The Prince and the Pea... yes, we really can be that sensitive!
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Okay, maybe we can't be sensitive enough to feel a pea under 12 mattresses, or however it went in "The Princess and the Pea" story... but I now believe that some of us can definitely have our mattress "ruined" by just the wrong 1/2" layer... As you know, I did mattress surgery on my Englander and it was immediately like 300% better than the pure foam I had been sleeping on ... and much better than the Englander as it came (with 3" of cheap foam on top of the springs). But being that I have back and neck and shoulder issues, I was always trying different things - change a layer here and there, just to try to get it "perfect". Well, about a month or so ago I started using my 2" wool topper. I love the feel of it and when I lay on it, the 2" shrinks down to about 1/2" under my body weight, and it felt very cozy and comfortable. After a week or two, I started waking up with a sore back again, like when I used to sleep on pure foam (no springs). I had also changed a couple things, like zoning the middle layer to be firmer, and so on, but in the past this never caused me to wake up with pain, it would only make it a little less or more comfortable. So I kept tweaking the mattress - no major changes, just little things like adding a 1/2" of memory foam on top or under the top 3/4" latex layer, things like that. But my back started hurting BAD about a week ago, and the only thing I could think of was that maybe I had just tweaked my back out of shape carrying some heavy things recently or doing a lot of bending or something. I then tried making some more major changes to my mattress: I put a 1/2" layer of ultra firm HR foam on the very bottom next to the springs. ... Then when that didn't work, I tried changing the HR 1" layer above that to Very Firm... No matter what I did, my back kept hurting... and it seemed that all the changes made it WORSE, not better. Then finally, 2 nights ago, I said, "Well, I'm going to put it all back EXACTLY the way it was when it last worked for me. I did that, and it was better, but it STILL hurt my back somewhat. It was then that I said, "Wait! COULD IT BE that the 2" (1/2" really) wool topper is what caused all this??" I took it off. Slept. Now I woke up this morning with no back pain, and I am pretty sure that the whole problem with my mattress began shortly after I started using the wool topper, and that taking it off is what has made the difference! In support of the truth of this ultra-sensitivity is that in the past I also noticed that the CuddleBed - which is only about 1/2" thick when you lay on it, also seemed to throw off the comfort of my mattress and so I quit using that. I was skeptical at the time and thought maybe it was just my imagination and that's why I did try the wool topper as well, knowing full well that it also was about 1/2" of non-supportive material. It's still hard for me to believe that 1/2" of anything could cause me to wake up with a very sore back, but it sure seems like this is the case. Which is why I am posting this for others to consider, who may also have high sensitivity to the support or non-support of their mattress! When tweaking make SMALL changes, not big ones! And even if it feels okay at first, after a week or two it may start to bother you. The thing to look at first is the latest change you've made! It's most likely the culprit. I have found, for example, that memory foam may feel fine for a week or two, and then break down and cause back pain. So I am back to my original configuration: from the top, down: 3/4" latex (maybe 20-24ILD) 1" Venus foam 1" zoned HR foam (medium at shoulders, Firm in the mid-section feet/legs section doesn't matter) Englander Springs DISCLAIMER: This all could be coincidence. Maybe my back got bent out of shape and it just so happened that it self-healed about the same time that I took the wool topper off. But I doubt that... Also: This whole ultra-sensitivity thing is probably not something most people have. I think when one has chronic pain when laying in bed, one tends to focus on what is causing the discomfort and that can lead to one being more sensitive to changes in one's mattress. My guess is that some of us here have come to be ultra-sensitive to our mattress due to chronic pain from an injury or disease.) This message was modified Nov 17, 2009 by jimsocal
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Re: The Prince and the Pea... yes, we really can be that sensitive!
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I agree many of the people on this is site are real people who have no intentions of misleading. Maybe I didn't explain in detail how I feel. I hope companies who make better quality products make money and stay in business. They provide a valuable service. I believe the price of a good night sleep is worth a lot just like you do. It is shocking on how much these luxury mattress can cost but If these are the only mattresses that helps you sleep then get on your knees and thank the cosmos. The one thing I hate is companies that give false claims and mislead. Just like wendy's song saying "you know when its real" where you might speculate they are using only real ingredients and not shit loads preservatives and taste enhancing god knows what. I believe the foam and latex companies are guilty of misleading. You say your mattress lasted 2 years I think thats disgusting and I also speculate how much of your ruined sleep was from foam breaking down and how much of your ruined sleep was the accumulative muscle/bone pain of sleeping on a foam mattress for 2 years. I was like you and belived the answer in sleep was latex. My friend my advice is to save your money and not take that path. Now as for the Comfort You cannot sleep on a bed of springs alone, It would be like sleeping on small rocks. thats why I beleive the inside stuffing of a mattress is just as important as its springs. If you grabbed a clump natural hair or fiber and squeezed it with your hands into the smallest ball you could the horse hair would compress less then all the other natural fibers (I am unaware of a fiber/hair that is better). That's because each hair is sapposably like a spring and so they give the most support for those rocky springs. Now horsehair clumps up over time Its moreso the springy hairs getting so tangled that they can't bounce back to there original shape because they never lose there springyness. But fluffing it like a pillow every so often solves that problem and untangles the springs. I've been told humane hair is vertually indestructible from nature and many chemicals I guess most hairs are like that (look it up online). I also beleive pocket coils are better then conventional springs. Oh ya I think it might be worth checking out lavital mattresses aswell. They have everything I like to see in a mattress except for the horsehair not being hand teased and being produced more like a blanket (I don't know how much of a difference that really makes) and they seem very reasonably priced compared to other matterss of similar fillings. i've never laid on one, if you can find one in your area (please post what you think of them in this chat room), I find laying on mattresses with vertically longer springs that are also wider in diameter feel way more comfortable then the smaller springs. Also I just tried out vi spring and It gives support no doubt and its a lot cheaper then hastens but I wasn't as impressed as I thought I'd be. The smaller diameter springs arn't that comfortable and I could feel them in my ribs especially when i rolled around. it really does seem like vispring only sprinkles their mattress with horse hair and load it with the cheaper fibers as they had on display a vispring cut out of their mattress. also when you said "the ideal solution i've decided so far is to find the highest guage, best tempered coils, before you start paying for more expensive embroidering & comfort layers" Kudoos to you for buying looking at the inner constructions of a mattress but I belive it is still easy for mattress companies to mislead. They will willingly tell you the gauge number and the number of springs and maybe even the if coils are tempered. But you will never truely know the quality of the steel. Alot are spring cheaply mixed recycled metals. You might even get melted down pennies for springs j/k. So brand name is something you have to somewhat rely on. But I do not recommend sealy serta simmons, stern and foster, spring air, duxianna, (and the list goes on). |
Re: The Prince and the Pea... yes, we really can be that sensitive!
| and As you requested what mattress I sleep on I just bought a horse hair mattress but I'm not going to give my opinion of it until I've slept on it for a couple weeks. |
Re: The Prince and the Pea... yes, we really can be that sensitive!
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wow you got a horsehair mattress? Awesome! I heard this incredible story... a friend of mine's grandfather still sleeps on the mattress his grandfather slept on. I'm not kidding, and its all horsehair. From what I've been reading horsehair is the end all be all of stuffing, in that its animal hair, at 230 micron. Its not just stuffed, but rolled into coils, and the coils laid down in a particular fashion. Now.. a fiber from animal hair has more loft and memory than a plant fiber, because the scales of the hair tend to lock together. The $10000+ beds I've seen online all feature horsehair, and latex rubber cores. Sometimes coconut fibers (which were used after horsehair), and a variety of other fibers. Whatever it takes to make the $10000 pricetag seem reasonable. Where did you get your horsehair bed? I was trying to source a place for horsehair, but its gotta be imported unless you want to pay $40 a lb... and you'd need 10-15 lbs to make a 3in layer. |
Re: The Prince and the Pea... yes, we really can be that sensitive!
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One of the better know Horsehair mattresses (as well as better value) was the CH Beckley Bristol mattress- http://www.chbeckley.com/prod_mattresses_bristol.html On the old Mattress Forum (which I miss dearly), several of the members had that very same mattress and while it was a very well made product, it is a mattress that needed some sort of topper as most everyone said it was extremely firm .Also, while the horsehair was a great mattress surface in terms of longevity,it needed to be "fluffed" up as several poster said it would pack down. I almost took the trip to New York to try it out along with the Lambwool mattress before I bought my current mattress. Still would like to try it out in person... Jeff |
Re: The Prince and the Pea... yes, we really can be that sensitive!
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JCturboT wrote: One of the better know Horsehair mattresses (as well as better value) was the CH Beckley Bristol mattress- http://www.chbeckley.com/prod_mattresses_bristol.html On the old Mattress Forum (which I miss dearly), several of the members had that very same mattress and while it was a very well made product, it is a mattress that needed some sort of topper as most everyone said it was extremely firm .Also, while the horsehair was a great mattress surface in terms of longevity,it needed to be "fluffed" up as several poster said it would pack down. I almost took the trip to New York to try it out along with the Lambwool mattress before I bought my current mattress. Still would like to try it out in person... Jeff Thanks for the link JC. Very interesting company. Sometimes simpler is better....... if it's well done! Jeff: I just concluded reading your thread in the old forum on your SleepEZ 13000 adventure. Very informative, and quite interesting. Thank you for taking the time and trouble to post all the information. My experience with my FlowBeds has been similar to your experience regarding firmness layers. I am 6' 2" and 210 pounds, so I have found that the firmer layers of latex are essential. I purchased the all natural Talalay as you did. My experiences is listed in the thread, "Just bought a new FlowBeds." I tried to find a forum member by a the name of "MVPinLA" who was communicating with you in that thread about his purchase of a SleepEZ 10000 bed to see how his experience worked out for him. I was not able to locate him and his thread in the new forum or in the old. Do you know how his experience worked out? This message was modified Dec 15, 2009 by eagle2
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Re: The Prince and the Pea... yes, we really can be that sensitive!
| I am definitly not the first to try to warn people of the mattress industry and all its inferiorness inacurateness and untruthfulness, and in all, like many before me I will probably fail . I imagine it is routine for these snake oil mattress companies on how to deal with my messages. But I will not back down no matter how pointless and inevitable my mission of warning is. Eagle2 I will not vouch for your suggestions of the sleepEZ13000 and Flowbeds as for what I can see online they are latex and natural talalay latex dosn't mean much too me. Older messages from the "mattress form" are for whatever reason gone. They where moved or deleted (hopefully not to conceal information), but still I spectulate. I can almost forsee a storm of scrutiney (lol). |
Re: The Prince and the Pea... yes, we really can be that sensitive!
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Grimloki as you requested I bought a hastens mattress (which is being delivered). I will not state an opinion of them because I have not slept on the mattress for any significant duration. Any praise I give hastens is worth less than a grain of salt unlit I sleep on it for a couple weeks. I'll let you know, good or bad. |
Re: The Prince and the Pea... yes, we really can be that sensitive!
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grimloki you clearly know more on the production of horsehair then I do. Its refreshing to hear the meticulousness and wisdom in your posts. Alot of companies use insignificant amounts of horsehair with cheaper stuffings so a big warning flag goes up over my head when I hear horsehair/latex in the same mattress. |
Re: The Prince and the Pea... yes, we really can be that sensitive!
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eagle2 wrote: Thanks for the link JC. Very interesting company. Sometimes simpler is better....... if it's well done! Jeff: I just concluded reading your thread in the old forum on your SleepEZ 13000 adventure. Very informative, and quite interesting. Thank you for taking the time and trouble to post all the information. My experience with my FlowBeds has been similar to your experience regarding firmness layers. I am 6' 2" and 210 pounds, so I have found that the firmer layers of latex are essential. I purchased the all natural Talalay as you did. My experiences is listed in the thread, "Just bought a new FlowBeds." I tried to find a forum member by a the name of "MVPinLA" who was communicating with you in that thread about his purchase of a SleepEZ 10000 bed to see how his experience worked out for him. I was not able to locate him and his thread in the new forum or in the old. Do you know how his experience worked out? Don, Thanks for the kind words,I appreciate it. I have read your posts about your Flobed and we both seem to agree that a firmer latex is what works for each of us. The soft (20ild) layer was useless in my book-no support what-so-ever. I haven't heard from MVPinFLA since the old Forum posts but I hope everything worked out for him, that's one of the "issues" with a latex kit bed...just too may combinations to try out :) Jeff |
Re: The Prince and the Pea... yes, we really can be that sensitive!
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Jeff: Yes it is to bad that the soft, and I am afraid medium natural Talalay foam is to soft for folks like us. I wonder how light in weight a person would have to be before these ILD's would be firm enough? It's too bad that quite a few people come on these forums make a few posts, get the answers they want, and then disappear into the night, without being willing to come back and share their experience with the very people that helped them. I also agree with you Jeff, that the old forum seemed to be more active, and have more information than the new forum. It's too bad that when they changed the software they had the bug that caused people to have difficulty registering. They lost a lot of good people when they made that transfer. This message was modified Dec 16, 2009 by eagle2
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