♪ Bob and Brad, the two most famous ♪
♪ physical therapists on the internet. ♪
- Hi folks, I'm Bob Schrupp, physical therapist.
- Brad Heineck, physical therapist.
- We are the most famous physical therapist on the internet.
- Well, in our opinion, of course, Bob.
- Today, we're gonna go over the absolute best
sleeping positions for back pain,
back arthritis or sciatica.
By the way, Liz
did you get that full title now?
I changed it a little bit.
So I'm off on a tangent here already.
- Yeah. The tangents can begin
- but we're gonna show you a lot of different hints
a lot of things that won't cost you any money.
We're gonna show you some things that can cost you money.
If you want to go that route too.
But if you are new to our channel
please take a second to subscribe to us.
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- Oh, sorry.
- We provide videos on
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because all this week again
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- There you go
- to all of you who like us.
(Brad chuckling)
- So let's start off
with just plain old back pain, Brad.
Let's say we don't really know what's
causing it, you got acute back pain.
Maybe it's a muscle strain or something like that.
- Cute? I got cute back pain?
- It's not cute, is it?
It's not cute at all.
But one of the big things
you're usually trying to do,
Why don't you lay down on this board, Brad?
- Sleep on a board?
- Yep.
- Is that what you're saying?
- What I'm trying to show is what we're trying to
accomplish here.
- Okay.
- You're trying to stay in good posture
when you have back pain.
Especially just regular run of the mill back pain.
You don't wanna be in a mattress that's old
and you know you're slumping into it.
And it is got that mold in there
that can actually make your back pain worse.
You want to have one that puts you in good posture.
So right here, you can see everything
all lines up
and he's all lined up real well.
The problem is you don't wanna sleep on a board like this.
Because if you sleep on a board like this,
what happens?
You got gaps here.
- Pressure points
- Right there.
So he's got extra point on the head.
The mid-back, right here there's no pressure.
So, you know, there's more pressure
on the each side of it.
Right here I can stick it under here.
He's getting more pressure on the buttock
and on the calves or in the heels.
So you want this, but then you wanna fill in the gaps.
So one way to fill in the gap
with the back itself
is you can take a rolled
up sheet or rolled up towel,
Brad do you wanna slip that in place?
- Sure.
So this is nice because it doesn't cost any money
and it gives you an opportunity to see
if this helps getting some support there.
- Yeah. So this'll fill in that gap
for your back and you can make it larger if you want to
to make sure it really does.
And now Brad, it would be hard for you to lay on your side?
I mean right now?
- No I can.
- If he lays on his side, there's also that gap.
But if he uses the, you got your microphone there
so you wanna be careful,
- Don't squish the mic.
- If he uses again, the rolled up towel or sheet,
it actually fills in that gap too.
So that's just one hint that you might try.
The other thing is actually a good mattress
which we like the SleepOvation mattress.
The reason we like it is,
actually you might as well get up, Brad.
- Sure. Boards are a little uncomfortable.
- We'll take the boards out of the way
and just let me show real quickly.
We endorse one mattress
and the reason we endorse it
is because we think it's the best.
We both, both Brad and I are using this mattress
and both of us love it.
But it's got 700 individual cells
and this really distributes the pressure.
So I'm gonna have you lay back down again, Brad.
I don't wanna spend too much time on this
because I don't want people spending the money.
If you're not in the market for a mattress,
you don't need to get a new one.
We'll show you other things.
But why don't you lay back down flat
on your back?
- Without the board?
- Without the board.
- Okay.
- So now
- I'm going boardless
- He's still in really good posture,
but now the gaps are filled in.
Now I can't stick the stick in there.
I'm poking the bear here.
- Right.
- So now they're all filled in,
even under the heel here.
So you know, it's comfortable.
- Right.
- And if he lays on his side,
it's easier on the shoulder
but it also fills in the back,
the gap on the back.
- The shoulder is allowed to sink in deeper
without any pressure.
I just love this thing, Bob.
Anyways, let's go on with your...
- Another one that with regular back pain,
sometimes it feels good to have a little bit
of gapping in the back.
In other words,
sometimes the leg wedge feels good.
- Oh I love the leg wedge too.
- So what you can try, if you wanna see
if this actually feels better is you could actually lay
on the floor a little bit
and put your feet up on a chair
or put up on a coffee table
and see if it feels better.
- Right.
- Your back does?
- Yep
- And then if that does
maybe you want to get a bunch of pillows
and stack 'em up.
If that feels better, then maybe you want to go ahead
and purchase the leg wedge because,
you know, it's a good investment.
They're not that expensive.
- Right, they have 25, 30 dollars.
And with a majority of my back patients
they really do have good comfort with that.
- If he lays on his side,
again if he is a side sleeper
with his back pain
it actually is good to have a pillow between the legs.
It stops the back from twisting,
and bring this leg over.
Yep, and so it keeps the back
again in that straight posture
all night long.
It can make a difference.
You know, you can do this
along with the rolled towel around your waist.
- Sure.
- And you're kind of, you know,
getting all the benefits.
Now, if you have an old mattress,
one thing, Brad and I laugh at this
but years ago what my wife and I did
we took a piece of plywood
and we put it between the mattress
and the box spring and that helped firm it up.
- Sure.
- And so, you know, you can extend the life
of your mattress and of course you flip 'em too, right?
- Yeah, flip them, rotate it, whatever.
- Sometimes throw it on the floor to see if it,
you know, I mean, just to see
if a firmer mattress is gonna feel better.
- Right, sometimes just throw it out the door.
- Yeah. That might work the best a lot of times.
I'm not against sleeping on your stomach either
with regular back pain,
if it feels okay
and probably just for a short period of time.
- Right, we don't like to see that
all night long.
Because we think it can create some neck problems
if your head is turned to one side.
Do you want me to do that, Bob?
- Yeah, but we're talking about the back here today, Brad.
- Oh, alright.
- So we're not talking about the back,
or the neck.
All right, now, Brad,
this is kind of going to be
into your area here now.
Let's say you have arthritis,
spinal stenosis,
or spondy.
Now in that case,
what you're gonna usually want
is you're gonna want a little bit
of flexion on the back,
- Sure.
- at night.
So when you sleep on your,
you can sleep on your side
and you can sleep with your legs
kind of curled up a little bit.
- Yeah, that fetal position kind of a thing.
- Now you have spondy, Brad.
Do you ever lay like this or not?
- I do, but I don't pull them way up like this, but
- Just a little bit of flexion.
- Yep, yep, yep, exactly.
- And in that case again,
if he were to lay on his stomach,
or I mean on his back,
it would help to have the leg wedge.
Because that would give him a little bit of gapping
on the back.
- Oh yes.
- Or pillows.
- Yep.
- So that's really the two, you know, options
when you have arthritis or spondy
or spinal stenosis.
On your back like this.
- Yep.
- Some people, they sleep in a chair.
Which I don't recommend, like a recliner.
- Right. You know, I've had people
that's where they sleep
- That's the only way they can sleep
- because they have been there for years,
and they're happy and you know,
who's going to fight it?
- Yep.
- And the other one would be, like I said,
is on your side
with a slight bend to the back.
- So Bob is saying spondy,
if you're not familiar with that
- Oh, spondylolisthesis.
- Right, it's that big long,
if you've got it,
you know what he is talking about.
- Alright, how about sciatica?
Let's talk about sciatica.
If you're...sciatica,
generally you're gonna
want the back as straight as possible.
You can also do, this is like
a little bit of a different variation one.
And Brad and I have done this
on a couple patients.
Yep, he knows where I'm going already.
So you lay on your side
and you actually put two pillows
underneath the ankle like this
and you put the painful leg on top.
- Okay.
- So if the sciatica is sending pain
down this leg
you'd put that pain on top, that leg on top.
And then you put two pillows
or one pillow underneath.
And sometimes that shuts off that pain.
- Yeah. It just rotates
and it opens that gap
where the nerve comes through
and it relieves of pressure.
Doesn't work on everyone,
but it's easy to try and if it works,
you put the big smile on your face.
- Yeah and if you're able to sleep without pain,
then obviously,
but if you understand anatomically
what's going on, it is,
it's creating room
for that nerve to come out of the spine.
The other one that often works out well
is again to use a rolled towel,
a rolled sheet
or they actually sell these.
What are those called again, Brad?
- This is the McKenzie Sleep Roll.
- Sleep Roll, that's right.
- And Robin McKenzie,
he is probably one of the most noted therapists
to treat sciatica.
And this is what he's come up with.
This one's a little bit small for me.
I would need the bigger one, but
- Even with the weight you lost, Brad?
- Well, this is for a tiny person.
This is like for my daughter.
- Oh it fits.
- Yeah. But I would still get the bigger one for myself
They, they have different sizes.
So now I'm here and I can sleep,
roll this way.
And it stays with you.
- Yeah. You don't want to be in the slumped posture
when you have sciatica.
You want to keep that back as straight as possible.
- Yep.
- And so again, I wouldn't buy one of these.
I would first try a rolled sheet.
- Yeah.
- And see if it feels better.
- Yeah, I like our towel here.
- or thicker even yet.
- Yeah, this is a little thin.
- See if that allows you to sleep pain free.
Now I'm also gonna mention
I don't think there's anything else.
Yeah. If you, again, lay on your side,
Brad why don't you lay on your side once again?
What might help this is if you actually
bring this leg over like this,
sometimes that will gap it too, Brad.
- Sure.
- So if you don't use the pillows
underneath the leg,
just it's something to try.
- Right.
- Another thing.
The final one I'm gonna mention
is if you're having some pain in your mid back,
so that I'm talking about more up here over the rib cage.
What I do actually is I lay
on my back
and I actually have a little throw pillow.
- Oh yes.
- Cause a lot of times that pain
is if you're too rounded in this area here.
Now I don't, we don't have a throw pillow here right now,
but let's pretend this is it, Brad.
So that throw pillow would go right there
and then you have a regular pillow behind you.
And so this would be a smaller pillow.
- Here, Bob.
- Using my imagination.
- I made a throw pillow!
(laughing)
It's killing me.
I love it when I get him.
- We just lost 25 subscribers just with that,
I'm sure with that joke alone.
So alright, that kind of covers the gist of it.
We wanted to do a video
that we just covered the back pain.
Those are the different things you can try for.
- Sure.
- Anything else you want to add, Brad?
- No, I think you covered it.
I was trying to think if there's other little tricks
that I've run across, but that covers
- The most of it, I think so.
Remember Brad and I can fix just about anything
- Except for
- A broken heart.
- But we're working on it.
- We're working hard.
- And we're not gonna stop until we get her done.
- Alright, thanks.