‘Vacuum cleaner turned the other way’ becomes a fix for snoring

When Nick went camping he set up his tent 100 metres away from the group. “It became a bit that I did,” he says, after years of using humour to cope with the “cacophony” of his snoring. In 2019 a doctor’s visit revealed an “alarming” blood pressure reading and, after reporting frequent “uncontrollable” daytime tiredness and micro sleeps, he underwent a sleep study where he first saw a CPAP machine — continuous positive airway pressure, a device with a long tube attached to a mask.

Diagnosed with severe obstructive sleep apnoea, he slept four hours on the machine and called the first uninterrupted sleep he’d had in adulthood “just completely revelatory.” Interest in treating snoring and sleep apnoea has grown as measurement technologies improved and awareness rose.

Peter Cistulli says the condition was once considered rare and treated only by tracheostomy; now there are several less-invasive options.

snoring, cpap, sleep apnoea, obstructive apnoea, sleep study, micro sleeps, daytime tiredness, blood pressure, tracheostomy, mask