Common symptoms
- Loud snoring, most nights
- Pauses in breathing that someone else has noticed
- Waking with a gasp or a choking feeling
- Waking unrefreshed however long you slept
- Daytime sleepiness, at work or at the wheel
- Morning headache or a dry mouth on waking
- A blocked nose, or breathing through the mouth at night
- Poor concentration and irritability
When to see an ENT specialist
- Snoring together with pauses in breathing at night
- Sleepiness during the day that affects driving or work
- High blood pressure that is difficult to control
- A child who snores nightly, mouth-breathes or sleeps restlessly
- Snoring that has clearly worsened, or has begun to disturb your partner’s sleep
- A persistently blocked nose alongside the snoring
Do not wait for an appointment. Falling asleep at the wheel, or waking repeatedly fighting for breath, needs urgent medical attention rather than a routine appointment.
How it is assessed
Snoring can come from the nose, the palate, the tonsils or the base of the tongue, and treatment only works if the right level is identified. Examination covers all of them: the nose first, then nasal endoscopy to look at the septum, turbinates and adenoid area, and video laryngoscopy to see the palate, tonsils and tongue base.
Where obstructive sleep apnoea is suspected, a sleep study is the test that settles it — it measures how often breathing stops and how far oxygen falls overnight. Dr. Mahesh refers for sleep study and, where hearing is also affected, for hearing tests.
Treatment
Simple measures come first and genuinely help some people: weight reduction where relevant, sleeping on the side rather than the back, and avoiding alcohol and sedatives in the evening. Treating a blocked nose — allergy treatment, or correcting a deviated septum — often improves both snoring and tolerance of other treatment.
Where a sleep study confirms significant obstructive sleep apnoea, CPAP is the established treatment. Surgery has a defined role rather than a universal one: removing large tonsils and adenoids is very effective in children, and palate or nasal surgery is considered in selected adults after the level of obstruction has been identified.
Frequently asked questions
Is snoring always sleep apnoea?
No. Many people snore without any pauses in breathing or drop in oxygen. What matters is whether snoring comes with witnessed pauses, gasping or daytime sleepiness. A sleep study is what distinguishes simple snoring from obstructive sleep apnoea.
Do I need a sleep study before treatment?
If the history suggests obstructive sleep apnoea, yes. Treating snoring without knowing whether apnoea is present risks leaving the more important problem untreated. Simple snoring with a clearly blocked nose may be managed on examination findings alone.
Will surgery stop my snoring completely?
It depends on where the obstruction is. In children with large tonsils and adenoids, surgery usually resolves it. In adults, surgery is one part of treatment and works best when the level of obstruction has been identified first by examination and a sleep study.
My child snores every night. Does that matter?
It is worth checking. Nightly snoring in a child, especially with mouth breathing, restless sleep or daytime tiredness, is commonly due to enlarged tonsils and adenoids and is treatable.
This page is general information to help you decide when to seek care. It is not a diagnosis — the right treatment depends on examination.