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Symptoms of Sleep Apnoea
Because sleep can be so disrupted by the body having to wake up briefly to reverse the upper airway obstruction, sufferers experience severe daytime sleepiness.
To start with this occurs only during potentially boring activities such as reading, watching television or driving on motorways.
However, when the sleepiness gets worse it begins to interfere with most activities, with patients falling asleep talking or eating.
Poor work performance can lose the sufferer his job and of course sleepiness whilst driving can be fatal (sleep apnoea sufferers are about seven times more likely to have car accidents).
Snoring will usually have been present for many years, and have gone well beyond a joke within the family.
There are many other symptoms that one would predict in someone seriously sleep deprived (irritability for example) but the twin symptoms of snoring and daytime sleepiness are the best pointers to the diagnosis.