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Dr. Andrew Rynne
MD
Dr. Andrew Rynne

Family Physician

Exp 50 years

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Having Heart Palpitations During Sleep

I have heart palpitations while I'm sleeping that wake me up, what should I do? I haven t seen a cardiologist yet but my doctors say I have Mobitz type I. I have not been able to find any evidence that this type of arrhythmia would cause night time palpitations. When I roll onto my stomach or side, my heart starts to pound and race, waking me up many times in the night. Does anyone know what this could be and what I could be doing about it (besides seeing a cardiologist, I already have an apointment with one coming up soon.) My blood chem. is normal and my cholesteral is normal, I m 27, married without kids and in college.
posted on Sat, 12 Dec 2009
Twitter Sat, 12 Dec 2009 Answered on
Twitter Sat, 12 Dec 2009 Last reviewed on
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Well if you have a history of a Second Degree Type one A/V block (Mobitz, or Weinkebacke) Then you absolutely need to talk to your cardiologist. Which you already stated that you will be doing. There are a bunch of things that can cause this. The first thing that pops into my head is that your A/V block may by have moved lower down. Which could cause you to get a Second Degree Type 2 Block. If this happens then occasionally your heart rate will slow down to below your ventricles intrinsic rate. (intrinsic rate is the beats per minute that the pacemaker cells in a certain part of your heart will fire at it they do not receive frequent enough signals from pacemaker cells above them) In other words you got this block in the A/V node, which is the pacemaker between the atria and ventricles. If conduction system cells below the A/V node do not receive around 40 signals a minute then these cells assume that the pacemaker cells above them are not functioning and they start to fire on there on, causing the ventricles to contract at a rate of about 40 bpm. Once your A/V node starts functioning correctly the pacemaker cells will stop firing on there own. Does that make sense? I hope so cause that is about the best I can do, lol. Good Luck Buddy! ;-)
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Having Heart Palpitations During Sleep

Well if you have a history of a Second Degree Type one A/V block (Mobitz, or Weinkebacke) Then you absolutely need to talk to your cardiologist. Which you already stated that you will be doing. There are a bunch of things that can cause this. The first thing that pops into my head is that your A/V block may by have moved lower down. Which could cause you to get a Second Degree Type 2 Block. If this happens then occasionally your heart rate will slow down to below your ventricles intrinsic rate. (intrinsic rate is the beats per minute that the pacemaker cells in a certain part of your heart will fire at it they do not receive frequent enough signals from pacemaker cells above them) In other words you got this block in the A/V node, which is the pacemaker between the atria and ventricles. If conduction system cells below the A/V node do not receive around 40 signals a minute then these cells assume that the pacemaker cells above them are not functioning and they start to fire on there on, causing the ventricles to contract at a rate of about 40 bpm. Once your A/V node starts functioning correctly the pacemaker cells will stop firing on there own. Does that make sense? I hope so cause that is about the best I can do, lol. Good Luck Buddy! ;-)