sleeping completely upright to prevent OSA?

[Kennerly]

I broke four ribs last weekend and couldn't sleep lying down at all, so I've been sleeping in a cushy chair with pillows (not a recliner).

Before this accident, a good night for me would be below 10 AHI... hardly ever would I see less than 5, and I figured that was good enough because I felt like I was getting good sleep (untreated AHI in the 70s).

But in this chair, every night my AHI has been below 1 !!! This is really amazing. My leaks are a little higher and my snores are a little more frequent, but last night I had ZERO apnea events. Sleep isn't great because of the broken rib pain, but once that gets better I'm staying in the chair.

On Friday I went out and bought a deluxe LaZBoy recliner with four adjustment things - being delivered tomorrow... this might well become the new normal.

Welcome to the club, I have the same kind of chair. And similar results, my pressure needs dropped when I started sleeping in the recliner. It also became realistic for me to sleep with a ffm which I needed to do.

[sc0ttt]

I broke four ribs last weekend .... every night my AHI has been below 1

the new technique for better numbers, broken ribs.

sc0ttt, you should break ribs more often!

(seriously, though, I don't recommend it, when I broke mine, most of what i remember is spending two or three weeks trying not to breath, cuz that HURT!

I am very fortunate in that I have not sneezed ONCE in 9 days. I'm able to take about 80% of a full breath today.

Pain killers have been causing constipation though, and you never realize how much you use ribs in moving your bowels until they're broken... holy cow that hurts... even with Milk of Magnesia. On top of that, I have some road rash that's still weeping some kind of goo that makes my scabs stick to my t-shirt.

I can't wait until my new chair comes... I might never get out of it. Lancer model; Power control with four adjusting part... lumbar, head, tilt, and footrest.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yUEWqZT0zM

[TyroneShoes]

I broke four ribs last weekend and couldn't sleep lying down at all, so I've been sleeping in a cushy chair with pillows (not a recliner).

Before this accident, a good night for me would be below 10 AHI... hardly ever would I see less than 5, and I figured that was good enough because I felt like I was getting good sleep (untreated AHI in the 70s).

But in this chair, every night my AHI has been below 1 !!! This is really amazing. My leaks are a little higher and my snores are a little more frequent, but last night I had ZERO apnea events. Sleep isn't great because of the broken rib pain, but once that gets better I'm staying in the chair.

On Friday I went out and bought a deluxe LaZBoy recliner with four adjustment things - being delivered tomorrow... this might well become the new normal.

I am happy that you found a solution that works for you. It would be interesting to see if others, converting to sitting up but still using CPAP, would have a similar result. This should probably encourage some of us to try this. I once slept in a Papasan chair for a couple months due to shoulder pain, and it was fine.

But you may also just be an outlier, and not representative of what others might experience. Anecdotal reports have value, but should not be assumed to be the norm for everyone. I also would assume that you are on different medication, now that you are recovering from a painful recent injury, which may also skew your results.

But that does not invalidate what you are saying; I think it might at least warrant a discussion with your sleep doc. And if this is making a positive difference for you, who really knows whether it could for others, until they try? I hope they do. If it becomes the "new normal" for you, or others, that's just great.

I had a sleep study the other day, and they put me in a bed so soft I could barely sleep in it without being in serious pain from lack of back support after about 90 minutes, which woke me for the next 90 minutes; like sleeping in a hammock. When I used to sleep in my girlfriend's waterbed back in the day, at least I could go sleep on the floor and relieve the pain (she was not the pain, far from it, but waterbeds have zero support).

But in the sleep study I was limited to taking the two miserable pillows they gave me and scrunching them up behind me so that I was virtually sleeping upright. I would guess that half-sleep in an upright, not normal position for most of the night probably skewed the results of that study beyond any recognition.

[Nick Danger]

Sleeping with your head elevated should help both OSA and GERD, but is unlikely to eliminate either (though I think it works better for GERD than for OSA).

One of my two most embarrassing moments due to OSA came on a plane when I snorted so loudly that I woke myself up - only to see every person on the plan within my sight glaring at me. I'm sure I had been snoring so loudly that it bothered them over the jet's engine noise.

[Mr Bill]

I have to sleep on my back to avoid GERD or prop myself up pretty substantially. If I have a cold or my asthma is acting up, its very hard for me to get to sleep lying down and sitting up does seem to help. So, I often let myself doze off on the couch before I get up and hit the sack for "real" sleep with my mask on. And, if after going to bed, I cannot fall asleep, I will lug my ASV out into the living room and sleep masked up while propped up on the sofa next to the fire.