Does anyone wake up daily at 3am?

I take Trazadone

Yes. Every night. I used to do heavy international travel and never got k sr jet lag before I left again for an international trip (6+time zones). Can’t get over it. I do t won’t to take drugs.

I usually end of going to bed around 9pm, sometimes 10. Get a few hours sleep, then wake up around 2am and can't fall back asleep until around 4am. I then have to get up at 5am and get ready for work.

have the same problem except some times can go back to sleep at all

In a similar way, I typically wake up after 5 hours of sleep. My problem has been identified as “central sleep apnea.” My problem is severe, in that I just stop breathing, awaking in a fight or flight mode, with adrenaline surging thru my body. I have NO collapsing airway nor other blockage cutting off air supply. I just stop breathing, and my oxy level simply drops below minimum levels. The abrupt awakening is hard on my heart, and I recover by deep breathing for several minutes. I can go back to sleep and usually then sleep well and deep for 2-3 hours, awakening feeling good. You might consider wearing oximeter that records your oxy level all night, to record and then see what your oxy level was at the time you awoke. Just sharing my situation which may or may not apply to you. ///

When I wake up at 3#:00 pm it means my hormones (female) are off.

@chuckvrshek
Can you tell me if you purchased the oximeter that records all night oxygen online or was it medically prescribed? If online, which did you purchase? I have had 2 sleep studies which did not show sleep apnea but often have abrupt awakenings where my heart rate is elevated that I am thinking may be connected to low oxygen. If you have sleep apnea do you use a CPAP and doesn’t it help?

Thanks for asking and I’ll share my experience. My recording oximeter is no longer made and was not certified for medical use. But it worked well. Currently both Amazon and eBay have many “overnight sleep recording oximeters” for sale. The tech has greatly improved and are typically priced from $89 to $199 for the good ones. Insurance can pay for these if prescribed by your doctor. Some advertise you can pay for it from your medical saving account. Just enter the quoted name I typed above and both sites will bring up a huge display of good recording oximeters for sale.
Now as to a cpap machine, my pulmonologist prescribed one for me 10 years ago. It does help a whole lot as I used to have “events”, low oxy, 4-5 times per hour. (I have central sleep apnea not obstructive sleep apnea, which may be your situation.) With the machine, I still have a few events per hour but only 1-2 minor events that don’t wake me. But typically after 5 hours, I awake with an adrenaline pumping heart pounding event like I’m exercising. Then I have to get up and go to the bathroom as the kidneys really go to work with the adrenaline. Deep breathing for several minutes as I go back to sleep seems to help a lot and I do sleep deep for another 2-3 hours. If you are finally prescribed a cpap machine, the truly best ones are the ResMed series. I have a ResMed 11, and it’s been the absolute best of the 4 I’ve had. Do not, Do not purchase any Philips cpap machines as their recalls and legal situations have been significant. I hope my notes here will help you. Pressing your doctor with all the events that happen to you is critical to getting your doctor to take action! The overnight sleep recording oximeter should provide legitimate proof of low oxy levels. Best of luck and do press on!! ///

I'm curious about the waking-up-at-3am phenomenon too. I've suffered from it and read about people experiencing the same thing in different sections of Mayo Clinic Connect.

I've tried researching it and talking to doctors and specialists about it, but I haven't found any answers. I'm a night owl, so I was going to sleep at about 1:00 a.m., while others were heading to bed at 11:00. My solution, which isn't really a solution, has been to go to sleep later and later.

When I was waking up around 3 or 4, my heart would be racing, my BP would shoot up, and I would have "night terrors"—thinking there were snakes on the floor and/or sinister shadows lurking behind my door. I'd have to put all the lights on and sit up until I felt safe again. It was awful!

I started going to bed later and later. The sweet spot has been waiting until dawn started to break. That way if I woke up after a few hours, I could see that there was no one in my room nor snakes on the floor and go back to sleep. I'm retired now, so I can keep these strange hours, but obviously most people can't. I also take a lorazepam (1.5mg) just before going to bed, which seems to help. I'm still having sleep problems, but the rapid heartbeat, the high BP, and the waking nightmares have subsided, thank god.

I do have severe obstructive sleep apnea and some central apnea, but I've used a bi-pap religiously for 15 years and added oxygen a few years ago due to a diagnosis of hypoxia. I've had multiple sleep studies, but because the only hours I can get one are 9pm-5pm, they don't reflect my regular sleep schedule. Because of this, I don't cycle through my normal stages of sleep during the studies, and the results aren't necessarily what they would be on a normal night at home.

If no one has suggested this, and if you have had a sleep study that has not found anything, you might consider a continuous glucose monitor (CGM) -- I'm a fan of Freestyle Libre 3, which lets you just buy the sensors and use a free app to read them. You can get CGMs over the counter these days, but I don't really trust them to be accurate for low blood sugar levels, which is what this might (or might not) be. Note that Freestyle Libre is a prescription product, so you need a doctor to prescribe it, and if you are not diabetic it is very unlikely to be covered by insurance -- just call your pharmacy to get a price estimate, and make sure to tell both your doctor and your pharmacy that you plan to private pay. One sensor lasts for 14 days, which should be long enough for diagnostic purposes.

Doctors are not terribly useful for interpreting CGM results for non-diabetics, since until recently, only diabetics used them, so the data for non-diabetics is weak. Nonetheless, it's not that hard to see if your blood sugar correlates with your symptoms. If you indeed find that this is part of what's going on, you may be able to help the problem by (a) not eating carbs within a couple of hours of going to bed, and (b) eating something that is only a mix of fat and protein right before going to bed (such as, for example, a hard-boiled egg).

Be aware that for this to work, you need to keep your cell phone close enough to your body 24/7 for it to read the sensor. And although you can turn off most hi/lo glucose alarms, you can't turn off the alarm for a dangerously low glucose read, which will blast through every mute setting on your phone. I have discovered that I can sleep upstairs and keep the phone downstairs under a pillow, and the alarm will not disturb me or my husband. I can then read the history graph in the morning. (Dangerously low for a diabetic who may be at risk for hospitalization at that level is not necessarily dangerous for the rest of us -- it may cause symptoms, but honestly, if this is your problem and it was going to be truly dangerous, you would know that by now.)

See the attached photo for an example read.