Core Products Tri-Core Cervical Support Pillow – Firm Orthopedic Neck Pillow for Pain Relief, Back and Side Sleepers – Ergonomic Contour Pillow – Assembled in USA, Full Size

Normally I would not give a product 5 stars if I didn't think that it was perfect, but this product is an exception.In early June I woke up one morning with a sore neck. A day later the area around my shoulder blade was extremely painful. The next day, my elbow started hurting. I'm not someone who usually has aches and pains, so I just figured that I had some kind of injury that would go away on its own. A week later, the pain was no better so I called my family physician to set up an appointment. The soonest that I could get an appointment was a week and half out. Several days after calling for the appointment, the pain was getting worse so I went to one of the immediate care places in the area. The doctor there said that I had three totally unrelated problems - wry neck, an injured rotator cuff, and tendonitis. It seemed strange that I would suddenly go from having no pain related problems to having three problems, but I went ahead and tried the exercises and prescription strength anti-inflammatory that he prescribed. Neither did anything to relieve the pain.The night before I was scheduled to see my family physician, the pain in my shoulder blade and elbow was bad enough that I could not get to sleep. I reached over my shoulder and started to press in various places to try to pinpoint where the shoulder pain was so that I could show my doctor the next day. Suddenly the pain in my shoulder blade and elbow went away. Having the pain go away in my shoulder blade was surprising, but not nearly as surprising as having the pain in the elbow go away. After a few minutes, the pain started to come back. I pressed on the same spot, and the pain once again went away. The next day when I saw my doctor and mentioned this, he said that I had a rhomboid trigger point and that trigger points could cause pain to be felt in areas other than at the trigger point itself. He prescribed various exercises that I could do to reduce the pain.The exercises made the pain bearable for a few more weeks, but gradually they became less and less effective. I researched rhomboid trigger points and found that massage therapy sometimes helps so I booked an appointment with a massage therapist. He gave me an intensive deep tissue massage. That made the pain go away... for two days. I then decided to try a chiropractor. The first appointment helped... for two hours. The second appointment helped... for one hour.I went with my wife to visit family three hours away. While there, the pain was so bad that I had to go back to the hotel room and lay with an ice pack on my shoulder blade to make it bearable. Again, I am not someone who usually has a lot of trouble with pain. I've had wisdom teeth cut out and didn't even need a Tylenol. But this constant pain was getting pretty old. I went to the chiropractor once again, and it helped, but this time the pain relief literally lasted less than five minutes. I called my family physician again, but was unable to get an appointment for two weeks.A few days later, the pain was so bad that I literally could not type or drive for more than a couple of minutes at a time. Since I still had a week and a half to go until I could get in to see my family physician, I went back to the chiropractor and told him that the treatments were just not working and that we needed to do something else. He said that I could have a pinched nerve at the C7 vertebrae. He (and the other two doctors plus massage therapist) had previously ruled that out since I was missing some of the classic symptoms. He said that the next thing was to send me to a spine specialist. Since the first thing that the specialist would probably want to do would be to get a cervical MRI, the chiropractor went ahead and ordered one so that the results would be available on the first visit to the specialist.Several days later, I showed up at the hospital for my scheduled MRI appointment. The pain at that point was bad enough that for the last several nights, I had not been able to sleep for more than a few hours a night. The MRI technician carefully positioned my head and neck and began the MRI. After several minutes of lying on the table perfectly motionless, I started to fall asleep. Anyone who has had an MRI knows that listening to the extremely loud sounds of MRI equipment is not exactly a relaxing experience. The reason that I started to fall asleep was because the pain was gone. After several sleepless nights, I was so exhausted that it didn't matter that the MRI equipment was pounding in my head. As I lay there on the MRI table, I started to wonder what could have made the pain go away. I'm no expert on MRI's but I had never heard of them being used for pain relief. It dawned on me that maybe it was the way that the MRI technician had carefully placed my head and neck. As soon as I got home, I went on Amazon and searched for cervical pillows. I found this one and placed an order with overnight shipping.The next day, I got a call from the chiropractor who said that the results of the MRI had come back. I was diagnosed with spondylosis and probable foraminal stenosis. He made an appointment for me with a spine specialist, but the soonest opening was in three weeks. The pillow came in the same day. It was uncomfortable for my neck when I first tried it, but I stuck with it for several hours before going back to my regular pillow. The next morning, I woke up pain free but the pain returned a few hours later.That night, I stuck with the pillow for most of the night. The next morning I again woke up pain free, but this time the pain relief lasted the whole day! After living with increasingly severe pain for two and a half months, I had finally found something that seemed to work. Three weeks have passed since the pillow came in and I finally went to see the spine specialist today. He said that since I had not had any pain problems for the last several weeks, to just keep doing what I am doing and that I did not need to see him again.So what things about the pillow are not perfect? The pillow barely fits into a standard size pillow case. That, in itself, would not be a problem, but I have to use an anti-allergy pillow cover because I am allergic to dust mites. If you put a standard size pillow cover on the pillow in addition to the pillow case, it scrunches up the smaller neck support to the point where it does not work right. I worked around this by ordering a 30 by 30-Inch Allersoft Square Cotton Pillow Cover (also from Amazon). The very loose fit of the pillow cover on the pillow allows for enough extra material that your head can still fit down in the head cradle without scrunching up the smaller neck support. Also, the side sleeping parts of the pillow do not seem as comfortable as my regular pillow. Still, for giving me pain relief after two and a half months of increasing pain, I give this product FIVE STARS!!

This pillow has definitely improved my sleep! I use an Apple Watch to track my sleeping patterns, and my time awake during the night is greatly reduced. You have to make sure you’re following the directions and using it correctly. I am a side sleeper and I will share what I do to get the results that I am getting. The pillow has an indent in it shaped like half of moon, which is where your head goes. I, like most people, approached the pillow from the straight line of the half moon. You need to ensure that your shoulders are touching the bed and not on top of the pillow. It’s important that you place your head in the low part of the indent, farther enough in that your top of your head is touching the back support of the pillow. Don’t put your head on the neck support or side supports of the pillow. Then slowly move your head and find the “sweet spot“ and you will sleep like a baby all night!

I was going through some serious upper back and neck issues, and went to see a chiropractor who recommended this pillow. I was hopeful, because at that point I would have bought just about anything to help my situation. The pillow arrived, and I threw it in my dryer on sanitize just to get any dust buggies out and kind of freshen it up a bit. There wasn’t a major smell, but it had been sitting in its plastic wrapping for who knows how long. I used it the first night and I woke up the next morning, after tossing around all night, in more pain than I was in, prior. It is so dense and hard, that the side of my face, ear, neck and head were hurting the next morning. I attempted to return it, and did get a full refund, but because it’s a pillow Amazon just told me to keep it. I only use it now for scrolling on my phone before I go to bed. I will say, it seems to be very well made. All the stitching has stayed in tact and it hasn’t gotten lumpy at all(I just throw it in the floor when I’m ready to go to sleep). It has softened only a little bit, over time and with use. The height of it is nice, because it does keep your head and neck aligned with your spine if you’re a side sleeper. For back sleeping, both front and back arches were too high/large for my neck positioning. Although I have heard it takes some time to get used to, it’s been several months now and unfortunately, this pillow just wasn’t for me to be sleeping on.

Pillows are so personal because every body is different. I'm 5'5" 115lbs. I wanted the pit in the middle so my head could be positioned ergonomically when on my back or my side. I didn't want a hard anything under my neck. This does that for me. When on my back, the raised sides keep my head from rolling to the side and giving me neck strain (like you get in a plane or a bus when you look at the person next to you form a conversation). The memory foam ones were too hard for my neck. Good luck. It's a buy-and-try crap shoot.

I have been using this pillow for a month, and waited to write my review so I could get used to the pillow after a few weeks. I’ve spent hundreds of dollars on pillows that are supposed to properly support your neck and reduce pain—this is the only one that has delivered. The dent in the middle is nice and deep, allowing for my head and neck to be in a good position whether I am on my back or side. The neck roll part is supportive and can be mushed back into place if it loses a bit of height. It takes some getting used to, since I like to smash my pillow into shape (this one does not do that, it’s very much this shape all the time), but it’s worth not having the neck pain. I would wake up with tension headaches several times a month that would nearly incapacitate me, and have not had one since using this pillow.