Big necks, and sleeping face down?

[Drowsy_in_Denver]

More questions from a newbie, so thanks for the patience. I can't tell you how happy I was to find this site. First, I am not badly overweight at 6'1" and 210 lbs. I could stand to drop 15 lbs., but am not obese by any stretch. I do, however, have a massive neck (18.5" collar, going on 19", feels like). I've got to believe that is part of the issue. Does anyone know for sure if there is a correlation between neck size and severity of OSA, and if there is, can anyone recommend some exercises targeted at reducing one's neck size? Second-- I am considering ordering one of those face down pillows with the crevice in the middle, to see if I can sleep better (maybe even for periods without the CPAP) that way. Has anyone else tried this, and did it help at all? Thanks!

[Guest]

Sleeping face down seems to flood my sinuses and cause more problems. My best option is on my side if I dont use my cpap. Everyone is different so whatever works for you is what you need to do. Are you a long neck, short or no neck . That is how I've been discribed. Sort of like the cervical collars that the EMTs use . I'm currently doing exercises to strenghten my neck. Have'nt got to that part yet. Trying to get my neck in alignment first. I'm using the Mckenzie method.
There are many people on this forum that are not overweight at all. Many are to some degree but its not the determining factor for apnea. keep reading the posts and I bet you will learn alot . Apnea is very common . Perhaps over 10% of the population have it to some degree . They just don't know it.

Take care ,

[SleepyGuy]

My neck is 18". I am a bit overweight at 6'2" and 270 lbs.. (I hope treating the apnea allows me to drop some of that.) When I weighed 190lbs, my neck was 16.5". My air passages are only about 30% of normal and my doctor believes I've had sleep apnea all my life. (I've always thought I didn't have as much energy as other people, even in my college years.) So, who knows? A large neck could be correlated with sleep apnea. Maybe it's more prevalent today because people tend to be bigger even if not overweight.

Edit: I tend to believe that sleep apnea runs in my family. My grandfather had a lot of unexplained fatigue and then gained significant weight before dying at age 50 of a stroke. The same thing happened to one of his brothers. No one knew anything about sleep apnea in those days (the 1950s), so it's possible and at least some of the symptoms were certainly there.

Best of luck. If you find a way to sleep without the CPAP, the rest of us would love to hear about it.

[dwzkd]

I have been told by resp therapist that neck size is like weight. overweight people are more prone to sleep apnea and so are people who have large necks. I think she referenced people with a neck size of >~17" have a greater risk for sleep apnea...

I generally sleep on my stomach or side with the mask a the edge of the pillow.

[Wolf]

Then i must have had a large neck as a child From what i now realize i've had this all my life. I am told by my parents that i have always stopped breathing in my sleep as a child. it just got worse has i got older. When I was tested I had 402 episodes in the space of 8 hours. The longest period of non breathing was almost 2 minutes. To say the leaast it scared the crap out of the tech. He told me he had to check the monitor and make sure my heart was still beating . And my neck is a 18 right now and has been for years. I now swear by my cpap. life is a joy when your well rested