The Pillow Cutouts That Ended My Mask Leak Mornings

For twenty years I snored like a chainsaw with a grudge. My wife Darlene, a light sleeper, spent most nights on the couch before she finally told me she had watched me stop breathing in my sleep. That sent me to a sleep study, where a doctor diagnosed me with moderate obstructive sleep apnea and prescribed a CPAP. I have used that machine every night for two years, and it works. But for most of that time, my mask leaked, my neck ached, and I woke up with a dry mouth and a sore shoulder from trying to keep my head in just the right spot.

The trouble was my pillow. I was sleeping on a regular pillow that pushed my head forward and lifted the mask off my face the minute I turned on my side. I tried squashing it, folding it, stacking two of them. I bought a strap to hold my mouth shut and a chin strap that pulled the mask tighter. They helped a little and then slipped off in the night. Nothing kept the seal where it needed to be. I had read about the Lunderg CPAP pillow with its side cutouts, but I was skeptical of anything that promised to fix mask leaks.

In the first week of March this year, I ordered the Lunderg CPAP pillow for side and back sleepers. It is a high-density memory foam pillow with cutouts on each side and an adjustable thickness. I paid for it myself, same as I have with every snoring gadget and CPAP add-on I own. I have used it for about eight months now, and it is the one thing on my nightstand I would not give back.

Here is what I can tell you after all those months: the cutouts are not a gimmick. When I sleep on my side, my mask sits down in that cutout, out of the way of the pillow, and the seal holds. The foam is slow-rebound memory foam, so it gently conforms to my head and neck instead of fighting them. I still snore some on my back, and I still use my CPAP every night, because sleep apnea is a medical condition only a doctor can diagnose and treat. But I no longer wake up at 3 a.m. with air hissing out of my mask. The first time I slept through the night without a single leak was a Tuesday in mid-March. I woke up and checked the machine's readout before I believed it.

The cutouts are not a gimmick. When I sleep on my side, my mask sits down in that cutout, out of the way of the pillow, and the seal holds.

The first thing I noticed was the weight. At 5.1 pounds, this is not a flimsy pillow you can fold in half. The high-density memory foam is CertiPUR-US certified, and it has a medium-firm feel that took me about three nights to get used to. It comes with two pillowcases instead of one, and both are machine washable, which matters when you wake up with drool on your face from sleeping with your mouth open. The box came on a Tuesday, and I opened it right there in the bedroom. The pillow was wider than my old one, and the cutouts were deeper than I expected, deep enough that my mask frame sat clear of the foam.

What sold me was the adjustable thickness. The pillow comes with a removable 1.1-inch memory foam layer. With the layer in, the pillow is taller, which worked for me when I slept on my back. Without it, the pillow sits lower, which worked better when I turned on my side. I have changed it twice since March, and it takes about a minute. No other pillow I have owned let me do that. The first week I left the layer in and slept on my back, and the machine's readout showed fewer leak hours than I had seen in months. Then I pulled the layer out for side sleeping, and my shoulder stopped aching.

I will be honest about the downsides. Memory foam sleeps warm, and while the cover helps, this is not a cooling cure. On the muggy nights in July I flipped the pillow to the other side and still woke up warm. The cutouts mean the pillow is shaped differently from a regular one, so it took me a few nights to stop reaching for the familiar flat spot. And if you are a stomach sleeper, this pillow is probably not for you. I am a side and back sleeper, and it fits me fine.

I also want to say this plainly: a pillow does not treat sleep apnea. If you snore loudly, or if someone has seen you stop breathing at night, do not buy a pillow and call it done. Get a sleep study. Let a doctor tell you what you need. I did, and my CPAP is the reason I wake up rested. The Lunderg pillow is the reason I wake up without a sore neck and a leaked-out mask. My sleep study was two years ago this fall, and the CPAP has sat on my nightstand every night since.

What I'd Tell You If We Were Sitting at My Kitchen Table

If you were sitting at my kitchen table with a cup of coffee, I would tell you this: stop fighting your pillow. I spent two years wrestling with a regular pillow, a chin strap, and a lot of lost sleep before I tried a CPAP pillow with actual cutouts. The Lunderg is not magic, and it will not fix your sleep apnea. But if you sleep on your side or your back, wear a CPAP mask, and wake up with leaks, it is worth trying. It was the first thing that worked for me, and eight months later, it still is. I would also tell you to give it a full week before you judge it, because the shape takes some getting used to.