(05-27-2021, 08:26 PM)Hydrangea Wrote: I'm very prone to aerophagia. I've learned some tricks from here that really help me. One of the tricks that is very helpful for me is to elevate my head & shoulders higher than my esophegial tract(?). BUT the way I've been doing that has been causing me neck pain. So please help advise!
I had similar aerophagia and GERD problems---with a further complication of foot edema from my feet being positioned too low after I elevated the head of my bed.
I eventually found a permanent solution which has worked wonderfully. You could reproduce my solution with these sequential steps:
(1) I gradually raising the head of my bed with concrete blocks and 2"x6" blocks under the two legs. It eventually reached 12 inches.
(2) I bought and cut two 3/4" plywood rectangles to serve as a "wedge platform" under my head-end of the mattress (between mattress and the "box frame".) It stops roughly at my pelvis, such that putting different sizes of 2x4 and 2x6 supports between the two plywood rectangles under my mattress created an inclined plane/wedge which raised my head another 5 inches or so.
(3) Because of my foot edema from my feet being below my heart, I put an old couch cushion between the foot-end of my mattress and the "box" below it. That puts my feet about even with my heart and leaves my knees slightly flexed and very comfortable.
The end result (aided by a plain pillow where necessary) is basically a /\_/ shape (but much flatter than that extreme, obviously) and it cost me very little money. My back has been at its best in years, my GERD resolved [Don't need pantoprazole anymore], and the foot edema disappeared. My AHI gradually drifted down.
I'm nearly 6.5 feet tall so not everybody needs my 17 inch elevation but I started building this "bed system" after reading medical journal articles about reducing obstructive apnea via upper-body elevation. [And I couldn't imagine a way to do it safely with pillows alone.] And I couldn't simply keep adding blocks under the legs at the head of my bed because the sheer lateral force from gravity was going to break the wooden posts. That is why I divided the "raise" between the blocks on the floor and the inclined-plain/wedge I built from plywood.
It is absolutely essential not to bend the back or neck unnaturally---so a rigid 3/4" plane with horizontal supports was necessary to preserve the back-line.)
For even more comfort, I added an 8inch thick memory foam "mattress topper". When I have sleep studies, the expensive bed in that sleep lab is adjustable in multiple ways via motors but it is not necessarily as custom-fitted to my body as what I built. My bed is a simple twin of standard length but because I'm resting in a /\_/ shape, my long body fits quite well with the minor aid of a taller-than-standard chair at the foot of the bed holding a couch cushion topped with a pillow (for my feet which extend a bit beyond the bed.) It probably sounds primitive but it feels wonderful. Rube Goldberg would be proud---especially upon seeing the "boom" from which my BIPAP air hose hangs down perfectly over my face.