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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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I've had my new mattress -- Simmons BR Classic Tomahawk Firm -- for a week now. I've got 3" of latex toppers over it, and it's still feeling a bit too firm for my shoulders. (Without toppers, there's definitely not enough cushion for my shoulders.) I hope I haven't made (yet another) mistake, but it's only been a week, so the mattress might still be OK after breaking in some more. When I change the sheets, I'll walk around on it, in the shoulder area, to see if I can get that foam softened a bit. A couple factors contributing to the firmness could be: (a) my allergen encasing is tighter on this mattress than on my old one, because this mattress is thicker (11"), so although there is still some give in the fabric, there's not quite as much; and (b) this mattress top has the dreaded tufting buttons (which I knew about when I bought it; they're shown clearly in the photo at us-mattress.com). If I keep this mattress, I might remove those buttons, at least across the top third of the mattress, to see if that allows the foam to be more giving. I would think it would. If I'm on my side and my shoulder lands in one of those tuft-button dents, there can't be much foam to sink into.
If I slept only on my back, the mattress would probably be fine as is. It's that pesky side-sleeping that complicates things. It used to be impossible for me to fall asleep on my back, but I've been trying to train myself to switch, and sometimes I can now fall asleep on my back. I position myself using Esther Gokhale's "stretch-lying" technique, and that helps. (For info about the Gokhale Method, see the website.)
This message was modified Mar 15, 2012 by Catherine
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You sure have tried many iterations. I've seen a few mattresses that have different firmness levels in the same layer. So I was wondering if that may be something you could try to alleviate your problem. Say a higher density foam under your hips, lesser under your shoulders, and softer for your legs and feet. So top 1/3 a middle firmness, middle 1/3 firm, and legs and feet soft. Just my 2 cents..... |
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timby wrote: You sure have tried many iterations. I've seen a few mattresses that have different firmness levels in the same layer. So I was wondering if that may be something you could try to alleviate your problem. Say a higher density foam under your hips, lesser under your shoulders, and softer for your legs and feet. So top 1/3 a middle firmness, middle 1/3 firm, and legs and feet soft. I've already done that kind of zoning -- with the latex toppers on my old mattress, and then after doing mattress surgery on my old mattress, and then while sleeping on just my toppers (some zoned) after ditching my old mattress. It didn't work well enough, which is why I bought a new mattress. |
| This has been such a long saga for you -- is there a happy ending now? |
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stacytr wrote: This has been such a long saga for you -- is there a happy ending now? Well, I haven't been coming here and reading obsessively, so I guess the mattress situation can't be too bad now.... (Instead, I'm in the midst of a badly needed organizing/decluttering spree.) It's not great, actually, but even if I wake up a little sore, it doesn't last all day and I haven't been feeling crippled by the mattress, so that's an improvement. Also helps that I finally went to see my LMT, who does trigger point therapy, and got some serious knots loosened up (ow). I've been migrating toward the middle of the mattress lately, instead of sticking to my side, so maybe that'll help break it in more evenly. I might still wind up taking out those button tufts at some point, but I'm holding off on that. I should wait until after the 100-day period for comfort exchanges is up, although I have no idea what I'd exchange this thing for. It is not a bad mattress for the money.
Before I bought this mattress, I bought the 2" 22 ILD topper from the Arizona Premium Mattress Co. My initial plan there was to try that out, and do some zoning under it, to get a better sense of whether an all-latex mattress would work for me. I wasn't going to buy an innerspring mattress until after doing that experiment -- but then I woke up feeling crippled too many days in a row (after I'd ordered the topper but before it arrived, which took a while), so I went ahead and gambled on the Simmons, which I knew would take 2-3 weeks to arrive. Basically, the pain I was in tossed my plan out the window -- and I figured that since the Simmons would be quite firm, I'd still need the 22 ILD topper. Gotta say, that 22 ILD topper from Arizona Premium is really nice. I had doubts and almost canceled the order, so I called the company, spoke with a guy there named Greg, and was reassured enough to keep the order. I asked if they could find me a seamless piece; he said they'd try but couldn't guarantee it; and what arrived was indeed a seamless flawless full 2 inches of 22 ILD natural latex. It is soft but has way more substance than the 14 ILD stuff -- in fact, Greg at Arizona said they don't sell anything softer than 19 ILD because the softer stuff has no substance. So anyway, that's on top of my Simmons right now, along with my 1" of zoned latex (14 / 32 / 14 ILD). And my yoga mat is still under the hip area. I think I need to move that up an inch, so it's directly under the 2" topper, but we'll see if the shoulder area of the mattress breaks in more.
I'm thinking that my collection of medium and medium-firm latex might make a good futon couch or part of a decent guest bed at some point, so I'll hang on to that for a while. I gave the 2" 14 ILD topper to my mom to try out, but she didn't like it, so it's coming back here. Might have to try to sell that. (I keep thinking that it could be cut up to make a wonderful bunch of kitty beds or small-doggie beds. But then someone would have to sew covers for them... and that someone ain't gonna be me.)
This message was modified Apr 5, 2012 by Catherine
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(I see that you have a recent thread here; I'll take a look now.)|
A few days ago, I wrote: ....we'll see if the shoulder area of the mattress breaks in more. I think my use of the yoga mat over the hip area is helping that part of the mattress to *not* sink in too much, but we'll see.... Pretty sure that this mattress will be OK for a bit (and that I'll take off some of those tufting buttons eventually), but... again... we'll see. It's heavier and more unwieldy to handle than my old mattress, but I don't care about that, as long it lets me sleep decently and doesn't make my back hurt. ---------- Edited the next morning to add: This message was modified Apr 9, 2012 by Catherine
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