My heart rate is elevated while sleeping, almost all night, every night. Anyone else?

[Katsuzosb]

I just started wearing my Fitbit again and noticed that almost every night my heart is above resting nearly the entire night?! Once in a while I will have a night with 30 percent or so below resting. I have not worn it in a long time, but I was able to go back and see that this was already going on a year ago. I have stopped taking any medications before bed and have ruled out alcohol as a contributing factor. I am always extremely tired but I have been told to attribute it to my autoimmune thyroid disease. I don’t know why I never looked more closely at the restoration part of my sleep score. I’m floored by this info and I know some sleep tracking features are inaccurate. This is just heart rate, so it seems like it should be correct!? Does anyone else have a consistently above-resting heart rate at night - most or all night?

[SebWotan]

Hello @Katsuzosb 

I moved your post to the Sleep well section.

Well this is complex. I also look closely at this metric because I can feel that if my sleeping heart rate is under my resting heart rate, I am more refreshed. Various factors seems to affect this, for me most of my night I have around 90% below my resting heart rate. For the night where it is less than 90%, sometimes as low as 30% either I was very stressed, or had a somewhat tiresome day but not in a good way, or I am sick.

I also have an autoimmune disease (auto inflammatory) and when it acts up my sleeping heart rate is higher than usual. 

So I would say that in your case, it might be a contributing factor, maybe even the main. And is a sign your disease is making you fatigued. So not great news. Is there way to make your disease less active ?

[Katsuzosb]

For my Hashimoto’s I take thyroid hormone. I have talked to my doctor about
the ongoing fatigue before. It is a major symptom of the disease but with
medication my thyroid levels are made normal. So no one seems to think it
should really continue causing me fatigue. I have had my doubts. My body
might be trying to go into attack mode on my thyroid at night or something,
though my regular blood work indicates that, in theory, my thyroid should
not be very active because it is not having to make the hormone that I am
taking in pill form. The thyroid being less active should make my body
attack it less. Thank you so much for replying. If I may pry, are you
having a flare with your autoimmune disease when your nighttime heart rate
is above resting? Any thoughts on why it elevates at night rather than
through the day? Thanks again for your time!

[SebWotan]

It is a bit more complex than that, a flare would usually send up my nightime heart rate but also my resting heart rate goes up. So since they both increase, so sometimes I still stay somewhat under (around 70% for example). But no need to have a big flare, sometimes just a bad day is enough. 

It also elevates through the day if my disease is active, I see it clearly. 

[ShelaghG]

I have sleep apnoea  and I noticed the same thing when I had Premium. It was very noticeable that on the rare occasion my sleeping heart rate was below my resting heart rate for about 75% of the night, I felt amazing the following day. The amount of sleep I had didn't make much difference at all. Is it possible you have sleep apnoea?

[Katsuzosb]

Yes, it is possible. I don’t have any sleep apnea-only symptoms, but I
think it’s possible to never notice any breathing issues at night and still
have it? So, if I am having regular nights of 90-100% above resting should
I go to the doctor? Most nights it’s only elevated to about 10 beats per
minute on *average* over the course of the night (with spikes not exceeding
about 30 beats per minute over my resting). I do have some good nights,
though. Just cannot pin down the correlation. I welcome and appreciate
feedback!!!

[charleskn]

I also take thyroid medication for my underactive thyroid. Typically my sleeping HR is under my RHR about 90+% of the time.

However, if I eat carbs/sugar before bed, the number drops b/c it takes a few hours for my HR to settle under my RHR. Additionally, my resting HR is skewed high because I can't wear my Fitbit during the day at work, so I only wear it after work when I hit the gym, while sleeping and weekends. Fitbit calls my RHR at about 47 to 48 bpm, and I measure my RHR (during the day, at work) at about 39 to 42 bpm. I am fit, but not this fit.

The thyroid medication helped with my weight, but I also started having exercise induced heart arrhythmia, so I find I have to warm up carefully first to no jolt my heart into going from zero to sixty too quickly. I am also tired quite a bit, and get slightly light-headed after long periods of sitting, if I stand too quickly. My bottom line, I think, is that the thyroid meds help with some aspects, but not everything.

I am not a doctor, so my opinion is just that... I would talk to your doctor about this at your next visit.

[Greta004]

I also have Hashimoto's thyroiditis and I experience both hypo- and hyperthyroid symptoms. As much as I've understood, treating the thyroid with medications will not take away the symptoms, because the problem isn't your thyroid, it's your immune system (which is attacking you, instead of protecting you and it can start attacking other parts of you, that's why having one autoimmune illness increases the probability of getting another one). So the first thing is to find out what is flaring up your immune system and causing inflammation. In most cases, it's food, but also stress, over exercising.

For me, the biggest thing was gluten (probably because of molecular mimicry - its molecularly very similar to the thyroid and my immune system starts attacking it alongside with my thyroid). I didn't realise it was affecting me so much after I had stopped eating it completely for 4 months, accidentally ate a sausage containing wheat and woke up in the middle of the night with a pounding heart (10 bpm higher than my usual heart rate) and anxiety. Also, fun fact, I thought I had anxiety, even started seeing a psychotherapist, which didn't help at all and no wonder it didn't help, it was a Hashimoto's symptom 🙂 Inflammation in the body can cause a lot of inflammation in the brain, causing anxiety, panic attacks, depression, brain fog, memory problems etc.

So yes, heart rate is connected to Hashimoto's (based on my own experience) and the fatigue is definitely connected to Hashimoto's, no matter what your lab results say.

There's even a book about it: "Why Do I Still Have Thyroid Symptoms When My Lab Tests Are Normal" - by dr. Datis Kharrazian

Izabella Wentz also has great information in her books and blog: https://thyroidpharmacist.com/articles/

Just last week, I found dr. Martin Rutherford on youtube with very informative videos about Hashimoto's: https://www.youtube.com/c/MartinRutherfordPowerHealthReno/videos