How to tell if it’s just snoring or sleep apnea?

[Doio]

DH snoring has become quite loud. Never remember it being this bad until a few months ago.

He has always been a mouth breather in his sleep, but claims this is because he broke his nose playing sport as a teenager so it’s never been quite as easy to naturally breathe through your nose at night.

It is really quite loud snoring, but only intermittent. Ie he might do 5 really loud snores and then fall totally silent and make like a clicking noise, then return to snoring again. As far as I can tell he’s not stopping breathing. He isn’t particularly tired or and no headache in the day which are the symptoms

How do you know if it’s just normal snoring or sleep apnea?

You need a sleep study. Via the GP (referral to a sleep \ lung function clinic); or private referral; or you could buy a pulse oximeter and do it at home for reassurance eg viatom checkme (they are £100-£150) - you will need to turn off the vibrating alerts (in the settings) to do the equivalent of a sleep study.

If he’s making respiratory effort (chest/abdo moving) but there’s no sign of air moving at the mouth/nose then that sounds like obstructive sleep apnoea. How significant it is depends on how often it happens/whether it affects his oxygenation. Best bet might be to take a video of an episode so he can take it to his GP.

Thank you. I have noticed his tongue seems to fall back a bit actually but not sure if this is what happens to everyone when we’re asleep - I guess I wouldn’t know if it happened to me because my mouth is shut.