Laugh and the world laughs with you.
Snore and you sleep alone.
– Anthony Burgess –
In the Inventive Uses for a 2X4 category, the most recent one I am test driving is the enticing promise that it will reduce (if not stop) a person from snoring! In our household, late at night, now and then, someone might be lying awake in bed – listening to the saw like sounds of the person who lies beside them.
Enter the 2X4, a dimensional piece of wood that is actually about 1.5 by 3.5 inches. Depending on the length of the board, it could be used to poke the snorer until they woke up and quit snoring. But, we have inadvertently found that if the 2X4 is used to raise the head of the bead by 3.5 inches, snoring is reduced significantly. At least, so far the snoring is reduced. We will see what happens in the long term.
We raised the head of our bed for quite another medical reason. The jury is out as to whether the other medical condition is improving, but if the snoring is alleviated, we’ll both be pleased!
Raising the head of the bed can be as simple as putting a few blocks of wood under the feet. Or it can be as time consuming as ripping some 2X4’s obliquely to create long wedges that attach to the underside of the box spring. Much depends on how stable you want the result to be, and how much you care about the damage to your carpet from the blocks of wood…
Be warned! For the first few nights you might feel like you are slowly migrating towards the end of the bed while you sleep. You probably are, but you really don’t slide very far. You will also find that your night tables are now too low, by about the same number of inches as the bed was raised. The Car Guy has some creative suggestions about how to raise the night tables – with 2X4’s, of course…
Amusives 
Very interesting…did you keep the remaining two feet of the stud to use on the log sawyer in case elevating the bed didn’t work?
I can relate on the other medical issue not being addressed by raising the bed. My acid reflux just started burning a hole in my stomach instead of my throat…
Thank God and Astra Zeneca for making Nexium…
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Hi Sons – I have been told that I snore too. Hard to believe. But I do think we both snore less than we used to.
As for the acid reflux, raising the bed was helpful, but it hasn’t completely eliminated the need for drugs.
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If the reflux is still there, the acid problem is most likely because when we get older often the stomach is no longer producing the right amount of acid for meals (low stomach acid) and it ends up “overproducing” in the end because it sense not enough acid got produced initially. Start taking regular doses of Betaine HCL pills daily and the acid level in the stomach will stay more consistent and the stomach will not see the need to produce as much acid and hence no longer accidently overproduce acid like it currently does. The antacids / proton pump inhibitors like nexium are a pharma scam. They appear to work well because the pain magically goes away, but you cannot properly digest long-term without acid. Greater digestive problems will come in the future with long term use of proton pump inhibitors.
I completely got myself off of Nexium in a matter of a few weeks by supplementing with Betaine HCL 2 -3 times per day and lowering the nexium dose until I eventually stopped completely. I have been Nexium and Reflux free for over 9 months. Supposedly over time the stomach can retrain itself and start producing the correct acid levels again. I am not a doctor, and an MD probably would never bother telling you this information because it does not sell more pharma drugs. Maybe a naturapath might give you a better explanation. All I know is that I had to research the acid indigestion topic extensively online and work it out for myself. I hope this helps. Good luck. I plan to try out the 2×4 under my box spring for the snoring!
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Thank you for sharing your experience. From what I have read, betaine hydrochloride with meals may improve digestion in people who have been diagnosed with low stomach acid (hypochlorhydria). It is an herbal treatment with minimal or no scientific evidence of it’s effectiveness. It can have side effects. Personally, I wouldn’t use it without my Doctor’s advice, but I’ll certainly run it by him!
I’m fortunate that my Doctor is not a huge fan of drug companies. On more than one occasion he has expressed his dissatisfaction with certain products that he thinks are just being hyped for monetary gain vs actual benefits.
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Mother never told me about the ties that bind and destroy because of snoring!
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And they say that mothers know everything!
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