My Story - I'm at a loss of what's wrong
(Male, 35 yrs old)
Hi,
I just came across this forum the other day and never thought of using one to probe for answers to my sleep apnea issues. What a great find because I have some very bothersome issues and I think they missed some details in my diagnoses from my sleep study such as centralized sleep apnea. I was diagnosed with obstructive sleep apnea. I have chronic heart palpitations that I am trying to resolve too along with chest pressures and mild chest pains related to those palpitations. It’s very stressful thinking about death all the time because of them.
I was trying to communicate my strange symptoms to my sleep technician letting her know I think I’m experiencing some centralized sleep apnea and she told me the sleep study would have definitely shown it if I had it. I let her know I don’t have symptoms all the time and we went back and forth and she ended up sternly talking over me telling me she was the expert here and that it sounds like a psychological problem and to stop trying to convince myself I have centralized sleep apnea. She went on to say centralized sleep apnea is rare and that most people with centralized sleep apnea have had traumatic brain injury or… then I replied I’ve had traumatic brain injury in a very bad car accident. Her reply was, “you still don’t have centralized sleep apnea” (Jan 2018). So that’s as far as I got with my sleep studies. They had me wear a cpap to figure out the pressures needed and I hated wearing the mask and it kept me up all night. I decided for my obstructive sleep apnea I would just not sleep on my back any more and my wife does not complain about my snoring anymore since. I also figured a cpap machine that they would give me would not help centralized sleep apnea (if I have it) because from what I hear they are different machines. I also found out about mandible night guards that help obstructive sleep apnea that I was going to look into If I start having issues with obstructive sleep apnea again.
I was diagnosed with traumatic brain injury after my close encounter with death from my December 2007 car accident (25 years old). I was in the ICU for 3 weeks and after that was in the hospital doing rehab for 4 weeks. I had full facial reconstruction including my eye sockets (28 plates in face) and fractured my pelvis in multiple places along with some broken ribs and collar bone. After running lots of test on me they told me I had a right bundle branch block (rbbb) which is a signaling problem to the heart (which may be part of the reason for my palpitations I would assume). The cardiologist doesn’t know if it’s related. It does seem like palpitations and sleep apnea are connected from other people’s stories I’ve picked up along the way but I’m not sure about chronic palpitations. They seem to be interconnected with me too because I seem to be having an oscillating pattern for so many months on and so many months off of increased intensity for both bothersome heart palpitations and sleep disturbances.
Note - So two of my conditions that may contribute to signaling problems is rbbb and traumatic brain injury.
Rewind back to when I was 20 years old I had a fainting episode which I felt something in my chest (maybe a palpitation) and fell back and sort of collapsed on the bed (rbbb related?). I didn’t fully pass out. Called 911 and had an ambulance ride to the hospital in which they told me nothing was wrong. Shortly after I was diagnosed with anxiety and was told my fainting was an anxiety event. They put me on anti-depressants which really didn’t work that great for my anxiety for the twelve years I was on it. Towards the end of those twelve years I was noticing more random palpitations every day. I ended up getting myself off the anti-depressants (after 12 years [32-33 years old]– started getting into natural medicine) and started taking herbal supplements which seemed to work better for anxiety than my anti-depressants ever did (st Johns wart, Ashwagandha, Lemon Balm, Passion flower, & magnesium). They also stopped my random palpitations I would have throughout the day everyday. I stopped st Johns wort after a year to two due to finding out it has side effects and & causes sun sensitivity. I then started on some of my other mentioned supplements.
Fast forward 2 years and my random palpitations started to become chronic after 3 weeks of starting 5000iu of vitamin D3 (coincidence?) and my supplements would not control the palpitations from happening anymore because they were now chronic (palpitation every 5 minutes) all of a sudden. I can feel most of my palpitations and feel pressure in my neck from them and even feel faint right afterwards a lot of the time. I read online that vitamin D supplementation can cause palpitations, so I stopped taking it and got in to see my cardiologist (had a stress test and 24 hour heart monitor) and was told I was fine and my palpitations were PVC’s and were benign. After I got off the vitamin D for a month my chronic palpitations subsided and I figured it was all related to the vitamin D supplementation. My palpitations then came back 3 months later and I had them for 3 or 4 months and also started having abnormal sleep problems for a peak of 3 to 4 weeks between those 3-4 months. My sleep seems to be fine the majority of the time beside these few weeks during my oscillating cycles of bothersome heart palpitations and sleep/breathing problems.
Those 3-4 weeks: I’m a really light sleeper and would notice my breathing would slow way down and stop around the time I would be drifting into sleep. I would get a fainting feeling a few times which would wake me up grabbing the sheets in terror. I hate that feeling like I’m going to pass out and not wake back up again. Sometimes I would gasp for air and sometimes I would feel like I’m fainting without the gasping. I noticed these same breathing patterns would happen during my naps in my truck during my lunch breaks and I was not able to nap or sleep very well because of it for weeks. I keep having to tell myself to take deep breaths because I would notice my breathing slowing down to a stop. I can tell this is not obstructive sleep apnea because it was all happening before I fell asleep and as I was drifting into it then I would wake right up in panic over and over again while also noticing I just stop breathing. At the peak of these sleep disturbances I would have a couple of nights where I wouldn’t sleep at all because it was so bad I would be afraid to go to sleep and if I did I would wake up with a fainting sensation. I would wear a finger oxygen/pulse reader and my oxygen level never would go below 94% but I’m not sure If I ever got a glimpse at the % right after a fainting spell. It normally ranges from 95-97% all year long. I just noticed recently since I’m in this problematic phase currently that my oxygen drops to 95% every few minutes when I’m trying to go to sleep when I start feeling pressure in my chest right before a palpitation then goes back up to 97% (The worst of these conditions only lasted a couple nights and seems to be getting better now currently). After a month or two after these sleeping issues subsided I started drinking Kombucha tea (pro-biotic) and my chronic heart palpitations stopped (coincidence?). Then I was feeling dependent on the Kombucha to keep my heart palpitations at bay.
It was many months later with no sleeping issues and free of heart palpitations that my chronic heart palpitations started back up (and I was still drinking kombucha everyday – darn it, it’s not helping anymore!) I had some more visits to my cardiologist and he recommended some sleep test which I followed up with that I’ve already explained above. The cardiologist said my heart health was fine and not to come back unless something happens and I have different symptoms or worries.
Side note - Right about after this time I found an article online about high vitamin D levels helping centralized sleep apnea so I started supplementing again - I didn’t think vitamin D was a reason for my first bout of chronic heart palpitations anymore and if it made my current palpitations worse I would stop. It didn’t raise my blood levels – lab work checked – probably because I wasn’t supplementing it right with high fats, k2, and magnesium. After that I started sun bathing which raised my levels almost up to the recommended 60ngml-80ngml levels. I’m now at 54ngml (2 weeks ago) and was at 35ngml. But I am currently in the midst of bad heart palpitations and sleeping trouble again ☹.
Back to my story - After almost a year of being a member of online holistic/biologic dental groups and learning the link of heart disease to oral health and root canals/cavitations, I decided to get my two remaining wisdom teeth extracted. I’ve previously had an emergency extraction of an old root canal that got infected and swelled my whole face up. I was starting to have the same symptoms with another root canal and decided to just have both removed and I’ve also heard through other members that it resolved their palpitations and many other health ailments. A few days before my extractions my heart palpitations seemed to have dwindled down a little (after 5 months of chronic palpitations) and the day before I was supposed to go in they pretty much stopped. As I was in the chair at my dentist office I was having palpitations again due to the anxiety most likely but right after that my palpitations were gone for a month (coincidence? maybe) I thought that had fixed the issue until they came back. The tooth meridian chart shows that the wisdom teeth are related to the heart and one of my root canals was in the very back next to my old wisdom tooth extractions which may very well be a cavitation which can cause palpitations. I thought maybe the tooth extractions mixed up and relieved some of the infection load and helped stop my palpitations for a while or maybe they just stopped because it’s just a cycle for me as my palpitations coming and going are starting to make a pattern. I’m starting to notice an oscillating pattern to my palpitations and sleep problems. My scalp psoriasis skin condition happened to go away the week of my root canal extractions and has been gone for 5 months now. So maybe my dental extractions helped that in the least. I plan to look into seeing if I have wisdom teeth cavitations that may be contributing to my heart palpitations but will wait since the consult and x-ray fees are $850 for the dentist I would like to see (non-invasive cavitation laser treatments) and am struggling to make ends meet at the moment.
Side note - Through the years I would wake up gasping at times during the night since my twenties even before my accident. This could be related to my obstructive sleep apnea or maybe a centralized sleep apnea that’s somehow related to my rbbb.
So I now have chronic heart palpitations (every 2-5 minutes) that are very bothersome (diagnosed as PVC’s – benign) and have been diagnosed with obstructive sleep apnea from a sleep study but think I have some form of centralized sleep apnea that comes and goes in several month intervals along with worsening palpitations.
I really don’t know where to go from here to fix my palpitations beside checking for cavitations and or if oscillation patterns of sleep apnea could really be centralized sleep apnea. If it is centralized sleep apnea is that common for it to come and go like it does? I’m trying to get some perspective. I’m at a loss and don’t know what to do with my issues.
-Tim
Hi,
I just came across this forum the other day and never thought of using one to probe for answers to my sleep apnea issues. What a great find because I have some very bothersome issues and I think they missed some details in my diagnoses from my sleep study such as centralized sleep apnea. I was diagnosed with obstructive sleep apnea. I have chronic heart palpitations that I am trying to resolve too along with chest pressures and mild chest pains related to those palpitations. It’s very stressful thinking about death all the time because of them.
I was trying to communicate my strange symptoms to my sleep technician letting her know I think I’m experiencing some centralized sleep apnea and she told me the sleep study would have definitely shown it if I had it. I let her know I don’t have symptoms all the time and we went back and forth and she ended up sternly talking over me telling me she was the expert here and that it sounds like a psychological problem and to stop trying to convince myself I have centralized sleep apnea. She went on to say centralized sleep apnea is rare and that most people with centralized sleep apnea have had traumatic brain injury or… then I replied I’ve had traumatic brain injury in a very bad car accident. Her reply was, “you still don’t have centralized sleep apnea” (Jan 2018). So that’s as far as I got with my sleep studies. They had me wear a cpap to figure out the pressures needed and I hated wearing the mask and it kept me up all night. I decided for my obstructive sleep apnea I would just not sleep on my back any more and my wife does not complain about my snoring anymore since. I also figured a cpap machine that they would give me would not help centralized sleep apnea (if I have it) because from what I hear they are different machines. I also found out about mandible night guards that help obstructive sleep apnea that I was going to look into If I start having issues with obstructive sleep apnea again.
I was diagnosed with traumatic brain injury after my close encounter with death from my December 2007 car accident (25 years old). I was in the ICU for 3 weeks and after that was in the hospital doing rehab for 4 weeks. I had full facial reconstruction including my eye sockets (28 plates in face) and fractured my pelvis in multiple places along with some broken ribs and collar bone. After running lots of test on me they told me I had a right bundle branch block (rbbb) which is a signaling problem to the heart (which may be part of the reason for my palpitations I would assume). The cardiologist doesn’t know if it’s related. It does seem like palpitations and sleep apnea are connected from other people’s stories I’ve picked up along the way but I’m not sure about chronic palpitations. They seem to be interconnected with me too because I seem to be having an oscillating pattern for so many months on and so many months off of increased intensity for both bothersome heart palpitations and sleep disturbances.
Note - So two of my conditions that may contribute to signaling problems is rbbb and traumatic brain injury.
Rewind back to when I was 20 years old I had a fainting episode which I felt something in my chest (maybe a palpitation) and fell back and sort of collapsed on the bed (rbbb related?). I didn’t fully pass out. Called 911 and had an ambulance ride to the hospital in which they told me nothing was wrong. Shortly after I was diagnosed with anxiety and was told my fainting was an anxiety event. They put me on anti-depressants which really didn’t work that great for my anxiety for the twelve years I was on it. Towards the end of those twelve years I was noticing more random palpitations every day. I ended up getting myself off the anti-depressants (after 12 years [32-33 years old]– started getting into natural medicine) and started taking herbal supplements which seemed to work better for anxiety than my anti-depressants ever did (st Johns wart, Ashwagandha, Lemon Balm, Passion flower, & magnesium). They also stopped my random palpitations I would have throughout the day everyday. I stopped st Johns wort after a year to two due to finding out it has side effects and & causes sun sensitivity. I then started on some of my other mentioned supplements.
Fast forward 2 years and my random palpitations started to become chronic after 3 weeks of starting 5000iu of vitamin D3 (coincidence?) and my supplements would not control the palpitations from happening anymore because they were now chronic (palpitation every 5 minutes) all of a sudden. I can feel most of my palpitations and feel pressure in my neck from them and even feel faint right afterwards a lot of the time. I read online that vitamin D supplementation can cause palpitations, so I stopped taking it and got in to see my cardiologist (had a stress test and 24 hour heart monitor) and was told I was fine and my palpitations were PVC’s and were benign. After I got off the vitamin D for a month my chronic palpitations subsided and I figured it was all related to the vitamin D supplementation. My palpitations then came back 3 months later and I had them for 3 or 4 months and also started having abnormal sleep problems for a peak of 3 to 4 weeks between those 3-4 months. My sleep seems to be fine the majority of the time beside these few weeks during my oscillating cycles of bothersome heart palpitations and sleep/breathing problems.
Those 3-4 weeks: I’m a really light sleeper and would notice my breathing would slow way down and stop around the time I would be drifting into sleep. I would get a fainting feeling a few times which would wake me up grabbing the sheets in terror. I hate that feeling like I’m going to pass out and not wake back up again. Sometimes I would gasp for air and sometimes I would feel like I’m fainting without the gasping. I noticed these same breathing patterns would happen during my naps in my truck during my lunch breaks and I was not able to nap or sleep very well because of it for weeks. I keep having to tell myself to take deep breaths because I would notice my breathing slowing down to a stop. I can tell this is not obstructive sleep apnea because it was all happening before I fell asleep and as I was drifting into it then I would wake right up in panic over and over again while also noticing I just stop breathing. At the peak of these sleep disturbances I would have a couple of nights where I wouldn’t sleep at all because it was so bad I would be afraid to go to sleep and if I did I would wake up with a fainting sensation. I would wear a finger oxygen/pulse reader and my oxygen level never would go below 94% but I’m not sure If I ever got a glimpse at the % right after a fainting spell. It normally ranges from 95-97% all year long. I just noticed recently since I’m in this problematic phase currently that my oxygen drops to 95% every few minutes when I’m trying to go to sleep when I start feeling pressure in my chest right before a palpitation then goes back up to 97% (The worst of these conditions only lasted a couple nights and seems to be getting better now currently). After a month or two after these sleeping issues subsided I started drinking Kombucha tea (pro-biotic) and my chronic heart palpitations stopped (coincidence?). Then I was feeling dependent on the Kombucha to keep my heart palpitations at bay.
It was many months later with no sleeping issues and free of heart palpitations that my chronic heart palpitations started back up (and I was still drinking kombucha everyday – darn it, it’s not helping anymore!) I had some more visits to my cardiologist and he recommended some sleep test which I followed up with that I’ve already explained above. The cardiologist said my heart health was fine and not to come back unless something happens and I have different symptoms or worries.
Side note - Right about after this time I found an article online about high vitamin D levels helping centralized sleep apnea so I started supplementing again - I didn’t think vitamin D was a reason for my first bout of chronic heart palpitations anymore and if it made my current palpitations worse I would stop. It didn’t raise my blood levels – lab work checked – probably because I wasn’t supplementing it right with high fats, k2, and magnesium. After that I started sun bathing which raised my levels almost up to the recommended 60ngml-80ngml levels. I’m now at 54ngml (2 weeks ago) and was at 35ngml. But I am currently in the midst of bad heart palpitations and sleeping trouble again ☹.
Back to my story - After almost a year of being a member of online holistic/biologic dental groups and learning the link of heart disease to oral health and root canals/cavitations, I decided to get my two remaining wisdom teeth extracted. I’ve previously had an emergency extraction of an old root canal that got infected and swelled my whole face up. I was starting to have the same symptoms with another root canal and decided to just have both removed and I’ve also heard through other members that it resolved their palpitations and many other health ailments. A few days before my extractions my heart palpitations seemed to have dwindled down a little (after 5 months of chronic palpitations) and the day before I was supposed to go in they pretty much stopped. As I was in the chair at my dentist office I was having palpitations again due to the anxiety most likely but right after that my palpitations were gone for a month (coincidence? maybe) I thought that had fixed the issue until they came back. The tooth meridian chart shows that the wisdom teeth are related to the heart and one of my root canals was in the very back next to my old wisdom tooth extractions which may very well be a cavitation which can cause palpitations. I thought maybe the tooth extractions mixed up and relieved some of the infection load and helped stop my palpitations for a while or maybe they just stopped because it’s just a cycle for me as my palpitations coming and going are starting to make a pattern. I’m starting to notice an oscillating pattern to my palpitations and sleep problems. My scalp psoriasis skin condition happened to go away the week of my root canal extractions and has been gone for 5 months now. So maybe my dental extractions helped that in the least. I plan to look into seeing if I have wisdom teeth cavitations that may be contributing to my heart palpitations but will wait since the consult and x-ray fees are $850 for the dentist I would like to see (non-invasive cavitation laser treatments) and am struggling to make ends meet at the moment.
Side note - Through the years I would wake up gasping at times during the night since my twenties even before my accident. This could be related to my obstructive sleep apnea or maybe a centralized sleep apnea that’s somehow related to my rbbb.
So I now have chronic heart palpitations (every 2-5 minutes) that are very bothersome (diagnosed as PVC’s – benign) and have been diagnosed with obstructive sleep apnea from a sleep study but think I have some form of centralized sleep apnea that comes and goes in several month intervals along with worsening palpitations.
I really don’t know where to go from here to fix my palpitations beside checking for cavitations and or if oscillation patterns of sleep apnea could really be centralized sleep apnea. If it is centralized sleep apnea is that common for it to come and go like it does? I’m trying to get some perspective. I’m at a loss and don’t know what to do with my issues.
-Tim
