A nasty fall left me with a terrible snoring problem

Debbie Byers fell flat on her face on these stairs in Edinburgh

When Debbie Byers fell on concrete stairs, she broke her nose and cracked her cheekbone.

Over the next week her face began to swell and bruise - and she developed a terrible snoring problem.

"I've never snored in our 18 year marriage but my husband says since my accident in March I've been like a fog horn," she told BBC Scotland News.

Doctors say the fall caused a problem with her nasal septum - the bone and cartilage which separates the nostrils.

Now she hopes to undergo surgery to ensure both she and her husband can get a better night's sleep.

'My snoring is even disturbing me'

The 51-year-old said: "I wake myself up snoring now or have an extremely dry mouth so I'm waking up with a choking sensation.

"I need a full night's sleep as my snoring is even disturbing me.

"My husband has been saying he's not getting any sleep because my snoring is monumental now and that I was never like this before my accident.

"It's because I can't breathe through my nose so my mouth is open and roaring and is also really dry. It's awful."

Debbie Byers' face was bruised and swollen for a month after she fell on concrete stairs

The mother-of-one was walking up steps over a railway line in Edinburgh in March when her accident happened.

"I literally landed flat on my face and everyone could hear the crunch in my nose," she said.

She had "zero chance" to get her hands out of her pockets in time to break her fall.

"Blood was gushing out of my nose, not my nostrils but from the bridge of my nose," she said.

The next day Debbie, the director of Beeline PR, woke with a very swollen face.

When the bruising got worse she was advised to go to hospital where medics told her she had damaged the cartilage in her nose and fractured her cheek bone.

"I explored private options knowing how busy the NHS is but the price quoted was beyond my financial capabilities," she said.

Now she is waiting for a NHS referral to have a septoplasty - a procedure to reshape the septum by adding or removing bone and cartilage.

"My nose feels blocked all the time now and it's hard to blow my nose," Debbie said.

"It needs a procedure called septoplasty because it just doesn't feel right and that's why I'm snoring.

"My snoring has also been getting worse as the weeks go on since my accident."

Debbie Byers did not snore before her accident.

Dr Renata Riha, a medical sleep consultant and honorary associate professor at Edinburgh University's sleep research unit, said Debbie's snoring problem could be solved with medical intervention.

"It's probably as a result of the fracture in her nose so she's probably impaired her upper nasal patency (a measure of how open the nose is) and she's using her mouth to breathe.

"It's like when you get a cold and you breathe through your mouth and she's developed the snoring as a result of that.

She added that she thought surgery would work because Debbie had not snored before her accident.