The perfect mattress for anyone with $$$$
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I'm serious: http://www.duxbed.com/pdf_files/DUX%20Brochure.pdf This essentially is what we are all shooting for, whether back, stomach or side sleepers. I don't even want to know what they cost, but if money didn't matter, this is the bed I would want, not the over-priced, over-hyped custom mattresses I read about these days. This is what I have been trying to create with my zoned latex project--Bollinger on a Bud budget. You can do it on a Pabst Blue Ribbon, Gennessee or Duff budget with HR foam and/or a firm coil system instead of latex for support layer(s), but the concept is the same. And it's been around for a while. Looking at the forum archives, I noticed that someone mentioned Duxiana to me last year. I didn't get my ideas from the site, but I'm sure it reinforced my thinking about the importance of zoning. Most mattress sites (including latex ones) have a lot of fluff, smoke and mirrors. Yes, there's also that on the dux site. But, if you understand the duxbed concepts, and pay attention to them as you analyze, shop for and/or construct your mattress, you'll be well on your way to a better night's sleep. JMO |
Re: The perfect mattress for anyone with $$$$
| One more thing you might want to try--Vitamin D capsule with evening meal. Supposed to aid sleep by relieving muscles. Can't hurt. |
Re: The perfect mattress for anyone with $$$$
| Jim, it seems to me that if you were going to stack more foam in one area than another, it would be under your hips to "buoy" them up to stay aligned with your shoulders. Your experiment is very interesting anyway. I can't wait to hear how the latest configuration works... |
Re: The perfect mattress for anyone with $$$$
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Wow! My back hurts just reading about all the "tweaking" you did, jimsocal! :-) But, hey, isn't this great that we CAN do this?! Your last paragraph says a lot. No matter how I configure my mattress, this sacroiliac joint pain is still going to be here, it seems. :( Somedays are better than others. And, like you said, it also depends on what activity we partake in during the day or if we just might have twisted wrong. But, like you, I'm going to try to make my mattress be as comfortable as I can without adding to the situation. Right now it's not too bad, actually! jimsocal wrote: Yeah, cloud9, ain't it great having back pain that seems to be caused by anything or nothing? <BR><BR>Well, you apparently did not notice but I AM zoning my mattress! I bought all pieces of foam 1" x 25" x 37-and-1/2" just so I could zone it into 3 zones.<BR><BR>My back has been slowly getting a little better (that is, out of acute pain!) over the past week and last night I think I finally hit on a very good combination of foam for my mattress.<BR><BR>Since I also have upper shoulder/neck/arm problems this is what I had confgured 2 nights ago:<BR>For my shoulder area, from top to bottom:<BR><BR>2 layers of medium ILD visco foam (3/4" each)<BR>2 layers 3/4" latex - low ild (24?)<BR>1/2" Extra Firm HR foam (61ILD) <BR>Sealy springs<BR><BR>For my hip section I had this from the bottom up:<BR><BR>1" Medium HR foam 31ILD<BR>1" Firm HR foam 41 ILD<BR>1/2" Extra Firm HR foam<BR>Sealy springs<BR><BR>If you notice, the shoulder zone in the above configuration has an extra inch of foam, but since it was mostly very low ILD I thought that I'd sink down into it enough that it would not put me out of alignment.<BR><BR>Well, for the first night since building my mattress I found that I woke up with NO lower back pain, which had been really plaguing me (also, I had a higher ILD under my hips in previous configurations which I guessed, finally, might have been too firm, so I was right, the Medium over Firm was better for me than Firm over Firm and Firm over Very Firm.<BR><BR>So I got a much better night's sleep last night. <BR><BR>However, I woke up with a slightly sore UPPER back, now! <BR><BR>But on waking up I had my wife shoot a photo of my back as I lay on my side and sure enough my back and head were curving upwards from the extra foam at the shoulder area and the too-high pillow (before it was too low) .<BR><BR>So NOW I took out one layer of latex from the shoulder area so it is now only slightly higher than the hip section, and I took the visco foam of my pillow and shaved off about an inch using my electric carving knife. <BR><BR>So now I have the same middle section as above, but now the Shoulder section is as follows:<BR><BR>2 layers of medium ILD visco foam (3/4" each) <BR><span style="font-weight: bold;">1 layer </span>3/4" latex - low ild (24?) <BR>1/2" Extra Firm HR foam (61ILD) <BR>Sealy springs<BR><BR>In my view, the feet section doesn't matter much. I generally just use it as a storage area for 2 different ILD's of HR foam that I can interchange as needed with the shoulder or hip area.<BR><BR>If all this sounds crazy, all I can say is, IT SEEMS TO BE WORKING!<BR><BR>And my wife likes her mattress just fine (we have 2 twins right together so as to avoid disturbing each other with tossing and turning/ cover stealing in the night). <BR><BR>I'm anxious to see if tonight, having made the change to my pillow and shoulder section, I might wake up with NO pain! That would be amazing...<BR><BR>But like you say, it's not ALL the mattress, sometimes it's just my back hurting for no good reason, or from something I did "wrong", and so sometimes it hurts no matter what. But if I can find a configuration that gives me at least SOME good nights of sleep, then I think I'll stick with it for awhile and see if I can work on my back problem during the day by doing the right exercises and stretches and so on. |