Mayo Said To Tilt Head Of Bed

[kayjay]

Hi all, I was told to tilt the head or my bed 4-12 inches. At first i was just going to buy a wedge pillow but then read that defeats the purpose. What does this do? Has anyone tried it? everything else they told me to do has really helped so far but I don't want to damage my king size cannon ball bed by racking it . Any suggestions would be welcome please.

[potsgirl]

Hi Kari,

I went to the Mayo Clinic also (Rochester) and my ANS specialist told me the same thing. We have a king bed, too, and it was difficult to tilt it 4" because you have to prop up the center of the bed, too. It's been 6 months, and I don't think I've seen any difference at all. My BP tends to run pretty low, though, and I think the elevated bed is more for those with higher BPs. I do sleep with one of those memory foam pillows though, with a thin pillow underneath. That combo seems to work the best for me.

Good luck!

Jana

[Gracefulprincess]

my cardiologist told me to tilt the head of my bed too...so i tried it for awhile but it didn't help. And i had a hard time trying to sleep with my bed like that...it was too uncomfortable. It ended up being more of a hassle then help.

[sue1234]

I have had my bed tilted for probably 10 years, and my POTS began 3 1/2 years ago. So, it obviously didn't prevent mine by any means. I've read before that tilting the bed causes your body to produce more blood volume, I believe.

[Sophia3]

Tilting head makes many WORSE. it did me though I tried for months.

I since learned I have LOW supine BP. Tilting of the bed works better for SUPINE HYPERTENSION but I do not have that form of problems.

Why Mayo continues to tell people this one escapes me. Makes many worse...I found this out in the late 90's but felt I HAD to try it since it's a non medicinal way treatment.

[janiedelite]

I received the same advice from Mayo early this year, but couldn't tolerate having my head tilted up more than 3 inches. More than that and I had pretty bad adrenaline surges. I did have 3-4 months of somewhat lessened symptoms after going to Mayo, but I was also implementing a higher salt/fluid intake, mild exercise, and other suggestions. The last couple months, I've had a decrease in function even though my head of bed is still up 3 inches.

When I asked the Mayo neuro why they suggest this, he said we should always try to have our head higher than our feet in order to keep the muscles lining our lower body vasculature from getting deconditioned.

[iheartcats]

I received the same advice from Mayo early this year, but couldn't tolerate having my head tilted up more than 3 inches. More than that and I had pretty bad adrenaline surges. I did have 3-4 months of somewhat lessened symptoms after going to Mayo, but I was also implementing a higher salt/fluid intake, mild exercise, and other suggestions. The last couple months, I've had a decrease in function even though my head of bed is still up 3 inches.

When I asked the Mayo neuro why they suggest this, he said we should always try to have our head higher than our feet in order to keep the muscles lining our lower body vasculature from getting deconditioned.

It's so hard to sleep with it tilted, I think. Goodness help me, but I'd rather try exercising to help deconditioning than being forced to sleep funny 6-9 hours a day. :/

If it does help some people and they can sleep, though, it's probably worth it.

[erik]

I slept in a lazee-boy for years simply because it somehow made me feel better... this was before learning of all this POTS stuff. I had no idea why but it was significant enough that I almost "feared" my bed. For me the couple times I'd sleep in a bed I had significant but mysterious "anxiety" feelings and disturbed sleep (perhaps other symptoms that I didn't know to keep track of).

I don't know if I buy the "avoid vascular deconditioning" explanation... if you have "denervation" or one of the other various causes of POTS then that is not the direct cause (though deconditioning can be a compounding factor). There is a remote chance that keeping a slight "load" on the system avoids the ping-ponging of an unstable autonomic management that dips down too low and panics in response (disturbing sleep and inducing little panic things). My blood pressure isn't usually super low (except briefly when POTS is in bad phase and orthostatic hypotension is extra pronounced) and my heart rate rides very low when supine. Perhaps keeping my "baroreflex" a little loaded was keeping my HR up slightly and voiding disruptive surges. I've recorded myself in the 30 bpm range during sleep at times when fully supine (that's decent bradycardia)!

[toddm1960]

I am orthostatic hypertensive and when I don't sleep on a tilted bed it feels like blood pools in my head. My sinuses are full and I feel like my head will burst. On my king I took a 4X4 and cut it 76" long and layed it all the way across the head of the bed frame. Very solid and works great for me. This is just like everything else, what helps half of us makes the other half worse.

[tinkerbella]

what's wrong with a wedge? I use a wedge with a foam pillow ontop of that.

woulds a hospital bed be better as for the swelling of the feet and all kinds of pots issues?

Just wondering?

BellaMia~

[flop]

The idea with tilting the bed is that your whole body is at an angle (head highest, then shoulders, then hips, knees and feet). This means that gravity pulls the blood down into your feet and 2 thoughts - either your body has to work to keep your BP up or your body increases fluid volume (via the kidneys) to compensate for the gravity effect.

By using a wedge pillow you are only raising your head and shoulders slightly, not lowering the rest of your body too.

Some hospital beds can do a position where the mattrass is flat but on a slope which would be the same effect as lifting the head of a normal bed.

The usual hospital bed comfortable position of raised head end and raised feet actually leaves your bottom as the lowest point gravity wise so wouldn't have the same effect as tilting the bed.

I haven't actually tried the bed tilting myself, my doctors have never suggested it to me. I have low BP when lying down so if anything my doctors told me to raise my feet at night (I slept much better with pillows under my feet but I felt worse during the day when upright so I went back to sleeping normally again).

Flop