waking up gasping - Sleep Disorders Message Board

haoba1 · 06-30-2008, 10:17 AM

I have this strange situation lately where I seem to wake up suddenly sometime between 2 and 4 in the morning, feel like I have to move (often thrashing for a few seconds) and sit up and having to catch my breath. It almost feels like your heart has stopped and you need to move to get a breath for a few seconds. I will generally feel fine again after a few moments, but sometimes it does make me uncomfortable enough to not look forward to going back to sleep. This can happen up to three or four times a night. I suspect either sleep apnea and/or panic disorder. I did have a panic attack around 6 in the morning a couple of months ago after a few of these attacks, went to the ER, all check out okay, so I suspected that the sleep problems were related, but going back to a regular dose of Lexapro (10 mg) from a much lower maintanence dosage did not stop it, though when I took some clonazepam when I upped the Lexapro that seemed to make it less severe and frequent. I have since largely come off the clonazepam, but I will take a crumb of clonazepam after an attack to try and get some sleep, but I don't like the feeling I get from it when I have to wake up. My wife tells me I snore, and so from that I also suspect sleep apnea, plus the fact that I don't seem to be having any panic symptoms during the daytime. My wife also observed that on at least one occasion before an attack I was snoring, then made a loud snort and then woke up with the attack. Oddly it does not occur when I take naps on the couch in the afternoon, though eating chocolate or having anything with caffeine within 6 or 7 hours of bedtime aggravates it.
I think I have had something like this in the past, and it seems to come and go. I think that in the past it has been a precursor or warning that my body is getting sensitized and that panic attacks will come later on, but unless the lexapro has quit working it should have been gone by now if that was true. It is getting to me now and I find it hard to feel like I am getting a good night's sleep. I will pursue if further, maybe I need to do a sleep test (can they distinguish nocturnal panic from other things?).

Mel52 · 06-30-2008, 10:23 PM

This is what I experienced. My throat locked up and from a sleep I would bolt up to a sitting position to catch my breath. It was like someone cut off my air supply and then let go so I could breathe. I didn't have apnea. A doctor told me I had asthma and gave me an inhaler with instructions to go to the hospital when it happened. It seemed kind of silly as once it happened the event was over.
One day another doctor told me that GERD can cause the throat closing. I started taking protonix. However, what has made the difference is eating early and lowering my fat intake. I seldom have the attacks now and usually only after I have pigged out on something

haoba1 · 07-01-2008, 07:02 PM

Thanks, GERD could be a possibility or at least a contributing factor. I visited my doc today and he is referring me to an ENT who has experience with sleep disorders, I will see him in a week. Meanwhile I will stop eating earlier (I do often eat an hour or two before bedtime) and see if that helps. Plus I'll take a zantac tablet before bedtime. My doc did note that I seemed to have "a lot of tissue" in the throat and that my uvula appeared as if I had GERD at some point (which I have had in the past--but with a higher frequency of the overt heartburn/reflux symptoms than what seems to appear now). Oddly I did have some reflux last night after one of the attacks. When this waking problem became an issue earlier this spring my doc also prescribed asthma medications, I suspect that while it may have improved my breathing it (advair) also might have helped initiate a 6 in the morning short panic attack a while back due to the long acting beta agonist in it (plus not sleeping well earlier that night didn't help). I switched to a steroidal inhaler only, but I don't think the asthma meds are actually doing anything to help the waking up attacks.

bethsheba · 07-02-2008, 05:42 PM

Asthma, GERD, panic attacks, and some other conditions often go hand in hand with sleep disorders. Sometimes treating the sleep disorder will alleviate/cure the asthma/GERD/panic attacks etc....

While many docs think these conditions are causing the sleep disorder, in some cases the reverse is true. Best to treat the sleep disorder and see if the other things go away on their own. My sleep specialist was the one to inform me of the connections...in my case the acid reflux and respiratory attacks disappeared...and best of all, my blood pressure dropped into a normal range with cpap treatment.

Bethsheba

haoba1 · 08-25-2008, 09:44 AM

Update--I had a sleep study a couple of weeks ago, and got the results today. I should mention that the gasping episodes have lessened over the last couple of months, though I did have a couple last night (maybe b/c I had a few extra cups of tea that day?). I have no stage 4 sleep (doc mentioned meds might affect that, I take 10 mg of lexapro and .25 of clonazepam, plus lipitor), borderline sleep apnea (4 episodes per hour, not enough to get worried about), and most significantly, a lot of movements during sleep (15 per hour). He said that the movements can be related to iron levels, or rarely to kidney function, and that those should be checked out. So far its not the kind of thing that a mask would be particularly useful for, but he told me to call him back if the gasping and waking episodes get bad again. I still wonder if they are related to an imbalance in the nervous system that indicates that panic disorder could flare up again. I had a panic attack last spring (after a period of weeks dealing with the gasping awakenings) and upped the lexapro from a quarter of the dose to full dose, plus added clonazepam, so that it can't happen again. Meanwhile I try to avoid eating late in case of GERD and am slowly losing weight via exercise and watching what I eat, so maybe that will help too.