Heart racing at night and in mornings

Hi Kelli, sometimes I get that. My Afib started up again after picking up a horrible infection that gave me Pneumonia. You tend to feel the beats more in the night due it everything being quiet and lying down usually affects it.

It might be better to have a 24 hour monitor on so it will pick up those beats overnight and any other strange beats you get. Do you have a blood pressure monitor to see how fast it actually goes? It is worth keeping a record if you do as I have noticed if I have dark chocolate mine gets worse and there is caffeine in chocolate and more in dark chocolate so might be worth seeing what you are eating as I have no caffeine in drinks but then realised it was in the chocolate and and really affects it and makes it beat very loud and very fast to 160 bpm.

Could it be caused by anxiety? I have similar symptoms all day long every day, but heart was in afib, just beating heavily and fast.

How fast does your heart rate get? Yes my episodes came and went too and especially when resting. Lasted anywhere from 2 mins to 30 mins. Shortness of breath maybe brought on by anxiety. There are many tests they can run to document this including wearing a heart monitor for a day or a month. As soon as your heart rate reverts to normal the hospital will let you go. A cardiologist with a specialty in ElectroPhysiology is best choice, but you can start with your regular doctor. But get it checked out. Can sometimes be controlled with medicine. Find out, go to the doctor when you can. I wish you well and the best of luck.

Did anyone suggest a Holter monitor? You wear it for 24 or 48 hours and it will record all heart events. Another alternative is an event monitor. You hold it to your chest and/or just push a button when you feel the rapid pounding, and it records the event. No sense guessing what's going on. Your GP should be able to hook your up with either, but if not, see a cardiologist.

Jim

12 years ago when I first got Afib I still felt like my heart was racing and it was but every time they put the 24 hour monitor on it didn't show anything until I had one four years ago after my second Afib episode and then I had to press a button to mark the tape and they just said that sometimes my heart rate was fast but it came back down so was not a problem. I am in Afib now and my readings on my own pulse monitor read 130 bpm then 45 bpm then 112 bpm as in Afib it is very hard to monitor due to the ectopic beats so if they had found something like Afib it would definitely have shown up as it is so erratic and noticeable it is not hard to pick up and you certainly know when you are in it as it constantly reminds you.

Hi kelli

I too have rapid heartrate at night. Have been diagnosed with sinus tachycardia since Jan 2017. Taking Betta blocker Bisoprolol for it but because l hate this drug I'm trying very hard to wean off it, die to the horrible side affects. My heart was ok when l first started taking this but when the side effects kicked in and l started cutting the dose l now get woken up in the early hours with rapid heart rate, going up to 160 at times. Horrible and panics me big time. Getting very little sleep so that doesn't help the situation either.

Hope you get sorted out when you have your appointment on the 25th. It's a scary thing to go through though when your heart pounds so much so l know what you are expiriencing believe me. Good luck.

You often get weird readings it was very scary when mine was 260 bpm for quite a while and the new tablets I am on bring my blood pressure right down very low and my pulse I wake up with a pounding headache and very groggy then it spikes around 3pm at 160 bpm. I am on 180mg of Diltiazem which I take at 7.30pm but Pharmacist says to now change it to 7.30am and to do that I need to take it an hour earlier each day to get back to that time so as not to miss a dose so 12 days later I should be taking the morning dose. Not too sure on this so will check with GP when I go on 3rd May.