Cure found for 20 sleepless years

A man who averaged just 14 minutes a night sleep for nearly 20 years because of a medical disorder has been cured.

Philip Skeates, 39, has sleep apnoea, which causes his airways to become blocked, causing him to snore loudly and leaving him exhausted every day.

Doctors at Great Western Hospital in Swindon monitored him and found he stopped breathing 90 times an hour.



A machine with a mask which helps open up breathing passages now helps him get up to seven hours sleep a night.

He said that since he began using the continuous positive airways pressure (CPAP) machine, life had improved immensely.

Photo from here.