man who slept 14 minutes a night enters land of nod

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Sleepless in Swindon - man who slept 14 minutes a night enters land of

nod. Doctors diagnose worst case of sleep apnoea in UK

· Machine to keeps airways clear 'changed my life'

* * The Guardian, Friday 8 February 2008

For almost two decades, Philip Skeates woke up dog tired, even though

he had just spent a good 12 hours in bed. He would get up for

breakfast, then stagger back to bed until noon. By eight at night he

was nodding off.

Eventually his wife persuaded him to seek medical help. Her husband,

39, was completely exhausted, and she was suffering too.

To the amazement of experts, he was diagnosed with one of the worst

cases of sleep apnoea - a condition that causes the airways to close -

that had ever been seen in Britain.

It meant that Skeates stopped breathing every 40 seconds or so during

the night. He would briefly wake up, without properly regaining

consciousness, and then fall back to sleep. And the process would

begin over again.

Doctors estimated Skeates was only actually sleeping for a few seconds

at a time, and for less than 15 minutes in total every night. " Every

day I would get up feeling exhausted, " he said. " I couldn't

concentrate and I was ratty with my family. I couldn't understand it

because I would fall asleep in my chair by 8pm and not get out of bed

for 12 hours. But in fact I was hardly getting any sleep at all. It

was miserable for me and it just wasn't fair on my family. "

He finally visited his GP because his snoring - an effect of the

condition - was so loud that his wife, , 40, a teaching assistant

and their three children, were kept awake. She also became alarmed at

how quiet and still her husband became in between the bouts of loud

snoring.

Skeates was referred to the Great Western hospital near the family

home in Swindon, Wiltshire, where his sleep was monitored and the

results were startling.

Doctors found he stopped breathing 90 times an hour. " The doctors said

it was one of the worst cases they had ever seen, " he explained. " I

was really only getting 14 minutes of sleep. "

Happily, Skeates is now getting a good night's rest for the first time

since the early nineties. The hospital arranged to have a continuous

positive airway pressure machine installed at Skeates's home. It

contains an oxygen mask and tube which he must wear while he sleeps.

The equipment forces air into the lungs and keeps the airways clear.

His snoring stopped instantly and within weeks he was feeling

refreshed after just seven hours of sleep. He has lost weight and is

learning to love life again.

Skeates said: " This has changed my life. The very first night I had it

I noticed a difference the next morning. Now I wake up in the morning

feeling so much more refreshed. "

Professor Straddling, consultant chest physician at the Churchill

hospital in Oxford, said there were around 300,000 sufferers of sleep

apnoea in Britain though only about one in five is diagnosed.

He said: " Many GPs and primary care trusts are unwilling to diagnose

sleep apnoea although it has a horrendous impact on these patients'

lives. This affects us all. Undiagnosed patients cost the NHS a lot of

money as they get older, and the condition affects us all in the form

of road accidents. "

Skeates said the cure had " reawakened " their marriage. " It's been

wonderful. Phil is so much more energetic and cheerful. For 17 years

the snoring got worse and worse until it was like sleeping next to a

pneumatic drill. It was horrendous.

" At most, I would get a couple of hours sleep, and I'm a teacher so it

was terrible. The children sleep upstairs and they could hear it

through the floorboards. I tried earplugs and sometimes, when it was

really bad, I would go and sleep on the sofa just to get a bit of rest.

" Now we have a laugh together again and we're also able to do things

as a family which we never did before because he was always so tired.

I've also been able to have a good night's sleep for the first time in

years. " ...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/feb/08/health.sleepapnoea