read about this you will realize that its pretty rare, and most people who experience it only experience it once or twice a year. Because of this, nobody is able to study it, so they don't know much about it except for that its benign. You should know that though, if you've experienced it thousands of times and have no lasting effects. Most of the accounts of EHS say they hear loud noises or see flashes. However, if you read the studies they've done, you will see descriptions of what we encounter on a nightly basis.

My sleep studies showed zilch. I even wore one for 48 hours and every time I felt it I was supposed to push a button, which I pushed probably 20 times in 2 days. They said it all looked normal. Ive had multiple CT scans, an MRI and an MRA, all normal.

I hope I was able to give you some insight into what might be happening to you or anybody else experiencing this awful condition. Maybe one day we will finally figure out how to fix it.

-Winston

hello Ruthie

i suffer from the exact same thing

mine comes and goes. im experience it now, i tried so many times last night to fall asleep but just kept having these rushes from my head and into my chest. I have a headache today and just tried sleeping but its doing it again. Ive no idea what triggers it. my doctor said its an anxiety attack??!! im taking fluoxatine . id be happy to take sleeping pills too if they work.

Hi all,

I was wondering if anyone is still here and had any luck with those night time adrenaline rushes/panic attacks. I have been suffering for over 2 years now. I have them every night sometimes repeatedly over and over during the night. For the first year I would almost always go into full blown panic attack when they happened. These days I am able to stop it within a minute and not go into panic attack but I am not able to stop them from happening.

They started over two years ago, I was severely sleep deprived with a 2 year old baby that would wake very frequently during night. At some point I developed initially those rushes or jolts when falling asleep. That caused me lots of anxiety and I started to have insomnia. After couple of very bad insomnia bouts - one lasted 7 days of almost no sleep I got prescribed 2 antidepressants (never taken antidepressants before). After I took them that night I woke up with the worst panic attack ever (which I didn't know at the time was a panic attack). Since that episode the night time attacks never stopped 😦.

Has any of you here had any luck with stopping them. I read from some of you that the beta-blocker works. Do you keep taking it for years. Have you tried stopping it? I would be grateful beyond words for any replies.

Hi all has anyone here got better from those nigh time adrenaline rushes? Has this stopped for anyone? I'm suffering from them every night for over 2 years. Any suggestions and help would be great. Please help.

Hi @Ruthie143

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

Wow, it's very comforting to know I'm not alone in this. I have been suffering from what sounds like the same exact thing. In the past few weeks I've developed heavy and very frequent anxiety (daily). In the past my ONLY experiences with anxiety/panic attacks were short-lived (20 minute bouts) and always related to an overuse of cannabis. But in the past few months I have been dealing with a full plate. Me and my girlfriend both tested positive for COVID, and she was very sick and bed-ridden for a month with trips to ER and Urgent Care, in addition to a handful of other unrelated stress inducing incidents. Since then I've developed palpitations which I assume are caused by anxiety, which in turn has made my anxiety much worse. Quite a vicious cycle as they seem to perpetuate one another... I should also note that I have not been using cannabis for almost a week now and I do not take or use any other drugs/medications. In the past few nights I have been experiencing those same rushes everyone else has described. I'm just about to fall asleep, then BOOM, a wave of adrenaline hits me in my chest, shoulders and head. It last for no more than a couple seconds but it's enough to jar me awake and make it near impossible to fall asleep. Last night being the worst as it was happening every 20-60 minutes and I never felt like I fully fell asleep. So now I'm sitting here reading everyone elses experiences in this forum at 5am... I'm glad I found it when I did since I have a doctor's appointment this coming Wednesday and I'm hoping some of the advice I've read will prove valuable. I hope everyone suffering from this stays strong and can find a way past it sooner than later. I k ow everyone's situations may vary but my heart goes out to anyone who has been struggling with it, especially on a long term basis. Thanks to everyone who posted here with advice and potential solutions.

Chris

Hi All,

Read through this whole forum trying to find help for my own problems which are identical. I can report some good news that I've had some success trying to solve this! I also tried everything under the sun, exercise, diet, sleep hygiene, melatonin, meditation etc. and none of it solved it. Had it for a bout a year on and off.

I researched everything literally as much as I could. What I narrowed it down to, like you, is that indeed my brain was giving me a nice shot of Adrelanine as soon as I was about to drift off. Over and over in cycles. So I researched this hormone. You can connect it quickly to the Amygdala. Ok so now what? The amygdala is triggered by any types of stress, including those you are unaware of! Any subconcious stress that you have not paid enough attention too. I actually told my Doctor and Sleep clinic doctor that I didn't really have any stress. So I started paying attention to every minute of my day, and everything that happened. I did it for a few days. Look for ANYTHING that you might be running from, not addressing, living with. I realized I had some feelings of inadequacy / combined with relationship stress that was a very low simmer. I'm a newish dad of a 2 year old and there's been a lot of change in my life. I realized I was putting huge expectations on myself to be the best father. I also was putting huge expectations on myself to be the best husband. No matter how much I did I felt kind of inside that it wasn't enough. I realized that the pressure I was putting on myself was translating to my brain pushing me to take action. WAKE UP it said. Here's your Adrelanine. It gave me little shots of adrelanine all day long to keep my extra active with my son. It also gave me a shot everytime i thought my partner wasn't happy with parenting. Take a look DEEPLY at your relationships! Is someone pressuring you? Does someone expect a lot of you? Do you expect a lot of yourself towards someone else? Look over all these situations, I mean really, meditate on them. I meditated on some of these ideas and it HIT me like an ephiphany. I tried to incorporate this into my meditation, I would tell myself that I actually am a great father. I also voiced my feelings of inadequacy to my partner, it LITERALLY felt like a weight had come off my shoulder. I realized pretty quickly that I was being a bit of perfectionist, that I was a great father and husband but hadn't quite learn how far I had to go to do it. but I did realize i needed to work on some things. Being more present with my family for one. It was hard but I needed to do it. I medidated at night about how safe I felt, about the things I love in life, about the things I'm lucky for. Remember this is all about appeasing your pesky Amygdala which has decided you are in a constant state of fear and keeps releasing Adrelanine to release it. If you can convince yourself, or remember to yourself, that you are happy, and that you are safe, your Amygdala will start to shut down these hormones. It did for me fairly quickly. Actually the next couple days were like coming off of Detox! My body wasn't pumping out adrelanine all day! I felt literally exhausted all day like I just came off a 1 week bachelor party in Vegas. I still needed to reset my sleeping patterns so I tried Melatonin again knowing that it woulnd't create a whirlwind with my Adrelanine like it did before ( I could write 10 pages on these crazy night feelings before) . And Melatonin finally did it's thing! I started sleeping through the night. I did feel a bit at first like i lost a bit of my extra power throughout the day but i was so hapy to start sleeping.

honestly if you can use meditation to look IN DETAIL at every single interaction of your day to day, and think it down to the bottom, (it's super hard to do), you can get there. Doctors can't help you here because how they get to the bottom of your stress. Learn about how the Amygdala creates Adrelanine, and learn about how you create a safe feeling in your life to calm it down. It changed my life. I'd start with your relationships. If you have a nice houes to live in and can pay your bills on time, your probably looking at relationship problems. Google Maslows Hierarchy of needs to get an idea of where to look for yourself. Seriously hopes this helps you guys! Also the one crazy person on here who talked about talking to your Amygdala was bang on. Do it. Talk to your Adrenal gland too. It's not crazy, our mind and our bodies are ONE. Don't think they are separate it's a mistake.

Hi Ruthie,

I used to experience this, and its no fun at all.

I have been diagnosed with a panic disorder but after years of experiments the thing that stopped most symptoms for me was stopping caffeine. It turns out I am very sensitive and it causes adrenaline and panic symptoms in me. This wasn't always the case, it developed over time. I also discovered that the coffee I was drinking was also causing a really uncomfortable, grief-like, sensation in my chest which combined with the caffeine to make my life miserable.

Sugar is also a problem for me as too much, as recently reaffirmed at Christmas, causes milder panic symptoms.

After coming off tea , coffee, anything with stimulants, I don't experience jolts any more.

have you been tested for Phaeochromocytomas? According to my neuro it can present like this.

I have been having this problem for months now and it's so difficult to explain. It's happens every night and it's impossible to stop. It's not anxiety because it happens even when I am relaxed and happy. Just on the verge of falling asleep in the twilight zone so to speak my heart starts to race and I feel shaky. It usually wakes me up and my heart rate quickly returns to normal. I have to go through this process again and again until I am so tired I just sleep through it. Also feel it in the early hours and just before waking up. I know this sounds crazy but believe me it's a serious problem that is affecting my health. Which was good prior to this, ie non drinker, non smoker, healthy weight. I have seen 2 cardiologists, had an MRI scan, echo, and ecg. They say my heart is good. I personally think it could be neurological. Please message me if you can shed any light on this problem. But please don't tell me its anxiety or stress or my imagination.