Wife's Crazy Sleeping Heart Rate, Ideas?

[pwnorris]

I suffer from health anxiety and monitor my heart rate on an ongoing basis. For a younger person that sleep heart rate is within the normal range (as suggested in earlier posts). I'm not a medical practitioner but was advised that for a normal healthy adult the maximum heart rate should be no more than 220 - your age. And you should aim for 75% of that value during exercise. Therefore at age 40 you'd have a maximum rate of 180, and a target rate of 135 for normal exercise. But I'm sure there are more qualified folks on the board that can comment.

My heart ranges from 45 (and not because I'm fit; I have bradycardia) to about 90 during sleep. Though the 90 is generally when I'm having a "running dream". For more normal dreams I can hit 70 to 80. Running dreams usually wake me up. I have anxiety about not getting enough exercise - hence the occasional running dream! Heart rate varies with the sleep phase I was told.

If she wakes with a heart rate of 140 then you might want to get checked out, although as a sleep apnea victim, I've often had above 100 after a long apnea episode. Then my anxiety kicks in and I've hit 150. Anxiety is a more significant factor for heart rate than apnea in my experience.

At one time I had a magnesium deficiency caused by PPI drugs, and my HR would hit 120 sat at a desk. Dropped the PPI drugs and 6 weeks later my heart rate was normal again.

Anxiety over heart rate is a terrible thing by the way, because it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. The more anxious, the more cortisol and adrenalin, the higher the heart rate; the more anxiety; the more adrenaline... etc.

On the AFIB, I've found the Kardia devices to be very effective. And they have the advantage you can send the report to a cardiologist for review (the first one is free I believe). The resulting output is a 2 or 6 lead ECG and looks like the real thing.

[pwnorris]

Sorry just reread the thread. I see your point was that your wife's heart rate was above resting for 90%+ of the time.

That does seem odd, although to be honest, the increases don't seem particularly crazy, except in short spells, which would align with dreaming or restless sleep.

There are many causes of increased heart rate. For example, I can have an increase of up to 40 BPM above resting when suffering from a viral infection. Even a full bladder can cause increased heart rate. Is she on any medication? Medication I took following a heart attack caused my BPM to drop to less than 40 at one point. It's surprising the number of medicines that can have an impact on heart rate. PPI drugs (antacids) can affect magnesium absorption (among other things) and can cause cardiac arrythmia. Even Tylenol can cause tachycardia and other cardiac impacts.

Of course if the rate increases every night then there may be an issue. But we're all different and you can't compare with others. 

If you're concerned then get a cardiologist to prescribe a Holter monitor. These are devices attached to a belt worn around the waste with wires attached to the chest, or there are now "stick on" monitors that can monitor the heart wirelessly. The device records an ECG over several days, and there is software that reviews the results and notifies the medical practitioner of any unusual cardiac activity.

Unfortunately you may not find Doctors are particularly sympathetic because in my experience they don't even look at increased heart rate generally unless it's over 100 BPM, which locally is defined as tachycardia. And even then they don't seem particularly concerned unless you have other symptoms.