'I had no idea I had condition until I drove off M1 into a tree'

Dave Whelan has been grumpy and tired for as long as he can remember. He is 46 now, but even as a teenager, he would doze on the sofa after school virtually every day. He can fall asleep at the drop of a hat and would even snore as a baby. It has been a bone of contention for most of his life, but he didn’t realise his noisy sleep sounds were the sign of something much more dangerous until he was in a near-fatal accident.

The train driver from Nottingham said: "The snoring has had a lot of different impacts on me and my family. From sleeping in separate rooms to allow my partners to get a good sleep, to missing family events due to being tired. My current partner has always been understanding about my being tired and grumpy and has always given me the space I need when particularly exhausted, but there have been occasions where arguments have broken out purely because of my fatigue. I was moody with my kids, easily irritated and could be snappy," Dave said.

Dave had been to the doctors multiple times about the snoring and tiredness, fearing it was sleep apnea is a sleep disorder that causes breathing to repeatedly stop and start while during sleep, preventing the body from getting enough oxygen. It can be dangerous and lead to serious complications, including heart damage, arrhythmias, and sudden cardiac death. But Dave’s concerns were repeatedly dismissed, and he was told the symptoms were due to smoking-induced inflammation of the nasal passage, shift work, allergies, poor diet - and even the incorrect pillow and mattress.

Then, in January this year, he crashed into a tree as he left the M1 driving home from work. "Coming off the motorway, there was a car in front of me that suddenly slammed on the brakes. I went to brake and the car didn’t seem to respond. I wasn’t stopping before I went into the back of the car in front, so I swerved to avoid them. I mounted the kerb and the grass was frosty, so the car wasn’t stopping, and I slid headfirst into a tree. The next thing I know, I’m surrounded by airbags and I can hear a voice asking me if I’m okay."

Dave was lucky to come out of the collision with little more than aches and pains, but after the crash, he was signed off work and he pushed his doctor for a sleep apnoea test because he felt his reaction time could have been affected by fatigue. His work - which he says has been really supportive - paid for a private ResMed sleep study, with shocking results; his reaction times were that of an eighty-year-old. The doctors diagnosed him with one of the worst cases of sleep apnoea they’d ever seen, with his breath stopping 54 times an hour.

He was told his sleep would need to improve to continue driving trains or cars and was instructed to sleep with a continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machine to keep his air before he could return to work. After using the CPAP machine, the improvement was immediate. For the first time in his life, Dave had a good night’s sleep.

"I’d had no idea what it felt like to wake up and not still feel tired, I genuinely thought when people woke up, they were still tired. In the month after getting the machine and returning to work, I was waking after 7 hours’ sleep, naturally, feeling so energetic.

"My mood instantly changed. I was happy, laughing and smiling. I was and still am getting up and doing things straight away rather than sitting for an hour or two waking up. The first two weeks I saw my partner cry so many times with happiness at the difference in me. My kids noticed I wasn’t so grumpy and had stopped shouting. I no longer nap in the middle of the day and find I can concentrate more. I stopped craving sugary foods to boost my energy levels," the father-of-two says.

Dave now jumps out of bed in the morning, bounces downstairs, makes tea and packed lunches, walks the dog, does the school run and regularly deep-cleans the house. He’s also seen big improvements in his relationship; he and his partner had been sleeping in separate rooms and snapping at each other.

"I wish I’d been able to go for a sleep study sooner, I can’t help but imagine what would have been had I been wide awake for most of my life. Day-to-day stuff has always felt a little difficult, like having a brain fog or walking through deep snow. But now it’s like living life in easy mode. It’s so hard to describe the massive change I have felt inside. Like a weight has been lifted. Everything is so much less of a struggle, and it is simply amazing to feel so much happier and positive about life in general. I’m Dave 2.0; a completely different person," Dave adds.