To an outsider, snoring sounds minor, but to Coco Hackett and the partners of the 15
million snorers in the UK it was anything but. She recalls: "Going to bed became a
dreaded thing. Every night it would be, how are we going to do this? Simon was afraid of
going to sleep; he would try to keep himself awake so that I could fall asleep before his
snoring stopped me.
But if he fell asleep first I knew it would be impossible, so I'go and sleep in a
different room. Or if I was exhausted, Simon would make up the sofa bed downstairs. I've
heard of couples in their fifties and sixties choosing to sleep separate beds, but it was
forced on us in our twenties."
Simon, 29, a marketing consultant in Brighton, adds: "I felt really guilty about
waking Coco and then I'd get fed up when she woke me. I felt I was being blamed for
something that wasn't my fault, although Coco was just frustrated."
Snoring had always been a bit of a joke in Simon's family. His brother snores and his
mother would regularly retreat to the spare room because of his father's snoring. When
Simon met Coco, who is also 29, in their first year at university, snoring was a problem
only if he'd had a lot to drink the night before. But it got progressively worse until by
the time Coco became pregnant three years ago they were spending three or four nights a
week in separate rooms.
The GP blamed it on the fact that pregnant women can be more sensitive to sound, which
didn't go down too well. To prove the point, Coco recorded Simon snoring; he was shocked.
Relations became even more fraught when their son Luca, now 2, was born. By ten weeks Luca
was sleeping through the night, but Coco and Simon were not.
Coco, a teaching assistant, recalls: "One night I was lying awake between the baby
and Simon thinking: I am never going to fall asleep again. I used to get so tired I would
fall asleep in the middle of writing e-mails of if I sat on the sofa when the baby went
for a nap. I was already suffering from sleep deprivation from night feeds; the snoring
was an added problem I didn't need."
Before Luca was born Coco tried earplugs, but they either fell out or gave her an earache,
and once the baby was born they were no longer an option. Meanwhile, Simon scoured the
internet for a solution and tried them all: nose strips, mouthguards, nasal drops, herbal
pills, new pillows, though he refused Coco's suggestions of sleeping with a tennis ball
strapped to his back.
He had always enjoyed a couple of glasses of red wine in the evening, but he gave up
alcohol during the week. When nothing worked, it simply added to his frustration.
It didn't help that their sex life had suffered. Sex for any couple with a young baby can
be a challenge, but for the Hacketts, snoring was another obstacle. Simon says:
"Inevitably if you're not sleeping in the same bed your sex life deteriorates. It
would be untrue to say that we went from a fantastic sex life to a desert, but it had a
huge effect."
By the time Coco heard about an operation that could treat snoring, they were both
desperate. Initially Simon thought it seemed a bit drastic, but he researched the
procedure carefully, discussed it with an anaesthetist friend and went for a preliminary
assessment at The Private Clinic (www.theprivateclinic.co.uk) in Harley Street. Surgeons
there found that his snoring was due to a larger than usual uvula, the dangerous extension
of the soft palate that hangs in the back of the mouth. He was, therefore, suitable for
the operation, in which a laser removes the lower part of the uvula and reshapes to rest.
The operation, which is not available on the NHS, took 20 minutes under local anaesthetic
and cost £1,600. Simon had to take strong painkillers for two weeks after the procedure,
but he felt it was well worth it. He soon knew it had been successful because he couldn't
make pig noises for his son any more - these days he makes do with "oink-oink".
Coco took a little longer to be convinced. For the first couple of nights Simon still
snored, but it was simply because his throat was swollen from the operation. She recalls:
"At first I thought I'd put him through all that for nothing. But, once the swelling
had gone down, I was waking up every morning thinking, Wow, I slept through the night!
I've become much happier, less moody and I have much more energy. Simon does, too, because
his quality of sleep has improved now that he doesn't snore.
"It's wonderful: we haven't had to sleep in separate rooms once."
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