Is it worth using an orthopedic neck pillow for osteochondrosis?

Osteo­chon­dro­sis is a wide­spread dis­ease, espe­cial­ly among peo­ple over 50 years of age. The essence of this pathol­o­gy lies in degen­er­a­tive-dys­troph­ic changes in the region of the ver­te­brae and the inter­ver­te­bral discs locat­ed between them. Most often, this dis­ease affects the cer­vi­cal spine, which from a clin­i­cal point of view is man­i­fest­ed by pain in the neck. In this arti­cle we will talk about the choice of ortho­pe­dic neck pil­lows for osteo­chon­dro­sis.

The main advantages of orthopedic pillows

As we have already said, cer­vi­cal osteo­chon­dro­sis is accom­pa­nied by pain in the neck. In this regard, most peo­ple with this dis­ease find it dif­fi­cult to find a com­fort­able sleep­ing posi­tion, as a result of which they do not get enough sleep, feel over­whelmed and tired dur­ing the day. An ortho­pe­dic pil­low will help to cope with this prob­lem.

The main plus of ortho­pe­dic pil­lows is that they pro­vide the cor­rect posi­tion of the neck-shoul­der region, as well as the head dur­ing sleep, which helps to alle­vi­ate pain. When using such a pil­low, the mus­cles of the neck and back relax, the load on the spinal col­umn is reduced, the ves­sels and nerves are not clamped, which con­tributes to a bet­ter flow of blood to the brain.

In 2014, sci­en­tists from the Insti­tute for Advanced Stud­ies of the Fed­er­al Med­ical and Bio­log­i­cal Agency pub­lished a paper, the results of which estab­lished the fea­si­bil­i­ty of using this prod­uct for cer­vi­cal osteo­chon­dro­sis.

Note that the use of an ortho­pe­dic pil­low will not replace med­ical treat­ment and exer­cise ther­a­py, but it can sig­nif­i­cant­ly increase their effec­tive­ness.

As for the dis­ad­van­tages, ortho­pe­dic pil­lows are quite hard, which is why it may take time to get used to it.

Types of orthopedic pillows

First of all, ortho­pe­dic pil­lows dif­fer in shape. They are in the form:

• roller — is con­sid­ered the most ver­sa­tile;
• cres­cent — most con­ve­nient for peo­ple suf­fer­ing from pain not only in the neck, but also in the shoul­ders;
• rec­tan­gle — can also be used by dif­fer­ent groups of peo­ple, and so on.

Sep­a­rate­ly, pil­lows with a relief sur­face that has a mas­sage effect are dis­tin­guished.

In addi­tion, such an ortho­pe­dic prod­uct may con­tain var­i­ous fillers, such as nat­ur­al latex, soy foam, poly­ester, and so on.

Features of choosing an orthopedic pillow for cervical osteochondrosis

When choos­ing an ortho­pe­dic pil­low, first of all, you should pay atten­tion to its height. The most opti­mal height for an adult who is used to sleep­ing on his back is 10–12 cen­time­ters. Using a prod­uct that is too high leads to exces­sive mus­cle ten­sion and clamp­ing of the vas­cu­lar struc­tures, too low leads to tilt­ing the head back and, again, to mus­cle strain.

Anoth­er impor­tant indi­ca­tor is the rigid­i­ty of the prod­uct. Regard­ing this issue, one should be guid­ed by the rec­om­men­da­tions of the doc­tor, as well as by per­son­al feel­ings. For peo­ple who are used to sleep­ing on their backs, it is prefer­able to choose pil­lows of medi­um hard­ness, on the side — hard.