How to Keep Sheets off Your Feet in Bed

Whether to sleep with your feet covered at all is a real question in a neuropathy group on Mayo Clinic Connect, and the answers split. One member can't stand the sheet touching their feet. Another finds heavy covers bother their foot neuropathy.

On ALS Forums, a member with drop foot in both feet describes what a blanket does to toes that can't push back. When they lie on their back, its weight forces the toes to curl over.

The fix owners on both forums name is a frame called a blanket lifter, also sold as a bed cradle or a foot tent. It's a curved hoop whose flat base slides under the mattress at the foot of the bed.

The covers go over the hoop instead of over you, so your feet lie in the air underneath. The Performore lifter is the plain under-mattress kind, and its height adjusts.

If a sheet on your feet hurts, or your feet can't push back against a blanket, this is the thing that takes the weight away.

Who it worked for

The member with drop foot, whose left leg also needs help to move, keeps one at the foot of their bed. With the covers held up, getting into bed and positioning their legs and feet is much easier.

Two years later, in a bedding-tips thread on the same forum, a member with ALS has one that keeps the comforter off their feet.

A husband in that thread says keeping the blanket off his wife's toes was a big help with the pain in her legs and feet.

The neuropathy group's volunteer mentor has one himself, and says how far it goes:

I haven't found a solution that works every night. I have a blanket lifter, which is a good start, as touching the sheets or having any weight on my feet hurts.

Jim, Volunteer Mentor, on Mayo Clinic Connect

Two years after that post, he still uses one so the bedding doesn't touch his feet.

On both forums, most people who tried one say it keeps the covers off their feet.

Who it didn't work for

In the same group, a member took a suggestion to try a lifter and ordered it on Amazon so it could go back if it didn't help. Twelve days later:

I've tried socks on my feet and blanket lifter….neither worked.

jchet, on Mayo Clinic Connect

It takes the weight off your feet and treats nothing. Feet that hurt with nothing on them at all are a question for your doctor, not for a bed cradle.

The covers can be the problem for a different reason too. In a Parkinson's thread, someone asked for help because their dad couldn't turn over under a blanket. If that's the trouble, the fix Parkinson's UK lists is satin sheets.

Will it fit your bed?

Before you order, check four things against your own bed:

• Where the base goes. The common kind sits under the mattress, which is what holds it in place. A UK care retailer says the same: it fits between the mattress and the bed base. The Performore is this kind.
• A footboard. The member with drop foot fits theirs between the footboard and the mattress, with the hoop rising up on the inside.
• How high it goes. A patient-organisation guide says to set it high enough to clear your feet, but not so high that it feels awkward. An adjustable frame lets you find that point.
• A hospital bed. One reply in the drop-foot thread warned that a hospital bed might stop it working, but the owner answered that it fits their Invacare bed just fine. A medical retailer says its end-mount model fits hospital or nursing-home beds.

Cheaper things to try first

A lighter top layer is the fix two people name, with or without a frame. The member from the bedding-tips thread also dropped the top sheet, because it tangled their feet, and sleeps under a comforter with a removable cover instead. A member of the same neuropathy group who has had neuropathy for over twenty years found a down comforter light enough for them.

Socks are hit and miss. One member keeps the blanket off their feet entirely and wears thick fluffy socks instead. The mentor finds loose diabetic socks feel good some nights and hurt on others. For the member whose lifter didn't work, socks did nothing either.

You can also build the frame. A reply in the drop-foot thread says it's easily made from three-quarter-inch plastic pipe for a few dollars.

Start with the Performore lifter: slide the base under the mattress at the foot of the bed, raise the hoop until your toes clear it, and give it a week of nights. Buy it somewhere it can go back, the way the member it didn't help did. The one thing a frame can't tell you in advance is whether your feet hurt without the weight too.