Insomnia racing heart please help

I am sorry. I don't know much about the GERD drugs that you have mentioned but this seems to be an awful lot of different drugs to take in such a short time.  Effexor is a strong anti-depressant.  I know someone who took just one tablet a day to begin with and she became like a zombie for two weeks with no ability to think and could hardly even stand up for the first few days.  This may have been an extreme reaction as she had a small frame ,I am not sure, but I think you should research the drug on the net before he takes it. 

Thank you both for the replies!  Since I wrote this post, he stopped taking the Zantac and switched to Gaviscon.  So far, cross your fingers, his insomnia and racing heart seems to have COMPLETELY disappeared!  At least, we have a pattern of two nights, anyway.  It could be that he just couldn't tolerate the PPIs or Zantac.  I  think his doctor is VERY trigger-happy with prescriptions, and I'm so glad he didn't take the Effexor.  I couldn't believe it when he tried to explain to us why that was a good idea, before we had even worked out whether or not my husband was having bad side effects to the meds.  Since MOST people tolerate PPIs and H2 blockers well, his doctor just didn't want to hear it when my husband reported these side effects.  He just wanted to treat the side effects with more drugs.

As for the heart question, he has had a resting EKG as well as a stress test on a treadmill, and his heart is healthy.  Weird, huh?  It was either the GERD meds or anxiety making his heart race, most likely a combination but mostly a bad side effect to the meds. Even if anxiety was part of the problem, Effexor seems like a very, very bad choice.  I think the doctor just happened to have samples.

 I love this board!  Thanks so much for listening.

Cardinal, I experienced 2 weeks of those symptoms while on Prilosec prescribed for reflux that started after taking Tagamet for a week as a result of stomach pain after drinking, in quick succession, coffee and a cola drink (ouch!). The doctor switched me to Protonix and the symptoms stopped suddenly, but she referred me to a counselor, as she thought it was anxiety. However, I can assure you the racing, pounding heart, insomnia (waking up every few hours just like your husband), and freakish feelings did not feel at all like the anxiety I had experienced prior to my bout with GERD.

I am more inclined to agree with CathyA that those palpitations ect. had more to do with pressure on the vagus nerve while I had the GERD flare-up. As soon as the reflux got more under control, my heart calmed down and I started sleeping more. It took me one month to regain my normal sleep patterns. Excercise and herbal teas, as prescribed by an herbalist helped my sleeping a lot. Please give my sympathy to your husband!

It's amazing that some of us know for sure that something is causing symptoms, but the docs seem never to have heard of it! I know for me, it was so comforting to hear others talk of occasionally irregular heartbeats with their GERD.........but it seems like very few docs have heard of that. I'm always sooooo comforted when a doctor actually knows some of these things!
I also find it amazing that some GERD drugs work very well on some of us, and not at all on others. The H2 blockers did nothing for me, nor did prilosec, but aciphex was like a miracle drug for me. So I encourage people to not give up, just because one drug doesn't work.
Good luck to your husband Jen. I know all too well how frightening the nighttime can be with anxiety. Everything seems so much worse then.

P.S. Jen,  just wanted to add that during my several years of nighttime hell, I realized that when my GI track is busy, my brain is busy.  When I would eat before going to bed, not only is that really bad for GERD, but it actually keeps our brains busy.  I found that I could be much calmer, by not eating anything for at least 4 hours before bedtime.  Did you know that they call our GI tract our "second brain", because it too secretes neurochemicals?   So maybe if your husband has a tendency to eat before bed, have him try not doing it, and see if it leads to a calmer, less scary night.

Post Edited (CathyA) : 5/26/2006 12:58:04 PM (GMT-6)

Just doing a routine search of the web I found this post. It is the first time I have heard of anyone with similar symptoms to me and I have registered here to share some thoughts.

I very much agree with the people who believe that GERD is linked with sleep disturbances, strange brain activity and palpitations. These have been the symptoms I have suffered for years and no doctor I have ever spoken to has been able to understand the mechanism by which I am, like your husband, affected.

These are my thoughts and solutions:

It is either as oesophageal inflamation (as one member suggests) or stomach pressure which triggers a vagus nerve reaction causing the palpitations and the panic attack. With me there is an extra sensation of acute tiredness. Because of this and feeling unwell, the last thing one wants to do is get up out of bed. For me the answer is this: YOU MUST. Get up and walk around. For me this allows trapped stomach wind to come up and relieve the pressure in the stomach. In this manner I am able to bring up a huge amount of belched wind (sorry for description but necessary). I must stress that I never feel like I have trapped wind UNTIL I get up. After perhaps fifteen minutes I can go back to bed and sleep like a baby with no symptoms at all. Please try this. No drugs involved or nothing. Believe me, I have had every drug under the sun and nothing works like this for me. This has taken me years to work out, as I say the trapped wind is not obvious until, despite wanting more than anything to curl up in bed, I get up and then I find the wind is there and ready to escape. Lying down must prevent this.

I really hope this helps. I just had to write, seeing that your husbands symptoms were identical to mine. Hope this solution works for him too. I thought I was going mad with the weird brain effects at one time.

Good Luck.

Did you know a lot of people with GERD have constipation or diarrhea when they have attacks? I know it's personal but if your husband does not use the bathroom (#2) twice a day, filling up toilet halfway, not diarrhea, he might have IBS or irritable bowel syndrome. If you get the IBS handled then the GERD just needs to be monitored through diet, no medicine except maybe heartburn pills only so often. Avoid citric foods alcohol and chocolate. All you need to be prescribed for the IBS is a laxative something like miralax. Once he is all cleaned out with one to two doses a day til good bathroom results, you can move off the laxative and start a fiber regiment. Two doses of fiber a day. Mix it up: you can have bran flakes or oatmeal in the morning and a smoothie at night with flax seed or chia seed. Flax seed can bought fairly cheap in the Walmart baking section.. Under $4 for a box.
As far as the heart palpitations go, have him evaluated when he does not have an attack happening. If he has heart palpitations then I can tell you that I know for sure: BETA BLOCKERS CAN GIVE YOU HEART PALPITATIONS. Or maybe something is wrong with the heart. Either way have a heart doctor do a two week or one month monitor, trust me I went thru a slew of tests with my heart, and passed all of them with flying colors. Now I'm 32 with a pacemaker! Go figure!