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!!

I suffer from MS and Fibromyalgia. As a result have a lot of issues with my neck, and frequently have debilitating neck pain that takes me down for days at a time. I ordered this pillow after reading some of the reviews on here, but at the same time, I was a little dubious, as often a product doesn't measure up to all the hype. That was not the case here. From the first night I used this pillow, I had a wonderful, relaxing sleep and woke up with no neck tension or pain. I'm not a back-sleeper; I generally sleep on my side and toward my stomach. But regardless of what position you sleep in, this pillow keeps your head positioned so that it's not angled and so that your neck is not stressed. There are side cushions that gently cushion your head when you sleep on your sides or your back. The funny thing is that there is a scooped out section in the middle where your head goes, and if you feel the thickness of the actual pillow in that area, it's pretty thin. You'd think that it wouldn't offer much support or cushion, but once you lay on it, you can't get over how comfortable it feels. At the top and bottom of the pillow is an area that gently cushions the neck. Again, whether you're laying on your side or your back, it supports your neck so that your had stays virtually horizontal. For me this is critical. Other, conventional pillows tend to angle the head up so that the chin is down toward the chest (if you're on your back) or if sleeping on your side, the pillow angles your head sideways toward your shoulder - this is very bad if you already suffer from neck problems. Since many of us spend a lot of our day looking down at a PC or down at our phones, this is the source of many of the neck problems we suffer from. This pillow does just the opposite, by holding the head at the proper angle. I used to go in once a month to my Neurologist to get triggerpoint injections in my neck because the pain in my neck, and radiating up over my head was so severe. Since I started using this pillow, I haven't had to go back for any triggerpoint injections. I realize this may not work for everyone, but for me, this pillow has been a godsend. I have so say that I'm really very surprised at how great it feels to lay on - so relaxing. If you suffer from chronic neck problems or even if you just are looking for a more comfortable pillow to sleep on, I highly recommend it.

About a couple years ago I began experimenting with pillows, because the standard pillows I had were annoying me in a number of ways. They were too soft, even the supposedly "extra firm" pillows I bought. So when I slept on my side, I'd have to fold the side of the pillow under itself in order to get any decent firmness. And invariably over time even that wouldn't work, because the material would always wear out. I often found myself sleeping with my arm tucked under the pillow, but that would cause my arm to lose blood circulation. It was really sub-optimal no matter what I tried and no matter what pillow I used. I'm a light sleeper, too, so that made it even worse. Then I tried out one of those memory foam pillows with the two bumps in it. Actually, I think I bought a cheap foam rubber version rather than true memory foam. It was a lot more firm than the normal pillows, so I thought it would do well. Pretty quickly, however, I found myself waking up with a stiff, sore neck. It was so bad that I just couldn't even turn my head any more than about 20 degrees. And that was every single day practically, for almost a year. Memory foam or latex foam would have done the same thing, I believe. Finally I decided to buy one of these Tri-core pillows. Immediately, the next day my neck pain had completely gone away. I thought it was a fluke, but I've had this pillow for about a month now, and so far no neck pain. What I really like about it is its firmness. It's about as firm as you can get without it being hard. It makes all the regular "extra firm" pillows seem like they're actually "extra soft". And firmness is a good thing. Without that firmness, your head just collapses down into the bed, and it causes your neck to get bent at an awkward angle, which leads to neck pain and sleeping problems. On the other hand, you don't want it to be too firm. That would just cause pain. This Tri-core pillow has just enough give (softness) to allow you to rest easily without pressure points digging into your face, ears, and head. I like that. I'm a side and back sleeper. The instructions say to sleep right on the edge of the pillow if you're sleeping on the side, and in the middle of the pillow if you're sleeping on your back. But I don't always find myself following those instructions. I just naturally find a "sweet spot" somewhere between the middle and edge when sleeping on my side. But sleeping perfectly on the edge is good too. The point I'm making is that there are subtle variations in the depth and angle of the pillow and the way it makes you feel. You may have to play with it a bit to find out what makes you feel the best. I don't know how this pillow will perform over the long-term, since I've only had it a month now. But so far it doesn't appear to be losing any of its firmness. Or if it is, it's not enough to really notice. I'm sure it won't last forever. But at this price, you can afford to buy a new one when that day comes. I highly recommend giving it a try. UPDATE June 11, 2012: --------------------- It has been a while since I reviewed this pillow, and I've had a chance to try other pillows since then. It must be about a year and a half or so since I bought this product. I've been using it ever since. Here's an update. First of all, I want to say that the product has held up remarkably well. There's not much softening, wearing, or indentation of the pillow at all. It remains very firm despite using it more or less continuously the entire time. So that's very good. But it hasn't been all good. At first it was great. But little by little the pillow started annoying me in different ways. Mostly, the trapezoidal depression in the middle of the pillow proved more difficult to tolerate than I wanted. I would often wake up in the middle of the night, because I was fighting with the pillow to find the best spot for my head. You can't just roll over in your sleep, because you'll end up in the hole with no support whatsoever. It's great if you never roll over. It's also good if you only sleep on your back and one side but not the other side. For example, if you go back and forth between sleeping on your back and your left side, but never your right side, then that's okay. But going from the left to the right side is not going to be easy. And because it's not easy, it requires some thought, which will actually wake you up. Something else that annoyed me about this pillow was the thickness of the pillow on the sides. I'm all for support. Support is a real problem with most pillows. This pillow has super support. However, the fact that it was too thick for me meant that it felt a bit too firm at times. I wanted to compress the pillow down with my head, but because it's so firm, I couldn't. So if I were making a wish list of future improvements, I wish this pillow didn't have the hole in the middle. I just want a constant thickness throughout the pillow. And I would like it to be a bit less thick. And it would be nice if it had a thin top layer of memory foam or something just to relieve pressure points a bit better. Because of these irritations, I'm now removing one star. I used to rate it at 5 stars. I now rate it at 4 stars. On the plus side, it never caused neck problems. It was great in that respect. It is still a very good and dependable pillow that I recommend trying, especially for its price. In the meanwhile, I recently purchased an excellent pillow that solves all of the problems I've seen with pillows. It's called the IntelliPillow. It's made with "intelli-gel". You can find it at: [...] That IntelliPillow is much more expensive, but in my opinion at this time, no other pillow beats it. If you're trying one pillow after another with no luck, it might be better to buy the IntelliPillow and be done with it. Might save you money in the long run. I just wish Amazon was selling it so I could review it. Hope that helps!

Okay, so I felt like this was a product that definitely deserved a review, because I've read dozens of reviews on pillows to try to find the best neck pillow (for lack of a better term). I don't have any major spinal problems or anything to that extent, but I have had minor neck and back pain for a while. Additionally, about a year ago I had an injury which caused a pinched nerve in my lower neck, which causes some random pain and tightness. So, I've been trying to find a pillow that alleviates those pains, although maybe there isn't such a thing. Let's talk about the pros first. It's stuffed very nicely and offers good support. It's nice and large and works pretty well for back sleepers. It doesn't (or hasn't after a month), lost it's firmness. It MAY have had some impact on my neck pain, but I really can't say that with much confidence as I feel essentially the same after using it for a few weeks now. It's reasonably priced when compared to some other pillows out there. The cons. I'm a side sleeper, despite really trying to sleep on my back. No matter how hard I try, I end up on my side, so why fight it? On this pillow, I was honestly confused when I received it as far as how I was supposed to use it on my side. I mean, there are obvious labels in the picture that say "comfortable side sleeping", but when looking at the actual pillow it just seems odd. From the picture, it appears that there are large areas on each side of the center to use for sleeping on your side, not so much. My head literally will barely fit on either side of the pillow. Why is that a problem? Well, for starters I have to carefully balance my head on what feels like a tiny vertical pillow roll. If I'm sleeping on my left side, I have to slide all the way to the right of the pillow to use the very outside of the pillow. Nearly every time I wake up in the middle of the night, I find that my head has rolled back in the center area, off the side, or is in some weird halfway between position. Then, if I roll over to my right side, I have to shift all the way across the pillow to the other side, otherwise my face will roll in to the center area. It's just really odd to not be able to sleep in the middle of your pillow and to have to do some balancing act with the edge. What's worse, the side of the pillow really doesn't offer anything different than any other normal pillow. It's basically flat. Yes, it's stuffed nicely and is supportive, but so are a lot of pillows. I mean, sleeping on your back in the center has an obvious purpose, to keep your neck in the correct position. But if the correct position for side sleepers is just a properly stuffed pillow, than what's the point of paying for a cervical pillow? So, in short, I would say that if you're a back sleeper, it's a nice pillow and worth the money. Side sleepers, I really just can't recommend it because it really has so many issues for no benefits over a normal pillow.

The Tri-Core pillow is really quite good. Worth every penny to me to help get a good night's sleep. It really does help with that for me. I like it so much, I bought one for when I am travelling for work and keep it at the hotel. That way, I have the same type pillow most of the time. The comments on the firmness of the pillow are fair. It's a therapeutic pillow that attempts to encourage your neck in to a proper "Cervical Lordosis", that's that small inward curve in the neck. I've had neck problems for years, and I remember the shock I felt when I started using products to address the lordodis. It just feels different. My read of the firmness comments (and all due respect to their experience) is that most of us with neck pain have gotten so used to having such bad posture, that good posture just feels funny. This type of pillow "insistently encourages" (my words) to keep your neck in good posture while you sleep. With the proper posture established, your neck can actually relax. To me, it feels like when I am at the chiropractor and they are gently tractioning and pulling up on the neck, which feels great, to me. The pillow allows me to sleep in that state. Here are my thoughts. If you are looking at this product, you have neck or back pain. First off, I recommend educating yourself on the spine, how it works, why things go wrong, and what you can do about it. Robin McKenzie's book 7 Steps to a Pain-Free Life: How to Rapidly Relieve Back and Neck Pain , is a classic. I give those away to work and client colleagues I hear have back pain. That book is actually the best money I ever spent. It's been that instrumental to managing my spine. You can read my review from a couple of years ago. Further, several years ago, my chiropractor recommended the Core Product Dual Core pillow, Double Core Select - Pillow . If you are new to cervical pillows, this may be a better starting point to ease in to what it feels like to actually have your neck in a state of good posture. It has two levels of firmness, so you can play around. The reviews of them wearing out are pretty fair. It's made of foam. But it is good. Personally, and this just me (and follows my overall experience over the past several years), I would get the book, the dual core and the tri core. First you have to understand what good posture is. That's the book. Then you have to get a pillow that works for you. It may be the dual core, may be the tri core. You may take to the tri core right away. If that's the case, give the dual core to a friend with neck pain - spread the goodness. If you take to the dual core, use it and keep the tri core. You can use it on the floor while relaxing for 10-15 minutes, and you may just end up using it as your primary pillow. Just my humble thoughts. I wish you the best managing your neck pain. Luck, R

This cervical pillow appears to help me sleep better with my degenerative disc disease. It is very comfortable and works great

Update (my original review is untouched below, posted on 9/30/2016): I have to change my rating of this pillow by a lot (from 4 stars to 2 stars), because I actually ended up with a debilitating amount of shoulder and neck pain on one side that lasted for a couple of months. After trying a lot of things (adjustments by the chiropractor, weekly massages, daily stretches), I finally tried changing my pillow back to the one I had been using before, and that was it -- the pain went away in just a couple of weeks. My theory is that since I roll onto my back at night, I could never really roll "uphill" to get back on my side properly, and that would put my neck at a funny, twisted angle. Maybe this won't happen to you, and if so, I'm a little jealous because I really liked the pillow in theory. In practice, I'm gonna turn it into a cat bed. :D -- Original review: I've had this pillow for about 4 months now, and I can't imagine switching to anything else at this point. I'm not saying the pillow is perfect -- there are downsides to it -- but all of the neck pain that I would have in the morning, which has been ongoing for years (caused by lots and lots of time spent in front of computers), is entirely gone. I used to need to put heat on my neck in the morning to help it loosen up; that's no longer needed. I sleep on my sides mostly, but definitely end up on my back during the night as well. Downsides: on my pillow, the side that has minimal neck support for when you're on your back has pretty much no foam in it. That side is worthless; I only use the "larger" neck support side. The other downside is that when you're sharing a (queen size) bed with someone, and you want to sleep on your side (I fall asleep on my side), I have to be either all the way at the edge of the bed, or right in the middle. That's the biggest drawback, I would say, but I'm not sure how to fix it. I guess the middle section could be a little smaller, and the sides wider, but then your head might feel really "trapped" between the two mounds on either side, when you're on your back. Anyway, I'm happy with it, and especially happy to not have neck pain anymore, so it was definitely worth the investment to me. I've tried many a pillow in my day -- this one was by far the best "bang for the buck".

After a 6-day raging tension headache, I took the advice of my doctor and started searching for a pillow with neck support. This one made a lot of big claims, and reviews seemed mostly positive, so I went for it. When it arrived, I was disappointed. It felt way too hard, and not at all like it would be comfortable. I rushed to the bedroom so I could lay down on it, and decided it wasn't what I had hoped for and was going to send it back. Boyfriend steps in with the whole "don't knock it till you try it" thing, and I agree to give it a week. Very glad I gave it a try. A few positive notes: 1. Yes, it's firm. They don't mess around when they call it a firm, full-support pillow. As it turns out, that's part of why I love it! Soft pillows (and even "firm" ones) that I've had in the past usually last me no longer than a month, as my fat head is really spectacular at wearing pillows down to nothing. I have some real faith in the durability of this pillow, even after just the first couple of nights. 2. Yes, it's large. They don't make that claim lightly either. I would say I have a normal to slightly larger than normal head. There is AMPLE space for it in the indented region of the pillow with some movement to either side befor running into the side-sleeper edges. Attached photos show pillow with remote as well as monstrously large 17 lb. cat for size reference. 3. As a multi-faceted sleeper who could go pro in tossing and turning or creative sleeping positions, I find that this pillow is equal parts supportive and flexible (flexible more so in the sense that it gives you the freedom to sleep comfortably in a variety of ways, not so much the nature of the pillow itself) for many kinds of sleepers, from back, to stomach, to side, and anywhere between. My headaches are now few and far between, and I've discovered that my neck actually DOES have range of motion after all! Who knew?! And of course, a few qualms: 1. Mine, as a few others have noted, had a slight off putting smell to it when it arrived. I have a pretty keen olfactory sense, and the smell of mine was light enough that I could be lazy and go right to sleep on it without any cleaning the first night without any issues. Didn't even notice the smell after that. My guess is that airing out was good enough, or that perhaps it was the plastic bag that smelled. Who knows. I'm not too concerned. 2. Definitely not love at first sight, and that's why I've rated it four stars instead of five. If boyfriend hadn't made me keep it, I would have sent it back without a second thought. No, it's not going to be the perfect pillow for everyone, but for some it will probably be pretty stellar if you get as far as trying it out for a week. Don't give up on it based on your "fresh out of the box" impressions. Hope that helps clarify some of the common concerns.