Pillow Positions/Left-Right

[Jeremy H]

For me, the position of my head on my pillow has as much of an effect as the pressures. I use a sleep number bed set to 100%. I use 2, 2" thick foam king size pillows I made from a used foam insert for the bed. Makes it easy to adjust the height of my head for best comfort. I sleep on my left or right side mostly, sometimes on my back.
I noticed that when I sleep on my left side, my airway opens up more if I lower my head by removing 1 foam pillow, lower by 2". On my right side, the airway opens up more if I raise my head up with adding another 2" pillow. 

I've read about positional apnea, is this the same thing? I can't sleep on 1 side all night as it aggravates my lower back pain, so I have to switch throughout the night.

[Sleeprider]

Positional apnea the way we usually think of it here is the result of a bend in the cervical spine in any direction that obstructs or restricts the airway. A common mechanism is chin-tucking from elevating the back of the head, but we know that the problem is 3-dimensional.

[Jeremy H]

Yeah I see, this is more of a right to left shift than forward to back. I have noticed as I sit upright in a chair, and totally relax the muscles in my neck, my airway closes down unless I tilt my head backwards. It seems it takes conscious effort to keep the airway open.

[Sleeprider]

That is exactly the screening exercise we suggest in the Positional Apnea wiki http://www.apneaboard.com/wiki/index.php...onal_Apnea