I sleep on my left side. That's my only option for several reasons I won't go into. My first question... Have you gone to a Chiropractor? I was scheduled for surgery in 1994 and went to a chiropractor who in 10 minutes gave me such relief that I cancelled the surgery.
So that's where I'd send you first.
2nd. Find out about neutral water. Non acid water. I found a chiropractor that sells it. I buy 4 gallons at a time and it lasts me about a month. I drink other water too during the day but drinking this in the evening has been something that's helped a lot.
Don't get suckered into taking a bunch of "purple pills" to reduce acid. You need acid to digest food. You need to find a way to digest food faster. If you don't break down your food, you rob your body of all nutrition and you'll be tired all the time and wonder why.
Now... to answer your question about pillows. I've bought wedges and all kinds of pillows in various shapes and density. I use a pillow filled with syrofoam pellets... and a perfectly rectangular pillow (Sleep country has them on the beds and I talked a sales person to sell me one along with the mattress we bought a little over a year ago...and it's been really good.) and then I have a neck pillow. Not the horse shoe shaped one... the one that looks like a dog bone. So those are the 3 that I use for my head/shoulders. Along with those I have a long round pillow that is like a sofa pillow, and I put it between my knees to help the pain in my hips/back. After years of sleeping on my side...with my head elevated... and probably the extra weight I seem to put on each year doesn't help... the pillow between my knees has been required.
GERD will cause scarring in your throat if you don't figure out a way to stop it from happening. It could cause cancer in your throat, too. The scarring in my throat made it very difficult to swallow soft foods. Tuna fish on Toast got caught in my throat once and I almost passed out before it finally went down far enough for me to breath. Drinking an ounce or two of Cold Leaf processed Aloe a day (not the watery kind found in gallon jugs in Wal-Mart). you want the kind found in health food stores in quart bottles... that healed my throat and in about six months the scarring was reduced where I could swallow much easier.
I have sleep apnea, too, and sleep with a machine now. Big help. Life saving and life changing for me. Before that I had a few episodes where acid came up into my ear tubes, sinus area, mouth and my lungs ... quite the fun to wake up to that. Throat closing up so bad, it was very difficult to breath...and the pain was something else. SO... to much information, I know. But GERD will only get worse as you get older if you don't get a handle on it. Pillows help.
The Aloe and PH balanced water are worth looking into.
Kathy
