A bed wedge for COPD…

Where to buy a bed wedge for COPD?

Depending where you live, there are many choices, and some extremely high prices. Like pretty much everything I buy, except food, I got mine online.

There are two types of wedge; adjustable, metal-framed, and foam. I’d advise against a metal-framed, adjustable one – the design sucks and will gouge your back if you’re a restless sleeper – and would recommend a foam one, I got mine here for £25. You can easily pay £70 for an identical product. Don’t.

A word of advice – foam products, like this, can emit noxious fumes (I don’t know whether mine did, but it certainly smelled unpleasant). There is a solution, though. When you receive it, it’ll be tightly wrapped in plastic – remove this very carefully, you’ll need it later. Then remove the cotton cover, which zips off, and you’ll find the foam, wrapped in a sort of mesh casing. Wrap it in the plastic you so carefully removed, taping it tightly in place with parcel tape, ensuring that there are no gaps, replace the cotton cover, and all will be well.

You can fine-tune your sleeping position using pillows, and you’ll have to adjust your duvet, or whatever, as you’ll be sleeping slightly higher in the bed (be aware that using a bed wedge in a shared double bed is a recipe for conflict – this really is only a good idea if you sleep mostly alone!).

You may find, at first, you get neck-ache using the wedge – a small price to pay for reducing the risk of refluxed gastric acid dribbling into your lungs while you sleep – but you’ll become accustomed to it if you persevere. Several years on, I still wake with a stiff neck some days, but it doesn’t last once I’m out of bed.

A more comfortable solution, if you have a single bed, is to put the wedge under the mattress (for a double bed, of course, you’ll need two wedges). However, the drawback is that fitted sheets will constantly pop off the mattress.

Using a bed wedge will not, I’m afraid, totally eliminate the reflux problem, but it will help enormously. I find a dose of antacid at bedtime beneficial here. I prefer Altacite Plus (a liquid antacid, costing about £3.45 for 500ml – far cheaper and, in my view, more effective than the vastly over-priced and over-rated Gaviscon products).

Whether a bed wedge will improve your breathing is questionable. That it keeps your mouth and nose further away from that abode of the dust-mite, the mattress (they’re in your pillow, of course, but hey, nothing’s perfect) is worthwhile. With COPD, or any other respiratory illness, it’s important to ensure that your nose and mouth aren’t obstructed by the pillow. To this end, I fold my pillow into a firm block, and sleep with my head on the edge of it, this leaves my nose and mouth clear. I was also taught, many years ago by my physios, to sleep in the recovery position, and that really is worthwhile.

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