08-28-2018, 12:30 PM
(This post was last modified: 08-28-2018, 12:31 PM by mesenteria.)
In praise of the cervical collar
Woo hoo! First thread!
It won't be news to those who already use them, but it might provide a whiff of encouragement to those who are sitting on the fence. This is about my wife...not me.
My wife has gotten...umm.....noisy. For perhaps the last four to five years she has developed a rumbling that threatens to shake the paint off the walls in our bedroom...and on down the hallway to where I am trying to watch TV quietly. She begged me to come back to the bedroom at night after we began sleeping apart. I relented, but it was becoming impossible. I developed my own sleep problems, a heart arrhythmia, and nothing else changed except that I went on medication and PAP.
To keep this sweetly short, I learned about cervical collars' efficacy even for those who are already getting close-to-decent therapy with PAP alone right here on this forum. I'm not an especially bright bulb, but eventually I thought to encourage my wife, who knows she has apnea, but who has other issues that need fixing first, to see if she could improve her sleeping/noisiness just by trying a collar for a few nights.
Short...I remember...short. Okay, she hated it at first. Still does, really. It's too warm. We literally sleep with a fan running on her all night long, but that was prior to the trial with the collar. I'm serious. Thyroid issues since 20 years of age. But, I keep telling her she is much less noisy. I don't hear her through my ear plugs anymore. She persisted, and now seems more or less resigned to its continued use, even if solely on my say-so. She claims she doesn't feel different. We in the PAP world read and hear it all the time. But she has accepted my word that she is indeed sleeping better. No more awful snorting and obvious apnea.
In closing, they're relatively inexpensive, readily available, and they're effective. We have to deal with my wife's apnea eventually, but for now, the lowly cervical collar has improved her wellbeing...and mine...in a way few would think possible by itself. If you need to help with apnea now...tonight...whether tweaking it to get a lower AHI or to get by until you can be diagnosed formally and treated...a cervical collar may be the ticket.
My thanks to all who frequent and who manage this wonderful forum.
It won't be news to those who already use them, but it might provide a whiff of encouragement to those who are sitting on the fence. This is about my wife...not me.
My wife has gotten...umm.....noisy. For perhaps the last four to five years she has developed a rumbling that threatens to shake the paint off the walls in our bedroom...and on down the hallway to where I am trying to watch TV quietly. She begged me to come back to the bedroom at night after we began sleeping apart. I relented, but it was becoming impossible. I developed my own sleep problems, a heart arrhythmia, and nothing else changed except that I went on medication and PAP.
To keep this sweetly short, I learned about cervical collars' efficacy even for those who are already getting close-to-decent therapy with PAP alone right here on this forum. I'm not an especially bright bulb, but eventually I thought to encourage my wife, who knows she has apnea, but who has other issues that need fixing first, to see if she could improve her sleeping/noisiness just by trying a collar for a few nights.
Short...I remember...short. Okay, she hated it at first. Still does, really. It's too warm. We literally sleep with a fan running on her all night long, but that was prior to the trial with the collar. I'm serious. Thyroid issues since 20 years of age. But, I keep telling her she is much less noisy. I don't hear her through my ear plugs anymore. She persisted, and now seems more or less resigned to its continued use, even if solely on my say-so. She claims she doesn't feel different. We in the PAP world read and hear it all the time. But she has accepted my word that she is indeed sleeping better. No more awful snorting and obvious apnea.
In closing, they're relatively inexpensive, readily available, and they're effective. We have to deal with my wife's apnea eventually, but for now, the lowly cervical collar has improved her wellbeing...and mine...in a way few would think possible by itself. If you need to help with apnea now...tonight...whether tweaking it to get a lower AHI or to get by until you can be diagnosed formally and treated...a cervical collar may be the ticket.
My thanks to all who frequent and who manage this wonderful forum.
That's one way to keep the wife quiet.
![[Image: 41eda6PzpgL.jpg]](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41eda6PzpgL.jpg)
