Lately I wake up after about 2 hours of sleep and my heart's racing. I'm making an appointment after the holidays with my doctor but wanted to look into it earlier. Dear Dave, Thank you for your question. Ventricular tachycardias are more serious in nature and are due to a rapid depolarization of the ventricles. Sinus tachycardia is defined as a heart rate of greater than 100 beats per minute originating from the sinus node.
Sinus tachycardia is classified as either appropriate or inappropriate.
There are many causes of appropriate sinus tachycardia such as exercise, anxiety, panic attacks, dehydration, deconditioning, volume loss due to bleeding or other loss of body fluids, hyperthyroidism, electrolyte abnormalities and many other conditions. Inappropriate sinus tachycardia can only be diagnosed when all causes of appropriate sinus tachycardia have been ruled out. It is not clear what causes inappropriate sinus tachycardia but possible etiologies are an increase in the rate at which the sinus node depolarizes and an increased sensitivity to adrenaline. Once the diagnosis has been made by ruling out all of the potential causes of appropriate sinus tachycardia there are several treatment options. If the symptoms are not overly concerning no treatment needs to be done.