Hi, I'm Dr. Andrea Furlan, a pain specialist in Toronto Canada. And in this channel,
I talk about the management and treatment and prevention and diagnosis of pain and chronic pain.
So today I'm going to talk about sleep positions. There are some sleep positions that can make pain
worse and others that can make pain better. So, if you want to have a better night of sleep,
I will do some demonstrations for people who have neck pain, shoulder pain, low back pain,
hip bursitis, knee pain. What are some of the positions that they can use at
night to have a better night of sleep? So, let's talk about sleep positions today.
So, let's talk about mattress. What kind of mattress do you buy and should you be
buying a new mattress or not. Well, that's a question that people ask me all the time.
The mattress is really important, and you should be maybe changing your mattress every 10 years
because they become old and can become, you know, not supporting your body anymore. And so, I use
this chart that I tell my patients about. “What is the ideal mattress?” So, the chart shows that
your ideal mattress is the one that keeps your body aligned. So, you see this straight line here,
so it doesn't matter what is the position that you sleep, on your back, on your side, or on
your stomach. Then your body is always aligned so of course different people weigh different
and their body composition is different so some people are heavier than others and so they will
need a mattress that is firmer than someone who is lighter. And so you should be observing
when you are sleeping ask someone to take a look at how your body is if everything is aligned. So
it should your head should be aligned with your pelvis and should be aligned with your feet. Now
if it's not, like this one, if the mattress is too hard then it's not adapting it's not supporting
the curvatures of your body because we have curvatures we have normal curves
and so the mattress should support all of the parts of your body and if the mattress is too
soft, then you are sinking in the mattress and that's also not a good idea because then it will
be exacerbating some of those curves of your body. So pay attention to the mattress the best
is to go to a store that has many different types of mattresses, a soft, not so soft, like
a firm in a very hard mattress and try them. Try these different types of mattresses in the store
before you buy them and if you buy a mattress make sure that you buy one that you can return
to the factory if it doesn't work for you because if it is aggravating your pain,
if you're pain now it's getting worse at night, then return the mattress and get a new one.
So now how about the pillow? Especially for people who have neck pain and shoulder pain,
I have neck myofacial pain, you probably saw this in other videos that I made,
I have tons of pillows at home that I bought over the years. For example, this pillow here
is what we call contour pillow. I bought this many years ago and here you can see. So you
see the side of the pillow has this curvature here. So this is good to support the side of
people who sleep on the side. Like I am usually a side sleeper. So you see here it's supporting my
neck and my head is sinking there in this part of the pillow here. Let me show you this side here.
So you see here? So I like this one very much, but I'm not using this one so much in the last days.
I will show you which one I'm using. I had bought, this is very heavy, I bought this one. This was
expensive and heavy. I'm not using this one either because this is like a foam, memory foam pillow.
It's too heavy and the reason that I'm not using this or the contour pillow is because I'm using
a very cheap pillow. This is the cheapest pillow that I could buy and the reason that I like it is
because it's very flexible. So, at night, I change position a lot. So when I am sleeping on my side,
what I do is I bend it and I put like this so it supports my neck, so my neck is not turning here,
and it's also not too high so then my neck is like this. So I bend it and it aligns my neck
when I'm sleeping on my side. But then, I like this also because when I'm sleeping
on my back, so I change positions many times during the night, then what I do is I
open it like this, so instead of folding it's open, and then I just put here to support
the curve of my neck. So, this is how it looks like when I'm sleeping, and you see the important
thing is to keep is to keep the neck aligned. So, if I am on my side sleeping on my side,
I bend and it's like this. So, you can see that it is, my neck is relatively aligned so
like this curve is all straight and when I go on my back, so then I get the pillow and I support
a space under my neck here. So, my head is back there, but I have a lot of pillow material under
my neck so my neck is supported. So that's what I do. I got the cheapest pillow for my neck pain.
Now, for people who have shoulder pain, I demonstrated this in another video that I made.
People who have shoulder pain, they have a difficult time to sleep because if they sleep
on their side here, they're putting a lot of pressure on the painful side. So, we recommend
them not to sleep on the painful side. But let's say that this is the painful side, if a person has
shoulder pain like shoulder impingement, shoulder tendonitis, or frozen shoulder. So,
we recommend them to sleep on their side. So, for example,
bending the pillow here, but then get another one in front of their body here so they can support
the painful shoulder. Because if they don't have this pillow here, and if the shoulder falls like
this, then they're putting a lot of pressure in the painful shoulder. So it's a good idea to put
a pillow in front of their body a tall pillow and so they are supporting here. You see so
the shoulder is supported. So those are the main positions for neck and shoulder pain. Now
for low back pain. So if the person sleeps on there, if the person sleeps on their back,
they have low back pain, what we recommend is if they keep their, you know knees and hips straight,
it may hurt the back because it's putting some pressure here. What we recommend to them is to put
a pillow and now they may use like a firm pillow under the knees. So, you see when they do this,
they're kind of relieving the pressure a little bit on the lumbar spine. So, for people who have
low back pain, and they are mainly a back sleeper that's what we recommend. But the best position
for people who have low back pain, if you have low back pain you probably have noticed this is,
on your stomach. But, sleeping on the stomach is good for the lower back because it relieves the
pressure in the discs a lot, but it's not good for the neck because you need to turn your neck you
need to turn your head to breathe. So, a lot of people have pain on both sides, some lower back,
and upper back, and neck and that this will aggravate the neck pain but will relieve the
lower back. And also, if the person has shoulder pain and they do this this is not good because
they will be impinging the tendons here. So, if they have shoulder pain they should sleep like
this so they are not impinging the shoulder but that's a little uncomfortable but sleeping on the
stomach is good for lower back pain. Now if they have bursitis of the hips, bursitis of the hip is
common, it's not so rare. I see a lot of people with hip bursitis and when they have bursitis,
and even bursitis of the shoulder bursitis of the hips, they should never sleep on that side.
So for bursitis of the shoulder and hips, it's good if they keep the no pressure on
the bursitis that's the main message. So, this on the side with the bursitis to the top is the best.
Now, there are some people that they have bursitis on both sides so that they cannot sleep
on their side. Their only option would be sleeping on their back or on their stomach because here if
they are on the back there is no pressure on the hips and no pressure on the shoulder. And so,
with sleeping on the back is good for a lot of things except for low back pain. Now if the
person has knee pain, especially if it's pain on the front of the knee, so they can put a pillow
under the knee like this to keep a little bit of flexion
and a little bit of flexion, not too much, helps to relieve the pressure on the knees and alleviate
pain at night. So those are the positions that I recommend a lot of people to
sleep if they have chronic pain and I hope that this has helped you if you have pain and pain at
night that you can find some solutions. And please remember that this video is only for education
purposes it's not to provide you individual medical advice, you should talk to your doctor
about what is causing your pain and if there is anything else that you need to do
and if there is an emergency please go to an emergency or call an ambulance.
And don't forget to watch my next video here and subscribe to this channel. Goodbye!