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(Note added in March 2012: Gave up on the old mattress & bought a new one. Added to this thread for continuity.) ======================================= (Note added in Jan. 2012: The topper-search saga turned into a mattress-surgery saga. Mattress surgery details are farther down in the thread.) --------------------------------------------------------- I'm looking for opinions on the next way to tweak my toppers. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Here's the current setup: Stats: 50-year-old woman, about 5'6", 120-125 pounds; side and back sleeper, but mostly side. A little joint pain in the hips now and then, but no serious illnesses or injuries to work around (knock on wood). (The 2" 32ILD topper is a new purchase. I read some old forum threads that I'd saved on my PC; waffled between 32ILD and 28ILD; thought about getting an inch of each; but that was more expensive, and I was most worried about getting something that would turn out to be too soft, like my previous attempts, so I went with the 32ILD.) So: With just those 3" of latex, I think my hips & back are OK, but my shoulders still get too crunched and I wake up with some arm numbness. When I add my 1"-thick polyfill fiberbed on top of the latex, my shoulders are good, but my hips sink down a little too far -- because this fiberbed is several years old and has flattened in just the hip area -- so I wake up with some low back pain. (The rest of the fiberbed is still in great shape.) One option: I thought about getting a 1" 20ILD layer from FoamByMail and adding it on top of the 3" of latex I already have. Recent posts seem to imply that FBM's quality has gotten better and more reliable than when I was here on the forums 2 years ago. But: Since I pretty much bottom out on the 24ILD layer, I'm skeptical that a 20ILD layer would help or would balance things out. (If I put the 1" 24ILD layer on the floor, my bony hips & shoulders go right down to the floor. If I fold that topper in half and lie on that, I still go right down to the floor. That makes me wonder about all the posts I see about 19ILD and even 14ILD layers -- I can't quite fathom how those would be useful, so I'm curious about that.) Another option: Get scrap foam and add some just in the hip area, under the part of the fiberbed that has flattened. SLAB sells some scrap latex of various sizes and ILDs. Maybe something like a 28ILD scrap under the hips would work? Another option: A 1" 28ILD layer (or equivalent in 100% natural latex) between the 24 and the 32? I'd like to avoid memory foam for now, because of the off-gassing issue, but won't completely rule it out. Thoughts? Other ideas? Thanks! Edited to add: 1) A thing called "Oodles" that had latex "noodles" in it -- great idea but poor execution. It would have been terrific if it had had at least twice as many baffles in it to prevent the noodles from shifting around within each baffled section. I half-heartedly attempted to hand-sew in more baffles but didn't know what I was doing and the thing is big & awkward, so that didn't work. (I used it on top of the 24ILD topper.) 2) Below the 1" 24ILD topper -- a 2" Dunlop latex topper from Overstock.com, unknown ILD & manufacturer. Wonderful for a while... but then it cratered in the hip area. Did not think latex was supposed to do that, but it did. [Edited to add: this was medium-firm synthetic, or mostly synthetic, Dunlop. Natural stuff would hold up much better, I'm sure.] This message was modified Mar 15, 2012 by Catherine
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"Thoughts? Other ideas?
...trying to isolate variables."
You're not going to want to hear this idea, since you know the mattress itself, as-is, could not be among the confounding variables, but I went through exactly what you describe & then some, assuming there'd be some ultimate combination of foam I could add that would make it right. It wasn't until I extracted my inersprings, leaving nothing between them & my latex, did all the layer swapping & buying/returning foams end. That junction between spring & foam is a huge potential weak spot. Just like how having too much of anything between yourself & your top layer can rob latex of its conforming properties, inersprings can be hamstrung by their own foam & casing. You still want the springs' action to transmit through & work with that of the foam's to some degree, and that never happened buried inside a mattress I was merely piling on top of. If you were just down to the springs, assuming they're of sufficient coil type & count, I'd bet any of your layers would work. Then it wouldn't feel so much like bottoming out, but flexing into & working with your springs. It's just hard to abandon all the nice mattress pads & encasements, & even harder to cut into a mattress, but I've done it twice now, & am convinced a mattress' comfort layers must be entirely replaced, not just added to.
This message was modified Dec 19, 2011 by JasonRatky
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DoreenA: Thanks for your response. I'm so glad you found a combo that works for you. One of the fiberbeds I ordered should arrive on Wed.; not sure about the other one. I was hoping to get away from the synthetic stuff (even though my mattress has some), and fiberbeds need to be washed in a big commercial washing machine (or dry-cleaned, depending on the item), so that's a nuisance, but if one of 'em lets me sleep without pain, I'll be happy.
JasonRatky wrote: You're not going to want to hear this idea....., Sure I do! I might not follow through and do mattress surgery just yet (you're right about that; I don't want to cut into my mattress at this point), but I appreciate hearing about what has worked for other people. The springs in my innerspring are still quite springy, but I have to say that getting the extra-firm was a mistake. One I could fix with mattress surgery, but... I'm not quite there yet. Edited to add: Thanks for the reminder about mattress surgery as an option. Assuming that the springs hold out longer than the padding in my mattress (which they probably will), I'll probably want to use my full sheets of 24 ILD and N3/27 ILD latex as part of the replacement foam, when that day comes.*
* Which might be sooner than I anticipated. I have noticed some loss of cushioning in the mattress, and I think this has been contributing to my back pain. I believe that the "extra firm" designation of my mattress comes from its having 3 layers of fiber mat over the springs, not from having higher-density foam. So even though there's not a lot of foam (it's a flippable mattress, not a pillowtop), it's probably getting pretty well compressed after 2.5 years... especially since I've been lax about flipping & rotating the mattress on a regular basis. For now, I have a thin (1/4" at most) piece of plywood over the foundation, in the hip area, and an old mattress pad folded in half over that. (Of course I tweaked my back while heaving the mattress off the foundation and back on again. Argh.) I'm studying the mattress-surgery threads just in case.
This message was modified Dec 27, 2011 by Catherine
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I know. I weighed the "nuisance" factor in when choosing a topper and this seemed less of a nuisance than ordering a latex topper for way more than twice the price then struggling to pack up a huge, heavy slab of rubber to return (AND pay a large shipping fee) it I didn't like it. I chose what for me was the lesser of two evils. |
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Yes, thank you. I have used their profile tool, but unfortunately, it wasn't until after I'd already bought the 14 ILD latex. I wound up with 14 ILD because I bought it from a local bedding manufacturer, and (as far as I know) they don't have 19 or higher. Their latex beds use 14 ILD Talalay over 16-19 ILD Dunlop and/or 24-27 ILD Dunlop. (The softer Dunlop might have been fine for me; not sure I was aware of it when I bought the soft Talalay.) And at the time I was looking at the foam scraps available from SleepLikeaBear, the 32ILD piece looked like the best bet (no 28 ILD); the scraps available vary. The profile tool at CSD recommended 19 ILD for the shoulders and 28 ILD for the hips on down, for the 2nd (3") layer of the mattress (the layer that would go over the 6" core). For the very top layer (2"), the tool recommended 14 ILD (shoulders) and 19 ILD (hips), but I still think that would wind up being too soft. Dunno. The CSD tool also recommended a 32 ILD core, but I can't imagine that being firm enough. The CSD profile tool is useful for anyone just starting out with their mattress & topper choices. A little discouraging to use after one has already made a bunch of mistakes. Oh well. Maybe other people here can learn from my failures. This message was modified Dec 30, 2011 by a moderator
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JasonRatky wrote: ...you know the mattress itself, as-is, could not be among the confounding variables...... Actually, I'm now fairly sure that the mattress is one of the confounding variables. If I take all the soft latex and the fiber bed off the mattress -- which I did -- and leave only the medium-ILD latex on there -- which I did -- and I still wake up in a sinkhole -- which I do -- then the mattress has to be the problem, right? (I suppose it could be the latex, but I've got an inch of N3/27 ILD, bought a couple months ago, an inch of 32 ILD Talatech, bought recently, and an inch of 24 ILD Talatech, bought 2 years ago but still in good shape as far as I can tell. None of that should be cratering. I could try taking everything off and sleeping on just the mattress, to be sure, but that would be pretty uncomfortable. We'll see.) Even after I put a thin piece of plywood between the box spring and the mattress -- across the hip zone -- and put a folded-up old mattress pad on top of that -- to boost that zone some more -- I am waking up in a sinkhole, and with a very sore lower back. It's not a big enough sinkhole to activate the warranty, and during the day, I think the compressed foam (in the mattress) expands a bit, so the mattress looks relatively flat. There's not a giant body-impression in it. But I am clearly waking up in a sinkhole... which would certainly explain why none of my zoning attempts have been working. (D'oh!) Methinks I shall be cutting a slit in the mattress top very soon, so I can peek at the innards and see what's going on in there.... At this point, I've got nothing to lose. This message was modified Dec 31, 2011 by Catherine
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Most likely the PU foam in the mattress has gone bad. Even firm PU foam will go soft after a while, especially if low density and on the top layer. I really doubt the latex has gone bad. Do you know what foam is inside the mattress? 9" flippable does not sound like a lot. What brand? |
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sandman wrote: Most likely the PU foam in the mattress has gone bad. Even firm PU foam will go soft after a while, especially if low density and on the top layer. I really doubt the latex has gone bad. Do you know what foam is inside the mattress? 9" flippable does not sound like a lot. What brand? I believe the foam is low density, and it is in the top layer. I couldn't stand it anymore and just cut open a slit in the top panel, near the edge but above the piping, 'cause I wanted to see what's inside. There's about an inch of PU foam quilted into the top, and then about an inch of convoluted foam beneath that. Then there's just about a half-inch (maybe less) of dacron, directly over the insulator-pad thingie, which I think is directly over the springs. Here's a link to the current specs for the model of mattress I have: Elegant, from Jamestown Mattress, a local independent bedding manufacturer. Possible that the specs have changed slightly since I bought the mattress in 2009 -- I think my coil count is higher -- but the foam parts of the specs probably haven't changed much. (I'm guessing here.) At this point, I'd still recommend Jamestown Mattress -- everyone I've encountered there has been knowledgeable & friendly & straightforward; the price was good; they're *not* one of those chain stores that have "lowest prices of the season" sales every other weekend; and the low-density PU foam is probably the only weak spot in the mattress construction. (Unfortunately, it seems that just about every innerspring-mattress-maker uses some low-density PU foam.) Jamestown also makes some latex mattresses, memory foam mattresses, and mattresses with various combinations of materials. Next time, I'd probably just ask them to custom-make a mattress for me, either with coils & latex or just latex, and have them leave out the PU foam in the top layers.
At any rate... now that I've gone this far, I might as well do a foamectomy. Probably not today, though -- I want to go a fabric or crafts store and get some No-Fray stuff first. (I was just in Joann's Fabrics yesterday, but didn't buy the No-Fray stuff 'cause I didn't think I was doing mattress surgery right away. Guess I'm goin' back there soon....) I also need to do some other things around the house today, though.
---- Follow-up on the fiber-beds I ordered a week or so ago: This message was modified Dec 29, 2011 by Catherine
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"...and I still wake up in a sinkhole" It's just as well you decided to the mattress surgery, since no topper I know of is helpful for a bed with sinkholes, but are mainly used to soften a too-firm mattress. Putting a topper on a sagging mattress just means you just end up in a cushier sinkhole! Hope you will update on your progress. |
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DoreenA wrote: Putting a topper on a sagging mattress just means you just end up in a cushier sinkhole! I know! I hate to think about what I've been doing to my back & my hip all these months that I've been fighting with the toppers! Part of the problem is that the mattress doesn't show a big, deep body-impression. There's a sinkhole by morning, but no permanent huge crater that screams "time for mattress surgery!" So I really didn't think the mattress was the problem... until the last few mornings.
Hope you will update on your progress. Yup, I will. |
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There is not a lot of foam, but perhaps enough to cause problems. Since it is quilted into the top, you may have to completely remove that as well, if you end up doing surgery. I found that was an issue for me. You can try cutting it on 3 sides and leave it attached on one side, then replace the foam, and try it with and without the quilted top. I ended up removing my whole top because it did cause problems for me (and it was hot as well). Another issue is the fact that it is two sided. I don't think the foam on the bottom side will cause a major effect, but hard to say. I also wonder about the coil system. My Sealy queen (pretty firm coils) has 782 14 gauge coils. It looks like yours has less and thinner coils, although I am not totally sure of your coil count. It is is possible they are not providing enough support as well. You may want to try to estimate the number if you do the surgery. The test would be to see how firm it is with just the coils and a fairly firm piece of latex. |