The Orthopedic Knee Pillow – A Well-Deserved Rest for Your Legs

At the end of a long day, especially after being on our feet for many hours, we come home exhausted. We instinctively feel the need of lying down with our legs up. It has been proven long ago that simply lying down when you sleep or rest is not enough for renewing our energy levels and healing the fatigue we accumulate during a hard day’s work. The quality of our sleep or rest is what counts most!

That’s why orthopedic pillows were invented – to offer a comfortable, healthy support for different parts of our body during sleep, rest or work, this way treating and preventing many tension-related dysfunctions. However, our back and cervical area are not the only parts of our body that need support. Offering our legs a quality rest is also extremely important – that’s why the knee orthopedic pillows were invented.

You can find many types of knee pillows on the market – each one having its specific purpose.

The orthopedic knee pillow for side sleepers can be shaped like an hourglass or a rectangle. It is placed between knees during sleep, easing the pain and tension created in the knee, hip and lower back when one knee is placed over the other. Some of these pillows come with a special strap that can be wrapped around one leg to maintain the pillow in place.

Most knee pillows are made from memory foam – the heat-sensitive firm material that has the ability of matching the lines of your body exactly for offering an increased sense of comfort.

The use of a wedge knee pillow is recommended for speeding up the healing of an injury (especially after a surgery). Specialists say that if the legs of a patient are kept at a 45˚ angle, the blood circulation will improve and the leg muscles will also recover faster. That’s why you can use such a knee elevation pillow not only after surgery or another trauma, but also as a daily relaxing routine which will help you ease the tension and the pain accumulated in your legs.

Knee lift orthopedic pillows can additionally reduce the discomfort from the lower back. For this purpose, you can also use a knee roll pillow. Placed under your knees when you lie down, it will elevate your legs to a comfortable angle, increasing the circulation and easing the tension from the back and leg muscles. It has practically the same function as the wedge pillow, with the difference that the knee roll is shaped like a cylinder and has no sharp edges. For some people this may be an advantage – in the end, it all depends on your personal preferences and the recommendations of your doctor/chiropractor.

The knee roll elevation pillow can be used in many other ways, for example as a back-sleeping training device (if you want to learn to sleep on your back, you have to lie down with this pillow under your knees), as a development tool for babies or an exercise tool for workout purposes.

If you travel a lot but you don’t want to give up on the comfort offered by your favorite orthopedic pillow, you can buy an inflatable knee pillow. Its compact size will allow you to carry it with you wherever you go, and you can inflate and use it anytime.

Knee support pillows can also be extremely useful for pregnant women, who need extra comfort during this delicate period. During pregnancy, women can place a pillow between their knees when they sleep, this way relieving the pressure from the back and hips. When they simply rest, they can use a wedge or a roll which will improve the circulation in their legs and will relieve the strain from the lower back.

Knee pillows can also help ease the suffering of those who have arthritis.

Luckily, you will find online many affordable types of knee orthopedic pillows. The usual price for such a therapeutic device ranges between $8 and $30. Don’t forget to consult your physician before purchasing an orthopedic pillow and read some online reviews that will help you have a better understanding of the pros and cons of the product you’re planning to acquire.