Snoredog wrote:best thing you can do is elevate the head of your bed, even if you only raise it 3" it will help.
Don't eat anything 2-3 hrs before bed, take a PecidComplete right before bed (nothing else works as good in my opinion, berry flavor is great).
Straight CPAP can be pretty aggressive with that condition.
Agreed! I sent this to all my friends back in August 2008.
This might change your life
I’ve been meaning to write about this for quite some time. My quality of life fundamentally changed on May 17 2008. That was the day I had one of those mentat moments and put together a bunch of disparate facts and knew it would work for me. So, to the story...
I caught a cold the Thursday before we went down to the FIBARK weekend in mid June of this year (2008). I was just miserable for two nights. But I brought a cot before the trip and propped it up just like my bed at home. I’m happy to say that by Monday morning at work my cold was gone and I had no cough, none, finito. Usually a cold would take a couple months to clear. Its some sort of personal record.
Summer of 2008, I got a letter from the my insurance provider that they wanted to a doctors visit to check on the status of my asthma before they would refill my next prescription. So, I let the RX run out and waited till the end of the summer for when I needed to get my blood tested for the thyroid levels before my annual physical in August 2008. So, at the physical, I mention the letter to the doc and he says I need to be off the meds to really know if the asthma is still going on. What a coincidence I say because I’ve been off them for a month. While I am getting examined, I mention that at the health fair this spring, the guy said I show no symptoms of asthma in the rebreather dohicky. So, he brings in the machine and they check and he says “right now you do not have asthma”. Well this is pretty cool. So what has made this happen in just a few short months?
OK, we are ready for the info that changed my life. My nephew Ian has started suffering from migraines and had gone to the hospital ER several times for the migraine shots. So, no caffeine for him so it could be kept in reserve for migraine onsets and they give my sister the big horse pain pills for when it got bad. He also suffered from sinusitis, shortness of breath, chest pains, and asthma like symptoms whenever he eats some foods and especially spicy foods. He has a high pain threshold, so he likes really hot foods like those fire cheetos. When he sneezes its like a snot hurricane. My sister finally decided to take him for a complete alergy workup. She called me May 17, 2008 to tell me that after putting the grids on Ian and inoculating him with everything under the sun, he has no allergies. The doctor opined that he might be suffering from Gastro Esophageal reflux disease (GERD).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gastroesop ... ux_disease
He put him on an acid reducer and noted that GERD can be caused by an alignment and leakage problem where the esophagus joins the stomach. So, while sleeping, stomach acid attacks the esophagus and can cause all the symptoms Ian had been experiencing. He suggested that many people get the most relief by simply raising the head of their bed by six inches. He said propping up your head with pillows is ineffective compared with sloping the bed. Kathy called me at work is telling me this and I am having an epiphany. It so happens I had been suffering from one of those persistent cold coughs that had started on Ash Wednesday three months earlier.
Item: GERD is often associated with being overweight but I was not overweight when this asthma and coughing of mine started.
Item: My nephew is not at all overweight
Item: The doctor says the tendency for GERD runs in families regardless of weight, it can be a heritable structural problem
Item: I have had that little cough since high school days, whenever I got tired, and that has gotten worse over time
Item: My doctor once noted that I have an “excitable epithelium” to explain my problem with persistence of cold symptoms, especially chronic sinusitis that defies steroids.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinusitis
My sinuses are constantly partially blocked and I have put up with sinus drainage making me cough and constantly clear my throat for what seems like forever.
Item: While in Idaho, my doctor had put me on acid reducers and antibiotics because he said I had reflux disease caused by those acid producing bacteria. But it continued after the bacteria were dead.
Item: I had spent a bundle sleeping with a pulse oximiter one night in the 2006 trying to find out why I felt short of breath at night. Turned out my blood O2 was fine and I did not have sleep apneia.
Item: whenever I’m under prolonged stress, I get an acid stomach and its uncomfortable but I ignore it and its worst at night especially when sleeping on my stomach or left side. I prefer to sleep on my stomach and hate sleeping on my back.
Item: I get some relief during colds by propping myself up with pillows and sleeping half upright on my back.
Item: too numerous to mention but a million details of my past 20 years fused into this gestalt realization that I needed to go directly to a lumberyard after work.
So, after work, I went to Sutherland’s lumber supply and bought three 2” x 6” redwood construction studs about three feet long. I sorted them from their scrap pile out back for ninety cents a board. I went home and stacked them and slid them under the head of my bed frame and propped the head of my bed up six inches. You can hardly tell there is a slope. I coughed a bit as usual and then at bedtime crawled in and slept on my back wondering what the morning would bring.
The next morning, I just could not believe it!! My cough was gone, my sinuses were absolutely clear and dry, I could take the deepest possible breath and that tickle that forces me to cough was 90% gone. After a couple more nights, I’m happy to report it is 99% gone. I have been cough and throat clearing free now for over two months. My singing has become more clear especially in the high registers. I plan to have my doctor verify that my asthma symptoms: shortness of breath, etc are completely gone! I have not used an inhaler for more than six months. But, I will have to get something done about the acid stomach. It got really bad this spring because of the gas industry bringing huge numbers of samples and needing the results on really short notice. Its very stressful trying to get all that data out and have it all be good quality. However, I can report that despite the stress and the stomach acidity, I don’t have the cough, or the throat clearing, or sinusitis. I can still get an instant replay of the symptoms by drinking limeade and getting that tickle on the end of the esophagus.
I’m an experimental sort and I get tired of sleeping on my back. I keep trying one side or the other or the stomach. It only takes about fifteen minutes before my sinuses start getting stuffy and I can feel that tickle. I think its amazing that irritation of the esophagus can cause such an array of symptoms. I was tempted to title this “How six inches changed my life” but I was afraid most of you would delete it as spam. But hey, I know some of you have that cough or some of these symptoms. It cannot hurt to try raising the head of your bed six inches and you may be very pleasantly surprised.
Cheers to you all
Bill
P.S. In reading since, I have found out that its irritation of the vagus nerve which may be behind all this. The vagus nerve ennervates the stomach, lungs, heart, and sinuses among others. If you irritate the esophagus, the vagus nerve sends signals to the sinuses and you get action! How about that? I actually asked my sleep tech and doctor if irritation of the vagus nerve might be causing my breathing problems.