Newbies! Keep your chin up! (Literally)

Whilst lying in bed last night I was reminded of Kiralynx and her "brandy keg" solution to keeping her chin from tucking toward her chest. (to read all about it...simply do a search for brandy keg) I haven't adopted her idea of using a foam cylinder to keep my chin up...but I do keep in mind my tendency to curl up in a fetal position...knees up...head tucked down. That position is not good for keeping the ol' airway open! I consciously make sure my chin is not tucked before I go to sleep every night (and each time I turn to the other side)...and I'm not sure if I would have realized the impact on my AHI if Kiralynx hadn't mentioned it.

Just thought I'd pass it on to the new folks!

SleepyT,

I used to try really hard to "keep my chin up." [I have always tended to curl into a pretty tight fetal position when sleeping prior to starting CPAP.]

But I was waking up every morning with a pretty stiff neck AND having some pretty bad problems with aerophagia.

Finally decided after doing some reading here on cpaptalk that even though it's counter-intuitive, allowing myself to curl into a fetal position might help with the aerophagia.

Well, sleeping in my "robin-ball" has helped the aerophagia quite a bit. And the difference in AHI numbers has not been all that significant---they're still clustering right around 1.0 and mostly staying between 0.5 and 1.5.

Of course, your mileage may vary ...

robysue wrote:SleepyT,

I used to try really hard to "keep my chin up." [I have always tended to curl into a pretty tight fetal position when sleeping prior to starting CPAP.]

But I was waking up every morning with a pretty stiff neck AND having some pretty bad problems with aerophagia.

Finally decided after doing some reading here on cpaptalk that even though it's counter-intuitive, allowing myself to curl into a fetal position might help with the aerophagia.

Well, sleeping in my "robin-ball" has helped the aerophagia quite a bit. And the difference in AHI numbers has not been all that significant---they're still clustering right around 1.0 and mostly staying between 0.5 and 1.5.

Of course, your mileage may vary ...

Robysue,
This is what I find fascinating about this forum. One idea leads to another! You illustrate what is true for us all....solutions are individual. Hopefully our observations will be of use.

T.