Cervical collar causing sore throat?

[TechieHippie]

I sent my mom a simple collar, brand OTC since they had 2.5" wide, which I have as well.  She wore it for a couple of hours and fell right asleep, but woke after 2 hours with a really bad sore throat and it was painful to swallow.  She might have worn it tighter than she needed to, but said it was very comfortable. She took it off and the sore throat was not as bad by the time she got up to pee again and gone by morning.

I doubt it was from off-gassing, she doesn't smell anything, and I'm chemically sensitive enough that I think I would've noticed anything that could do that.  I said I thought she must have been mouth breathing, but she doesn't think so, she says it was really sore and hard to swallow.

Any speculations? She's going to try it again more loosely in a few days.

My mom doesn't use a CPAP and probably never will; she has some oxygen drops at night but it's not clear how much (she keeps saying she'll use the SleepU I sent her but only has a couple of times). 


Thanks,

Lisa

[eok361]

she wore it too tight. and it might not be a good fit. i don't know if they make them smaller than 2.5", but you might want to see.

i did that same thing with one of the white foamy type collars once. i couldn't swallow for 2 days. i thought i had crushed my larynx.

have her try loosening it first. she should be able to freely move it around, but till keep her chin from tucking. i had tried a few before finally getting a caldera releaf collar. no issues at my end since getting that one.

regardless, she should take a couple nights off, until she's ok.

[PeaceLoveAndPizza]

This got me pondering about how a soft cervical collar may cause a sore throat, so I ran a two night experiment on myself. For two nights I did not use my beloved bilevel Morpheus, I only used my SCC.

What I found was that I ended up snoring, more significantly than what I would usually do if not using CPAP. It irritated my throat enough to wake me up a few times as well. I attribute the snoring to a very open airway due to the collar keeping my neck from kinking, which resulted in significant snoring that caused the irritated throat. 

Even if she does not want to use a CPAP, she can still get a home sleep test to see where things stand regarding her O2 drops. Once she has the results we can help review them if she prefers, or just go with what her doctors recommendations. 

Thanks for bringing up a bit of a poser. Let us know if we can help.

[TechieHippie]

Wow, thanks for doing that! I haven't talked her into a sleep test yet. My stepdad uses a CPAP, a 15-year-old dream station that I have told them they need to get the doctor to replace right away. I did send them a SleepU early in the pandemic, and my mom keeps saying she will use it for a few nights and collect some data but she hasn't done it yet.

Lisa

[PeaceLoveAndPizza]

You cannot help someone who does not choose to help themselves. Don’t make yourself bonkers if she just wants to complain.

[Rcgop]

Corflex makes a whole range of collars and sizes. Generic and “one size fits all” did not work for me. Most important is the chin to breast bone measurement.

[TechieHippie]

Thanks, everyone. I think she just wore it too tight; she wrote it to package directions without me having a chance to explain it
She's not complaining about sleep... She just has various body aches and I've seen her tuck her chin during the day.

The comment about changing air pressure through neck posture is very interesting. Could be.

Lisa