My snoring was helped by switching to an adjustable airbed

I used to have a lot of trouble sleeping. I think I snored, and I'd wake up during the night not able to breathe. I was sleeping in a normal bed in those days.

I think I had sleep apnea, although I had never had it diagnosed. My mother had a sleep study done, and now she sleeps with a CPAP. But I don't want a CPAP, because it looks too uncomfortable.

Anyway, one weekend, I had to stay at my sister's house because I was dog-sitting, and she had set up an airbed for me. I had one regular bed pillow, but I needed more -- so I took a chair cushion off one of her big old Barcaloungers, because I didn't have enough pillows with me -- and so I was sleeping on the air bed with a thick heavy chair back cushion underneath me, and then just some pillows. And don't you know I slept really well!

So after a few nights of that, when I came home, I thought two things: I thought, I need to get myself a cheap air mattress, and I need to sleep with a big cushion underneath my shoulders.

So I went to Wal-Mart and I bought an adjustable airbed. You can adjust the amount of air easily, because the bed has a built-in electric pump. You can make it as hard or as soft as you want. I didn't really have a big cushion here at my house like the one from her chair, so I ended up trying lots and lots of pillows. Like, nine pillows, under me and surrounding me. And I slept on that for a while, and it was great. My back didn't hurt any more; my hips didn't hurt. I could sleep on either side, even, and my hips didn't hurt.

Even better, I was sleeping through the night. I think I wasn't snoring any more. I would find myself going to sleep and staying in the same position all night long, and waking up in that exact same position -- which let me know I was breathing okay, all through the night. And I felt a whole lot more rested.

And then I found yet another trick, to help hold my head in a good position while I was sleeping so that I could breathe steadily all night long. I would grab a few cotton knit t-shirts, grab maybe three of them by the neck, and shake them out and lay them across the pillow where I was going to lay my head. I don't know, sort of making a tube of t-shirts that I could tuck under my neck.

So now that's how I sleep -- on an adjustable air mattress, with a whole bunch of pillows, and with t-shirts underneath my neck for support. I find I can turn on my side, or turn on my back, and adjust the t-shirts so that they're in position, and I can sleep soundly. It aids sleep, and you could even say it cures insomnia -- because I don't wake up all through the night any more, or have trouble getting back to sleep if I get up to go to the bathroom. It's been working really well.

I find that for me, the air mattresses last about six months a piece. It costs about 50 bucks to buy a new one, so every six months or so I go to Wal-Mart and I have to buy a new bed. It doesn't really collapse all at once, you know. You get some advanced warning. It's not like all the air runs out on a single night and you find yourself sleeping on the ground. It deflates pretty slowly, usually from rubbing against the wall or headboard, so you begin to realize you have a slow leak, and you have a few days in which to round up another bed.

So I gotta say, it's working for me.