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Romance and snoring........the best cure

Friday, September 1, 2006

He likes a strong breeze blowing through his bedroom at night. She prefers half a ton of doonah. His tendency is to open all the windows and even install a skylight.

She prefers a mask, claustrophobic curtains and complete darkness. Are we joking? Not at all. Two of this century’s most famous incompatible sleepers were Prince Charles and the late Princess Diana. He liked complete darkness and heavy curtains whereas she allegedly preferred filtered light and a gentle breeze.

Sounds familiar? If you need a soft bed and your buddy likes the stimulation of railway sleepers under his back then don’t panic. All is not lost. Incompatible sleep habits makes you fairly normal. Surveys indicate that a relationship has to be rock solid, if one partner is to tolerate “sleepus interruptus.”

Nine percent of women and 24 per cent of men in Australia suffer from treatable obstructed sleep apnoea. Even newborn babies can suffer from the disorder.

Sleeping Disorders of Australia was established to offer comfort and up-to-date information to incompatible sleepers who also suffer from sleep apnoea. It occurs when the upper airway is obstructed by the tongue and soft palate.

The misery of constant arguments, sleeping separately and marriage breakups can be prevented if sufferers take advantage of available medical help, according to Mr Joe Soda, a spokesman for SDA.

You snorers…........No more alcohol and eating nuts after 5p.m.

Males who snore can help their cause by chivalrously sacrificing their nightcap of alcohol which relaxes the throat muscles, making them vibrate. Alcohol and the eating of nuts is tailor-made for boosting snoring and sleep incompatibility.

Romance is quickly forgotten if he snores.

Anyone nervous of Ear Nose and Throat specialists, and subsequent surgery, may find a cheaper solution by visiting old-timers not affected by the Hollywood togetherness thing. Ignore their worn out hairbrushes, bottles of liniment or dentures soaking in glasses of water.

It’s time to get old fashioned. They know something we don’t.

As the 21st century stumbles on it may surprise social engineers that there are still couples with separate rooms, who have scant regard for social expectations or soggy movies. Many well-slept couples have separate beds.

Just imagine what these socially inept folk have missed. Years of not suffering someone else’s mindless sleep prattle. Unable to remember the last time they had to wake up a sleepwalker.

Robbed of the joy of rousing their loved one from a nightmare. Never knowing the pleasure of being socked on the jaw for their trouble. Some have enjoyed years of uninterrupted but glorious sleep.

Could this night separation mean fewer arguments and less broken sleep leading to fewer broken marriages? It can.

Case histories:

Rosemary of Rockhampton attributes her morning vigor to a good night’s sleep. Getting children off to school and a solid day at the office never fazes her. She claims that romance actually improved after she and her airline-pilot-husband decided he could snore his brain off in his very own bedroom.

A “real man” has no problem with the spare room.

Craving a good night’s sleep

Contrast this with Carol, a telephonist from Nambour who regularly suffers from tiredness.

“My hubby got offended, thinking that I didn’t love him after I suggested separate rooms. It’s a non-subject in our house but I still dream of getting a good night’s sleep,” bemoaned the shiftworker.

The inconsistent British aristocracy has sometimes been blamed for the problem. It has been acknowledged that many well-heeled gentry had a public image of togetherness while privately luxuriating in separate rooms. Only the working classes, often unable to afford a spare room, knew the joys of snoring two or more to a bed.

Today not a few couples will admit that sneaking into each other’s rooms, after lights out, has meant an enhanced relationship and not taking each other for granted.

The serious bit

Now for the serious bit. Dire social fallout was unearthed by Brisbane Psychiatrist Dr Curt Gray in a survey of 136 sleep apnoea sufferers and a further 23 heavy snorers. One half were sleeping separately and most had poor concentration and memory lapses. There were guilt feelings of work related problems and not being able to keep up with their families.

Trying to suck a thick shake through a thin straw illustrates the nightly struggle to draw breath experienced by sufferers of obstructive sleep aponea, according to a sleep scientist with Princess Alexandra Hospital’s Sleep Laboratory.

After years of listening to a snorer, some wives secretly hope their husband “pops off the twig.”

Sleeping tablets make the problem worse and it may only lessen with weight loss, decreased alcohol intake or surgery.

Could a septoplasty be the ideal anniversary gift for a partner who has everything but breathes like a steam engine? A septoplasty, which allows more air to flow through the nasal passages can be done for as little as $354. This price can be halved if the op is combined with laser treatment of the soft palette, Uvulo-Palato Pharyngoplasty or UPPP, which carries the scheduled fee of $531. Yet the AMA recommends a fee of $980 for this procedure and a surgeon may charge somewhere in between. Health funds negotiate surgery prices with individual hospitals. (add a bit on for inflation)

Allow another $213, which includes theater fee, for overnight stay at a hospital like Brisbane’s Princess Alexander, and $460 for the anesthetists. The Wesley Hospital, being private, charges a $1130 theater fee and $500 for luxury overnight accommodation.

Tennis ball sewed to back of pyjamas

Costing almost nothing is the “no frills” tennis ball sewn onto the back of a snorer’s pyjamas. One specialist suggested this may save a mate from continually rotating the snorer.

Since 1983 the sleep lab has assisted 3,000 aponea patients to get a blissful night’s sleep using a continuous positive airway pressure or CPAP mask. This acts like an air splint keeping the upper airways open by delivering air at a slightly increased pressure.

Sleeping in the spare room has no bad effect on a true romantic

Rather than being noisy it sounds like the hum of a fan. Does it kill romance? To some partners, romance covers anything that offers a good nights sleep. If a truck-load of machinery did the job then that would be acceptable.

Our sleep scientist says that the brain of a normal sleeper wakes them 10 to 15 times per hour compared to one sufferer named Fred whose brain regularly woke him 120 times per hour. His brain was continually starved of oxygen, dropping from a normal 95 per cent to 60 percent.

Serious repercussions result when victims fall asleep while driving or working. The lucky ones just have morning headaches, loss of energy, irritability, bad concentration, forgetfulness, mood changes, anxiety, depression and lack of interest in sex.

Yet more case histories:

Fred of Brisbane had the above problems while operating cranes, trucks and heavy machinery. For years life was just a struggle. It is now back on track because he learned how to use a CPAP machine.

Bill, also of Brisbane, took the surgery option. He considers himself a macho man who would not dream of giving up his nightly relaxant of amber fluid. His hairdresser wife took 20 years to get him to the ENT but she now has the object of her craving, a blissful night’s sleep.

It takes a tough guy to sleep in the spare room.

Romance and sleep deprivation have nothing in common according to Rose, a teaching consultant from Park Ridge. “Sleep deprivation is a form of torture and I will not be tortured,” she says. She considered asking hubby John, fortunately a builder, to knock up a granny flat for himself.
She describes his snoring, two rooms away from the main bedroom, as like a trumpeting elephant.

“He thinks he gets lonely but you can’t be lonely whilst asleep, and I am a woman demented if I don’t get my share,” said Rose.

Yasmine of Burwood in New South Wales offered an opinion to columnist Ruth Ostrow that she and her mate had increased their togetherness by sleeping separately. She referred to the sleep interrupted group as “old fashioned couples, joined at the hip, at risk of boring each other to death.”

Oddly, no follow-up letters of agreement appeared.

The alternate sleeping movement has been slow to catch on but one thing seems certain. If most snorers were female instead of male, ENT specialists would be swamped and town planning officials would be run off their feet with applications for granny flats.

Blind tradition, romance and snoring can not be fitted into the same bedroom.

(Sanderson Media's breezy writing style and great images can get your message out to the world) contact john@sanderson-media.com

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Comments

good stuff ,,well written. funny and interesting.
— karol Jul 31, 6:36pm #
That’s great john – pleasure to read in this concentrationally disfunctionally ravaged world we live in… I wish i had an article you could write for me.I will keep my ear to the ground for you of course.

Gregg
— Gregg McDonald Aug 3, 9:35am #

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