May have accidentally discovered the source of years long symptom 😅

I’ve been having some weird episodes that I think are blood sugar related (my doctor also said it sounds blood sugar related but haven’t confirmed).

But a few people mentioned POTS can also cause similar symptoms (specifically lightheadedness and other symptoms after eating). I’m pretty confident I don’t have POTS as I’ve had a lot of cardio work up in the past, but I figured why not do a standing test just for fun.

When I lay down for more than a couple minutes I get crushing chest pain, I have a hard time breathing, the room spins, my head hurts, and I feel really dizzy like I’m about to pass out. I’ve had this for like 10 years, my mom thought it was just because I’m skinny and don’t have padding or something, and it’s never been an issue since I just don’t lay down.

But for the sake of the test I laid down flat. My heart immediately started beating weird as it does when I lay flat. After about two minutes the room started spinning, it got hard to breathe, my chest started hurting, etc. then the oximeter starts beeping and I realize my heart dropped from 57 to 49. And then 45, and then 43, and then 38, then it got all the way down to 33.

And at that point I recalled episodes I had the previous year where I’d been hospitalized for my heart dropping into the 20s and realized the symptoms I had during those episodes were the same symptoms I have when I’m laying down.

So I’m now pretty confident I feel really weird when I lay down because my heart drops really low when I do so. Though it could have been a fluke, I felt the exact same as I always do when it’s happening. I’ll probably test it a couple more times in the future to see.

It would have been missed on all my Holters because I sleep sitting up and I’ve only ever had short 15-30 second EKGs, so I’ve never had to lay down long enough for the sensation to occur. When I’ve had multiple day long EKG monitoring in hospital it’s been with the bed reclined up so I’m sitting.

I don’t think this is an issue. My heart rate is naturally in the 50-55 range, and your heart rate is supposed to decrease when you lay down so it’s probably just a natural aspect of me being bradycardic. It’s easy enough to just not lay down (and due to my GI issues if I laid down I’d end up throwing up anyway), so I’m not worried, I just think it’s amusing that it took me so long to figure out why I feel horrible when flat 😅