tiggymalvern | The Body Pillow (or how Kuro learned to stop grumping and love the lump)

I've had a lot of issues with low back pain over the years, especially in bed. It's really annoying when you wake up at 6am and want to keep sleeping, but your back won't stop aching until you get out of bed and move around. I've had all kinds of different mattresses and pillows, and I decided to try out a body pillow. So I looked at reviews and bought this thing:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07MZ9WYDQ?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_dt_b_asin_title

It's not as big as the picture makes it look - the model is short! I tried sleeping with it like in the picture, but it wasn't comfortable for my neck, it was far too thick. So I reversed it and put the U down at my feet, with an arm sticking up either side of me. That way, there's an arm to prop my top leg on, whichever side I sleep on.

It worked really well. I've been waiting a while to say anything, because there are good phases and bad phases with spines, but now it's been a month and I haven't had a back ache in bed. I am pleased!

The same could not initially be said for Kuro, who for fifteen years has been sleeping curled up in front of me, propped against me. He was APPALLED to find that his spot on the bed had been taken by this lumpy THING. He wowzled. He kneaded HARD, and failed to reshape it. For several nights, he came to bed with me, wowzled, grumped around, and then stalked off in a huff. Sometimes he would return later in the night, and wowzle and knead and grump some more before leaving again, all rejected and humpy.

And then a few nights after I turned the bed pillow upside down, he discovered the U at the bottom. Which, in being designed to fit a human head and neck, turns out also to be precisely cat shaped. He curls into it beautifully, with support on both sides of him, and this support doesn't even wriggle around in the night. It is FAR better than sleeping propped against a stupid human!

So now Kuro is happy. And I am mostly happy. I have a really good body pillow. As long as I arrange my feet around a sixteen year old cat.

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Aw, bless his little cotton socks :) That's a happy lad, right there.

And I'm so glad you found a solution to back pain! It's a real bugger. I want SO to try a body pillow for his "no I don't snore" snoring issue which is caused by him "no I don't sleep on my back, honest" sleeping on his back. But I don't know if we have a big enough bed for that and the two of us.

At the moment, my curse is knee pain from falling down the stairs last November, which no amount of exercise seems to mend, and not many positions seem to suit. I'm going to see the GP on Monday - have been holding off because I thought it might get better on its own, and the whole pandemic thing has made going to the doctor a bloody nuisance (and a strain on an already overwhelmed system). A week's enforced rest for reasons has demonstrated that not exercising doesn't help either :(

I don't know that she'll be able to do more than possibly diagnose a problem which can't be sorted out, but we'll see.

He is very happy with the body pillow, now that it's the right way round to suit him!

I no longer sleep with the SO because of his snoring. It's been separate bedrooms for the past 18 months, so a queen bed is just right for me and my body pillow. No way it would work if there were two of us without a California King...

Sounds like you might have damaged your cruciate or a meniscus :-( I hope it's something less annoying to treat though.

As someone who has a little bit of experience with persistent knee pain...may I offer you my most sincere sympathy? I hope it's something your GP can sort out easily. *gentle hugs*

thanks, hon. Unfortunately the GP will have to wait because I've been overtaken by events :( But it'll get sorted out. Or not ;)

oh wow, this looks amazing! I'd never heard of this contraption before but it seems like exactly what I need... I was told once by a physio that AFAB people tend to prefer to/"should" sleep with a pillow between their knees because if your hips are enough wider than your stacked knees, sleeping on your side will inevitably result in twisting your spine at least a little. And I'm glad it works for the cat, too... the real important thing!

I know when I'm lying on my side that there's a twist in my spine, I can feel it. I tried one of the knee pillows first, but it was nothing like big enough. There was always a twist somewhere, whether it was in my spine, or in my knee where it then sloped down to my ankle. And it was annoying, because it was never in quite the right place, even one with a loop to wrap round your thigh that was supposed to hold it in place.

So the body pillow it was, and that seems to Just Work TM. You can get single body pillows, but I'd have to drag it with me every time I turned over to sleep on the other side, so having one either side by default seemd bettter if I was going to try it at all.

You don't find the blankets getting too tight around your feet with this new body pillow? I've looked at all kinds of them but seem to keep running into that problem. Might be I just need to use a blanket that's not "fixed" on the bed.

All in all if the precious kitty is happy, the rest will sort itself out. That's the most important thing - sort of. :)

Whenever I use my Tricore pillow, Cody seems to think that the triangle hole in the center must have been made specifically for him and not my head. Had the same issue with Mikey and Teni in the past. Bailey happily sleeps inside her little carrier.

Glad you found something to help ease your back pain. If you don't mind doing an update in another month or so I'd be interested to hear if you still like it.

I have a fairly light comforter on my bed, and I don't often find it's a problem. It only becomes a problem when the comforter is weighed down by one of the cats. Every now and then I have to tug at the comforter with Neko on it to loosen it up by dragging him across the bed a little.

I'm still trying to find a good neck pillow. I've tried pillow cubes, memory foam, specially shaped neck pillows, and every one of them seems to be too thick so that my neck is bent upwards rather than straight. Might have to try a tricore...

Ah, the never-ending perfect pain-free pillow search. I feel your pain. Literally. For quite a few years I thought I found the perfect-for-me pillow with a cooling memory foam type. It needed to be replaced every four years or so but that was doable for the comfort.

Then, it was discontinued.

Tried several similar pillows but found they were not the same so the search resumed. I may need to go back to the Tricore again now that the menopause monster has decided to slink off. :P

There are several styles of Tricore pillows. The link below is for the "gentle" fill so it's softer, it might be more suited for you if your neck is bent upwards with the other pillows. One side is a little shorter than the other so you can get a better fit for your neck. You'll want to lay on it so the pillow lifts a little bit of your upper shoulders so your head is fully in the triangle.

https://smile.amazon.com/Core-Products-FIB-220-Tri-Core-Cervical/dp/B005RCBKE6/ref=sr_1_4?keywords=tricore&qid=1645208297&sr=8-4

I prefer the more firm version (that's what my chiropractor's office uses for the traction machine and where I first learned about these).

https://smile.amazon.com/Core-Products-Tri-Core-Pillow-Full/dp/B000ET9TXQ/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=tricore&qid=1645208297&sr=8-3

Tried the rounder one (D-Core) but hated that it made my neck hurt more than ever but YMMV.Whichever pillow you get, keep in mind that it's going to take some time to get used to it, and you'll more than likely have to fight your kitties for it, too. :)

I dug around a bit in the descriptions of the tri-core pillows, and they say specifically that it's NOT for side-sleepers, which I am. It seems to be designed for sleeping on your back.

So I ended up buying one of these:

https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B09HXFZPYH?psc=1&ref=ppx_pop_dt_b_asin_title

It has a separate pouch for the area under your neck which you can pack with as much fill as you need. It sounds perfect, because I have a couple of rejected pillows which were super comfortable in the shaped area under my head, it's just that the neck part was too high and wouldn't squish down.

It arrived today, so I will have to play with it and let you know.

Yes, please let me know how you like it. In the mean time I continue my search...why do I feel like Goldilocks? XD

It's working. I've waited a couple of months to deliver a final verdict, because first I spent a few weeks slowly adjusting the amount of fill, and then longer waiting for the otehr shoe to drop, only it never did.

It's not perfect - I actually wish the central dip where your head goes was a little bit thicker. The adjustable part is the bit that fits your neck, there's no way to change the deoth of the hollw, though I suppose you could put a blanket or something under it to lift it up half an inch or whatever. But since I got the filler right, I haven't once woken up with a stiff neck. It's the best pillow I've found by quite some margin.

Ha! How did you know that I'd been thinking of you and wondering if the pillow was working well? Just about the time when I was going to email to get an update, you post one here. Thank you.

How is the heat with this pillow? Do you find yourself feeling hot in the night?

I haven't been hot, but the weather hasn't been hot either yet, so who knows what will happen when summer comes?

The Body Pillow (or how Kuro learned to stop grumping and love the lump)

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