Home-made CPAP pillow: best sleep in 3 weeks!

So here I am, scrunching up my bed pillow to sorta support my head whilst hanging my mask over the edge as I sleep on my side. A bit of searching around the posts turned up numerous CPAP pillows, and a recommendation (Pugsy, I think??) to carve up a piece of foam to see if that's what you need before you buy an expensive pillow. Yeah, the recommendation was to carve up a *foam pillow* - somehow I missed that part, and just bought a 4" thick piece of green high density foam from JoAnn.

Anyways, all done up (for the left side only so far), it looks like this:

The notch on bottom is for my shoulder. The mask fits in the notch on the left side. The block under the notch keeps my chin from drooping down towards my chest as I sleep, which loosens the bottom straps and causes major leaks. The block on top is a wedge that keeps my forehead from rolling over into the mask cut-out.

Normally, while I'm learning to sleep with the mask on, I'm sleeping very light. The slightest air leak wakes me up. But for 3 1/2 hours, I had no wake-ups -slept like a rock! Unfortunately, the bladder couldn't stay asleep. When I got up, I realized my neck was a bit stiff - I'd been locked into lay on my left side all this time on a very stiff pillow that was much higher than I was used to. So I went back to scrunching my regular pillow until the alarm went off. More comfortable for my neck, but not as good of sleep.

So, I've proven to myself that one of these will help. Now all I gotta do is find one that looks like this and I'm golden!

Ed

That's taking the notion of a "firm" pillow to a whole new level. I like firm but not that firm.

I don't think you are going to find a pillow with cut outs like that but you can try. My idea was one of those cheap memory foam pillows from WalMart vs a $60 pillow online that might not even have the cut outs you would want for yourself.

I actually prefer a buckwheat hull pillow because it allows me to really customize it for whatever position I am in.
I realize it isn't for everyone but for me it suits my needs the best and I am a very "active" sleeper...change positions often because my back and pelvis don't like staying in any one position for very long. I pretty much do any adjustments in the middle of the night without even knowing it....been using it so long it's just second nature to me.

These two were about the closest ones I saw:
https://www.cpap.com/productpage/SleePA ... wcase.html
https://www.cpap.com/productpage/breath ... illow.html

I'm thinking if I replace the top 1/2"-1" with memory foam, and maybe slice 3/4" off the bottom, it might work out better. I also need to round out the neck cut-out - it's a bit too square at the top for comfort.

Something to keep me busy on the weekends (in between honey-dos!).
Ed

EdNerd wrote:Something to keep me busy on the weekends (in between honey-dos!).

Yep. Will keep you out of trouble too.

Good luck.

I love this kind of quirky creativity, well done!

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The notch on bottom is for my shoulder. The mask fits in the notch on the left side. The block under the notch keeps my chin from drooping down towards my chest as I sleep, which loosens the bottom straps and causes major leaks. The block on top is a wedge that keeps my forehead from rolling over into the mask cut-out.

Ed

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Pugsy wrote:That's taking the notion of a "firm" pillow to a whole new level. I like firm but not that firm.

I don't think you are going to find a pillow with cut outs like that but you can try. My idea was one of those cheap memory foam pillows from WalMart vs a $60 pillow online that might not even have the cut outs you would want for yourself.

I actually prefer a buckwheat hull pillow because it allows me to really customize it for whatever position I am in.
I realize it isn't for everyone but for me it suits my needs the best and I am a very "active" sleeper...change positions often because my back and pelvis don't like staying in any one position for very long. I pretty much do any adjustments in the middle of the night without even knowing it....been using it so long it's just second nature to me.

+1...Love the buckwheat...

I am a total fan of Bret's buckwheat and foam pillow!

desiderata wrote:So if you were lying on it, you would be facing towards the right?

I think he has left & right reversed.

EdNerd wrote:The notch on bottom is for my shoulder. The mask fits in the notch on the left side. The block under the notch keeps my chin from drooping down towards my chest as I sleep, which loosens the bottom straps and causes major leaks. The block on top is a wedge that keeps my forehead from rolling over into the mask cut-out.

Ed

desiderata wrote:So if you were lying on it, you would be facing towards the right?

Sorry -- thinking from a laying-down-looking-up perspective. So I'm laying on my left side.

So now that I've "proved" it, I gotta get the other end done -- or I'll have to spend all of my sleep time locked into one position.

Ed