Tommy Tiernan has revealed that he was diagnosed with sleep apnoea this week after he spent the night in hospital to get checked out.
Finding he has been waking up very tired every morning and desperate for fresh air, the stand-up comedian decided to visit a specialist hospital to get his condition assessed.
On the most recent episode of The Tommy, Hector and Laurita Podcast, the Saturday night chat show host explained the ins and outs of the examination, which involved being strapped up to several machines and having his night's sleep monitored.
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Tommy arrived to the hospital at lunchtime and spent most of the afternoon and early evening getting accustomed to the apparatus before the machines were turned on at around 10pm to begin monitoring his sleep.
"I had to get this sleep apnoea thing checked out," Tommy explained. "The question was do I or do I not have sleep apnoea because sleep apnoea is not just snoring, sleep apnoea is where your body isn't getting enough oxygen.
"If you're not getting enough oxygen, I guess you're waking up every morning feeling exhausted and the first thing I want to do when I wake up in the morning is stick my head out a window. It's like I need the vitamins that would be in the air first thing.
"They got me in for 1 o'clock because they strapped me up like a suicide bomber, I had eight wires stuck to my head to monitor brain activity, I had three going across my forehead, I had two on my chest and wore three straps across my chest - each one with a machine on it, weighted on my chest - and I had two on my leg to monitor leg movement. They put the stuff on me early so I could get used to it so by the time the evening came around, I'd be used to it and be able to fall asleep."
After being officially diagnosed with sleep apnoea, Tommy has committed to using a CPAP machine, which will aid him in getting oxygen into his body every night, though he joked that he'll now have to take the machine on the road with him when he tours the country performing stand-up comedy.
The 53-year-old has yet to find out the cause of his sleep apnoea, however, he is led to believe that it may stem from a soft palate flutter.
He continued: "They gave me a sleeping tablet because they wanted me to fall asleep so I took that, fell asleep and then the guy comes in in the morning and collects a little mini-disc or card, he takes it out of the machine, he goes away and he plugs it into a reader. The reader gives all the information from your brain - I slept with something up my nose and in my mouth to monitor oxygen and airstream.
"He comes back at around quarter past nine and I had slept. He said, 'you definitely have sleep apnoea!'...
"He told me there were two ways I could go about it. He said, 'you can leave it and do nothing about it because it's on the mild end or you can go for the CPAP machine.' So I'm going for that!
"You wear a mask and a strap across your head. It doesn't look great... It forces oxygen into your body and your man told me that it's a bit uncomfortable for the first few days but you get used to it.
"So you sleep with a strap going around your head and a mask, and there's air pressure so your body wants the oxygen but it can't take it because of the shape of your face so it forces oxygen into your body."
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