JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – You might not realize that pillows, beds and mattresses account for an estimated 906,000 injuries every year, based on emergency room data reported to the Consumer Product Safety Commission in 2022.
Those three items cause the second most product-related injuries at home.
You might be wondering how does that even happen?
The stats don’t reveal exactly what those injuries were, but physical therapists say they see three main injuries related to sleeping: neck pain, shoulder pain and back pain.
When it comes to neck pain, they say one or two issues are at play: Either your pillow isn’t right for you or the position you sleep in is causing the pain.
Either way, a firm pillow is your best bet. Soft pillows are most likely to cause your neck to strain, causing pain.
Shoulder pain is typically caused when you sleep with your arm underneath your head, either as a pillow or under an unsupportive pillow. This puts stress on your tendons.
The best move is to swap to sleeping on your back or switching sides throughout the night.
Finally, back pain is usually caused by an old mattress that doesn’t have enough support to keep your spine aligned.
Make sure you’re switching out your mattress and your pillow.
You also want to keep your bedroom warm enough so you aren’t huddled in one position all night and you naturally move around in your sleep.
And if you’re curious about the other items in your home that pose unexpected dangers: Stairs, ramps and floors make up the No. 1 category for product-related injuries. Mishaps on those make up an estimated 2.8 million injuries a year.
Roughly half of those injuries happen to people 65 and older, but more than 900,000 of those who were injured were between the ages of 25 and 64.
And the category that leads to the third most emergency room visits: Chairs and sofas. They cause nearly 600,000 injuries.