Why does my heart beat fast at night?

Near fainting/fainting, heart arrythmias, irregular beat, night sweats and dizzyness when excercising?I'm 16?

• age 10- *. my heart would always race for no reason, like if i was eating or trying to go to bed, i could feel it pounding in my chest, thought nothing of it as i was very active as a kid. age 11: * first started to get palpilations, where i will get an extreme rumbling sensation in my chest, followed by a 2-3 second pause & irregular beat of stopping and starting, can last for up to an hour of irregular rythm every 10-20 beats, thought nothing of it. age 12 * fainting episode. my mom was at the store, and i suddenly felt myself as if i was choking and fell to the floor. i can hardly remember it but i am sure i blacked out. when i woke up i felt very cold and tired, until then this has not happened again. age 13 * sleeping disturbances. when i am sleeping i will be woken up 3-4 times by the sensation of a jolt in my chest, chest pain, night sweating, and feeling suffocated eg. waking up gasping for air age 14: * I now experience sharp chest pains on occasion that makes it hurt for me to breathe, lasts for 10 minutes at most. age 15 * Night sweats and sleeping have gotten much worse. same with the arrythmias. The arrythmias are twice as uncomfortable and occur much more often; often in episodes. I will be in a near-fainting situation whenever this happens age 16 * Around my eyes are getting darker, even though i sleep as much as the average teenager and don't suffer from insomnia. I usually sleep well. my fingers and feet are always really cold and blue/pink even if I wear mittens/gloves I am always really pale. I get sick more often than I used to. I am also more sensitive to cold than I usually was. What's happening? I thought nothing of this as a kid! but now I'm really scared. I overheard my mother talk about my Grandma's heart murmur and the heart history of our family (my Grandpa has Arterial Fibliration or however its spelled.) And my brother is being suspected of having an irregular heartbeat accompanied by chest pain. (he's 9.) Could I have a heart problem? My family knows and I am getting checked up about it, but they seem to be ignoring it. I won't have a heart scan until December

• Answer:

  You may be adding up all sorts of unrelated events and coming up with a huge problem that doesn't actually exist, but there could be something to this. You may have an arrhythmia, but arrhythmias are generally not a medical risk. Nothing you have described indicates a serious heart problem, but it does look like you have some type of intermittent breathing problem that might actually be asthma. There is one type of asthma that occurs primarily at night. When a person has an asthma attack, the airways constrict which causes CO2 to build up in the bloodstream. The body responds by increasing the pulse rate which would normally increase the rate of gas exchange in the lungs and quickly fix the problem. With asthma, the increased pulse rate doesn't fix the problem. Sweating, chest pains, heart palpitations, and panicky feelings are commonly triggered by an asthma attack. If the problem is not caused by asthma, sleep apnea is another breathing problem that occurs at night. There are several different types of apnea, but the effects are the same as asthma - rapid pulse, sweating, and briefly gasping for air. It's not a good idea to wait until December if you have a breathing problem. You could see your regular doc for this.