♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ The two most famous ♪
♪ Physical therapists ♪
♪ On the internet ♪
- Hi folks, I'm Bob Schrupp, physical therapist,
- Brad Heineck, physical therapist.
- And we are the most famous
physical therapists on the internet.
- In our opinion, of course, Bob.
- 13 reasons why you are waking up with pain,
and we're gonna show you how to stop it.
- 13, kind like a baker's dozen.
- There you go. - Lucky 13, I gotta like it.
We're gonna show you how to stop it
with proper bed positioning.
- Sure.
Very common reason why you get up sore,
is because you've been laying awkwardly.
- Yeah, somethin's been going wrong at night.
- Right.
Eight hours away in there,
a lot of things can happen.
- If you are new to our channel, by the way-
- If.
- That was really not a segue, but it just,
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I see Lonnie's,
she's panning up, she's catching them.
- Oh good, okay, here we go.
- Here we go. - Number one.
- Number one,
Number one is actually,
one of the reasons you might be waking up with pain,
is if you are having severe constant pain,
that's a red flag.
There's something then medically
you maybe need to have checked out.
- Sure,
see your doctor.
- Yeah, see your doctor.
There's some things, I don't wanna say
what scary things could be possible,
it may not be,
but you need to get things checked out
if you're having severe pain at night.
First one,
if you're having neck pain,
one of the reasons people get neck pain
is when they sleep on their stomach,
'cause what happens when you sleep on your stomach
you're turning your head all the way,
one way or the other.
It's hard to get away from that, isn't it, Brad?
- Yeah.
- Unless you have a donut you're sleeping in.
- Right.
- And when you got your joints
all the way to the end, they don't like it.
There's no other way to put it,
they're gonna put a lot of stress on joints.
- It's okay for a little bit,
but prolonged periods,
you're likely gonna make 'em sore-
- And you're right, it's okay for a little bit, Brad.
I end up on my stomach sometimes
for short periods of times,
I don't end up with trouble.
A lot of headaches can be caused
by sleeping on your stomach.
- I know there are some stomach sleepers out there,
that say they sleep on it all the time,
some people can get away with it,
but oftentimes-
- Yeah, you don't.
All right, another reason for neck pain,
is if you're sleeping on your back
with too many pillows,
wanna give one more, Brad?
- Yes, take this one.
I like the color.
- So, it's the same color. (chuckles)
- That was a joke, Bob.
- So you're sleeping on your back,
and look at me,
now my head is forward like this.
- We gotta get it so they can see.
- Yep.
- Can't see nothing but pillow there.
- You want things lined up when you're sleeping
as much as possible.
- I'm exaggerating here,
but if your head is up like this
if you're watching TV or somethin,
get rid of the TV or get rid of a pillow or two,
get down where you need to.
- If you sleep on your back consistently,
you should only have one thin pillow.
That way your ears are lined up with your shoulders,
everything's all lined up,
and you're gonna be less likely to wake up with back pain.
If you sleep on your side now, however,
now look at this,
there's a gap here.
And so now I'm like this,
so you do want to use a thicker pillow
or double up your pillow.
- Double it up.
- Or use two pillows when you're on your side.
There you go!
So that covers pretty much the neck issue, Brad.
- Yep, the majority,
there's a few other little tricks,
but that's the big picture, though.
- So a lot of people are side sleepers
and they end up waking up with shoulder pain.
Brad and I have talked about this in the past,
it's amazing to us how many people are having
pretty severe shoulder pain.
And we ask them which position you sleep in at night,
they sleep on that shoulder. (chuckles)
- [Brad] Yeah, right.
- So ideally,
one, you don't sleep on that shoulder,
but let's say you just can't do it,
you can't sleep without sleeping on that shoulder.
Well, we've got a suggestion for you,
you're gonna take another pillow
or a throw pillow,
they might get by with that.
- Something a little firmer,
oftentimes works better
and you're gonna place it right there.
- And look what we've created here, Brad,
- It looks like a gap.
- Yeah, it's a gap, or a canal.
- Mm hmm.
- And what you can do is put your arm
right in this gap,
I just showed this to a patient, she loved it.
And now I'm not putting as much stress on this shoulder,
and if you wanna even take a little more stress
off the shoulder, Brad,
lean back a little bit like this-
- Yep.
- Now I'm off the point of the shoulder.
- And if you slide that shoulder forward a little bit,
there you go.
- So you might put a pillow behind you,
I know it takes a lot of pillows, but,
you don't wanna be on the point of the shoulder,
we call it.
- That right there.
- I'm on the meaty part now,
the back part on the shoulder blade itself.
Now let's say
you're gonna listen to us,
and you're not gonna sleep on that shoulder,
you're gonna sleep on your other side.
- Mm hmm.
- I'm actually gonna,
well, I got my mic on this side.
- Oh.
- Let's go back to this side.
Let's say this is the painful shoulder now,
this one is. - Yeah.
- Okay, so you decide you're gonna listen to us,
you're not gonna sleep on the painful shoulder.
Here's the painful shoulder.
- Ah, yeah.
- What you gonna do instead now,
'cause you want that supported,
some people sleep with it up here, Brad-
- Right.
- But the easiest thing to do is
take one pillow and put it here,
you wanna grab that other pillow, Brad?
- Yeah,
you're gonna have to make a trip to the store
for the pillow there,
or take 'em from your children,
they probably won't need 'em.
- That's right, they don't need em.
So you're gonna take this pillow
and stick it in the armpit.
Now it's really important to have the two here, Brad,
'cause what happens with this,
it goes down like that. - Yeah, yeah.
- So with the two
this really puts it in a nice position.
I've had a lot of people that had tried,
"Oh yeah, I hugged a pillow, but it didn't help."
But if they did this extra step,
then it did help.
- You get a little more abduction on the shoulder,
take some stress off.
Just the position of it,
if you got a sore shoulder
when you're laying there all night
a little bit can make a big difference.
- Yeah, these minor adjustments
can make a big deal.
- And it's one of those things that you're gonna like,
and you're gonna say,
"Oh, that feels good,
I slept good for the first time in a long time."
- All right, the next one Brad is,
if you're waking up with symptoms in your hand,
and it could be carpal tunnel.
Some of the same things apply to that, Brad,
you don't wanna sleep with the arms over your head-
- Right.
- 'Cause that's gonna make it worse.
You don't wanna sleep with your arm
underneath you like this,
or with the arm curled like this.
- Right, and you know, it can be here, wherever,
but if you sleep with your wrist
in position that's gonna put pressure
on a carpal tunnel and the nerves,
and you're gonna wake up to numbness, the tingling,
all those symptoms.
So what you can do
is just buy a wrist splint that's not real expensive,
but it's comfortable, you can sleep with all night.
And my wife does this
when her carpal tunnel acts up,
she's wearing her wrist splints at night,
and she doesn't do very often, but it works well.
- I don't think you need to have anything made,
you can go to a big box store
and they have the ones, right off the shelf,
just keep the wrist in the middle,
don't be this way or this way-
- Right, right.
- So yeah, give it a shot.
- Yeah, you can take some popsicle sticks
with some duct tape, maybe.
(Brad laughing) - There we go.
- I'm always thinkin, you know?
- Mr. Handy.
Okay, now let's go to the back, Brad,
let's say with back pain,
you're sleeping on your side a lot.
One thing you might try
is you can take a rolled towel,
or they actually have these made for it, too,
but you can take a rolled towel
or you can have a-
- It's a sleep roll. - A sleep roll?
- Mm hmm, by McKenzie.
- And when I'm on my side like this, Brad,
you can see there's a little bit of a gap here.
And depending on how big your hips are,
a woman might have little wider hips.
- Right.
- So you can actually put the towel in there
and lay on your side here,
and it'll take some of the stress off the back.
- Just above the belt, it fills that spot,
and so that the spine does not curve
and puts stress on it.
You can try that,
you don't have to have a sleep roll,
you can roll up a towel and do it.
These work a little bit better, usually-
- You can roll up a sheet too,
and take it all the way around you
and tie it on. - Sure.
- And I'll show you in a second
why you might wanna do that.
But you can also, Brad,
the other thing if you're on your side a lot,
you may wanna put a pillow between the legs.
- Oh yeah.
- When the pillow's not there,
I am rotating my spine-
- Mm hmm.
- And it's putting a little stress on it,
so you can go ahead and take the stress off by doing this.
- Right, right.
- If you're a back sleeper,
so that's where again, you can use the rolled towel,
but if you have a sheet around you,
like this, tied in place,
and that's what this wool is made for.
- You could-
- Oh, there you go, you got it.
You could pin it in place.
Now when you roll onto your back
it's giving you support in the arch there, too,
'cause a lot of times that arch collapses
and it feels better to have a little support in there.
- Exactly, you got that lumbar support.
- So the other thing you may wanna try,
we've had a lot of people
that have had luck with this, Brad,
is the wedge.
And you may wanna talk about that,
because you just were using it-
- As a matter of fact,
Sunday I did something really silly,
but I'm good for that.
- (chuckling) No kidding.
- Yeah, I did a triathlon in the morning
and then I rotated the tires on my car,
and I did some lawn mowing,
and I had a really sore back
because of the-
- It's funny, Sunday was a bad day for me, too.
I tweaked my back on Sunday,
and I can go back and I can and tell you
exactly what I did, too, why I did it.
- So I laid down and I put a cold pack under my back,
and then that night, this is exactly how I slept.
- What is this called now, Brad?
- Leg wedge. - Leg wedge.
If you Google this, "leg wedge"-
- Yep.
- And this one was an inexpensive one,
this was like 24 bucks or something.
- Yeah, 24, 25.
You have to get one that looks like this,
it has to have the angle like this.
- Yes.
- Go get that other wedge, so they don't get confused,
'cause if they buy the wrong one, it will not...
You'll not be happy.
- So this is just a regular wedge.
This is a wedge that you might use
underneath you like this-
- Right.
- And if you wanna watch TV.
- Right.
- But this one has the angle here
and then it's flat on top,
and that's what you need to have
because that's what's gonna make it
a lot more comfortable.
- I would say, with people with back pain
that come in the clinic, 80, 90% of 'em
are extremely happy when I put this under their legs.
It helps their back, laying on their back.
- I think you should make sure
you don't have a saggy mattress.
If your mattress has been quite old,
what you might try to see
if it takes away some of your back pain,
is put it on the floor.
- Sure.
- And see if it feels better,
and then it may be time for you to go buy a new mattress.
- That's where it helps,
they say you can rotate your mattress,
or flip it,
it makes 'em last longer,
you can get on the-
- The other side of it.
- Exactly.
- If you're having knee pain at night,
you can try sleeping with the pillow between your legs.
- Sure. - When you're on your side.
This might also help for knee pain, Brad,
this one.
- Oh sure, yeah.
- Because again, the knees don't like to be
in the closed pack position
which is all the way straight,
so if you sleep on your back
it might feel better if the knee is slightly bent.
- The difference from here to here on that knee
is also very...
Matter of fact, my friend just had a meniscus surgery
and he felt much better laying on his back
with this position. - Exactly.
- For the week or so.
- Especially if you're a back sleeper.
The final pain thing that you might be waking up with,
is plantar fasciitis.
And with plantar fasciitis,
that's pain on the bottom of your foot,
generally it's happening right here
on the heel
is where you're gonna feel it.
And what we have found quite often
what helps besides doing the stretches
that we recommend,
is to wear a splint.
And the splint here,
what it's gonna do is it's gonna put a slight stretch
on your fascia, the bottom of your foot,
all night long.
And that way, when you wake up in the morning
it won't have tightened down again,
and when you step on it, it breaks open,
so you wanna make sure you wear a splint like this,
and this actually adjusts
so that it can pull tighter and pull it more this way.
I don't like this particular splint,
there's one that's a lot more easier to use,
it's not as bulky. - Adjustment.
- See how he's pulling that foot?
And you have to watch,
'cause if you pull it too tight, you won't be able to sleep.
You have to be able to deal with it.
- If you wake up in the morning
and that first weightbearing step
is really painful,
almost for certain, this is gonna get rid of that problem.
- Yeah, with plantar fasciitis,
always tell the three 'S', Brad,
you stretch,
you put your shoes on before you get outta bed,
and you wear the splint.
Three 'S'.
- S, S, S,
isn't that an acronym for something else?
- I don't know.
- Or is that SOS?
- Yeah, probably SOS. (Brad chuckles)
- Anyways, once again, we continue to help.
- We can fix just about anything-
- Pain free and vibrant,
except for one thing, Bob.
- We can't fix a broken heart.
- Even the foot split won't work on that,
but we're still working on it.
Yeah, we're gonna continue and tell...
We're never gonna get it,
but that's what I'm trying to say.
- All right, thanks.
- I wanna make sure that's clear.
- Thanks. (laughs)