A recent Radio Eye documentary on ABC radio takes an intimate look into the lives of sleep apnea sufferers. The program, entitled: The Lonely Animal - a Snorer's Memoir focuses on Milan and Lisa, both of whom talk candidly about the effect of sleep apnea on their lives and relationships and their investigations into various treatment options ranging from earplugs, cpap masks, cpap machines, and didgeridoos…!

For the partners of someone with obstructive sleep apnea, life can be hard sometimes. As Milan puts it, his girlfriend became increasingly “sleep deprived and cranky”. The strain on one’s relationship will be well known to many sleep apnea sufferers. And the snorer’s themselves must not only live with their condition and all its health risks, but also the ire of those they love. Milan reveals that the “fear and loathing” of his partner who was regularly kept awake – until she began sleeping in another room - was seriously threatening the relationship.

Unlike Lisa, who felt she was “letting her partner down” through her condition, Milan remained philosophical. He states that he “never could feel guilty” and that he felt responsible even “cursed” but knew that he could do nothing about it. Besides, he was snoring when he met his partner, and for a while at least, the passion outweighed the suffering.

However, no earplug on the market is robust enough for Milan’s night noises and tensions continue to build. Milan embarks on a series of experiments with sleeping masks, and medical tests. At one stage his girlfriend states that she wishes he could suffer the way she does, for one night. Milan replies that he would like her to know what it’s like to wake up to a partner’s tortured face looking at him “as if he were a murderer”. At least she has the option of getting rid of the “despised snorer” whereas he is stuck with his “unwanted curse”. His relationship continues to ride out the various treatments and investigations that his condition requires; there is some concern about rising blood pressure due to the apnea. Meanwhile his partner begins research of her own and encourages him to take up the Didgeridoo, as it has been shown in a “Swiss study” to improve breathing and snoring!

While the documentary leaves Milan and his girlfriend experimenting with options and having found some hope, Lisa’s story ends differently. Her apnea was occurring about one hundred times an hour and represented a major health risk. Perhaps like many women, Lisa experienced her snoring as a threat to her femininity and felt isolated by her condition, stating that she felt like women aren’t supposed to snore. At first she has a hard time believing that her snoring is as loud as her partner describes, but within six months he has moved into another bedroom, confirming her worst fears.

She becomes tearful as she describes the levels of intimacy in her relationship being eroded. Eventually Lisa finds that a CPAP machine enables her to sleep peacefully but unfortunately it is too late to repair her relationship.

Despite this, Lisa takes comfort in her knowledge that sleep apnea doesn’t “define” her, and recognises that the relationship may have ended anyway for other reasons. Her biggest regret seems to be that she was not diagnosed earlier. Perhaps with the hope that good information can bring plus the advantage of a CPAP machine, things would have turned out differently.

You can download this program from the ABC site at: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/radioeye/stories/2008/2338924.htm