Do you feel sleepy all the time?

Snoring can cause increased sleepiness during the day, due to poor quality sleep caused by a range of conditions from sleep arousal (nearly waking up due to the sound of your own snoring) to obstructive sleep apnoea, to your partner constantly digging you in the ribs. Daytime tiredness obviously affects the ability to function / perform properly. Often when you wake up, it is like you have had little refreshing sleep – you feel tired.

Assess your daytime sleepiness

You can assess the significance of your own daytime sleepiness by working out your Epworth sleepiness score, which has been designed and validated by sleep experts in Australia:

Score these day to day situations as to the likelihood of you falling asleep, 0=never, 1=sometimes, 2=often 3=most times

The Epworth Sleepiness Scale

How likely are you to doze off or fall asleep in the following situations, in contrast to feeling just tired? This refers to your usual way of life in recent times. Even if you have not done some of these things recently try to work out how they would have affected you. Use the following scale and tick the most appropriate number for each situation.

Add the total of each ticked number to get your score.

A total score of 10 or more is said to be indicative of possible sleep apnoea or significantly disturbed sleep, and warrants at least an initial consultation with one of our ENT surgeons, who will thoroughly asses your whole upper airway, and will perform flexible endoscopy (not painful) and the Muller manoeuvre.