Mattress Forum

Or maybe not....

When trying different zoning & layering configurations, I've been checking my spinal alignment by using mirrors. (Portable long mirror propped up against the wall, and a handheld mirror used to see my spine reflected in the other mirror.) I'm really not seeing much of a difference with any of my various configurations. (One new element to play with: a 1" layer of the FBM 20 ILD, which actually feels more firm than my 32 ILD Talatech scrap from SLAB.)

Around 11 PM, I got fed up with all of this fiddling, after spending all afternoon and all evening on it, and finally just dispensed with all the zoning attempts. I didn't use or need zoning during my first year on the mattress, so... maybe I just thought I needed zoning recently, when what I actually needed was to get the PU foam out of the mattress? Damned if I know.

What I finally wound up sleeping on last night (top to bottom):
* the 1" layer of 14 ILD (with the pieces put back together to make a whole layer again)
* 1" of 24 ILD
* 1" of N3/27 ILD
* 1" of FBM 20 ILD (on the bottom because it feels like the firmest of the bunch)
* the mattress core: coils, covered by fiber-pads, covered by a layer of dacron

This arrangement was not great on the pressure points -- no big surprise there. My shoulders & hips are a bit sore this morning, but my arms did not fall asleep, so that's something. Still some slight lower-back pain -- makes me wonder if I now have too much stuff between the mattress & the foundation. (I added a piece of the convoluted PU foam there, across the hip area.) But I did *not* feel like I was waking up in a sinkhole, and I didn't feel like I'd crippled my back overnight.

So, next things to try: taking out that piece of foam between mattress & foundation; and switching the 1" layer of 14 ILD with the 2" layer of 14 ILD. I'm still not fond of that stuff, and I think 19-22 ILD would be better, but the 14 is what I have, so I'll try it next.

If I go right through the 2" of 14 ILD, then I believe it will be time to go over to the dark side and add an inch of 4lb or 5lb memory foam, and hope the off-gassing doesn't kill me. (An inch of memory foam will likely be cheaper than an inch or two of 19 ILD latex from SLAB or 1.5" of 22-24 ILD from SleepEZ.)

When I bought the 20ILD latex from FBM, I also bought a 3" thick 5lb memory foam seat cushion for my office chair. I don't think I'd want to sleep on 3" of the stuff, but it ain't bad as a seat cushion; it came with a nice terry-cloth cover; and there's no off-gassing that I can detect (i.e., no chemical smell).

Some notes about the FBM 20 ILD latex: it's full size (not shorted at all); no seams; no tears. Not at all comparable to SLAB's 19 ILD; as other people here have said, the FBM latex feels much firmer than that. Pretty sure it's blended Talalay, not all natural. Not sure if I'll keep it -- it might be useful as a transition layer between the medium-soft latex and the mattress coils... or it might not.

 The latex you have above the springs sounds like it should be okay.  If you get everything firm enough, you might want to try adding 1-2" of memory foam for pressure relief and comfort.   After that, if it seems pretty good, but your shoulders seem too jammed, then you might consider adding a softer zone under the shoulders.

p.s.  My current configuration over pretty firm Sealy coils is 2" of 32 talalay (~20 cutout under shoulders) + 1" 5lb. Sensus memory foam + 1" 19 talalay + 1" 5.9lb. memory foam, covered with Natura washable wool mattress pad.    This is a bit softer than I have used recently, but in winter I like it a bit softer and cozier.  I tend to find 5" over the coils is best for me, but as I have said my coils and box spring are pretty firm (one sided ~760 queen interlaced 14 gauge).

Not a traditional box spring; just a wooden foundation that came with the mattress. I'm not sure what could sag, since there are no springs in it, but if something is sagging, the thin piece of plywood I have over it (extending across the bed, in the hip area) might take care of that. That's what I'm trying, anyway.

The whole shebang is resting on an old wooden bed frame, with 8 slats running across. (Used to just have 4, but when I bought the new mattress, I added 4 more slats.) The foundation has a center rail running lengthwise as part of its construction.

That's just something I tried last night. It ran only across the hip area -- I was operating on the theory that maybe any foam sagging in the bottom of the mattress might need some bolstering. Not sure it did anything, one way or the other, so I took that out today.

Honestly, I don't know. They feel firm & springy when I'm lying on just the mattress, or just the mattress & a sheet of latex.

However, I just stood on the mattress and walked around on it a bit, and there is a marked difference between the left and right sides. The side I sleep on sinks down much more. I don't know if that implicates the coils or the foam under the coils. (It does tell me that I didn't rotate or flip the mattress often enough, which I sorta already knew.)

I don't know that, either, and don't know how to eliminate that as a variable.* I'm guessing that it's sagging, because of the sinkhole issue, but I don't really know. With the mattress de-constructed as it is now, I'm not sure I'd be able to flip it over and test it. (I might attempt to rotate it, though.)

Because the mattress is double-sided, the coils are covered by the fiber-pads & dacron on both top & bottom.

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* Had an idea. I don't want to detach the entire fiber-pad, but I detached it in a few places on one side, and put two sets of weight plates in there (a 5lb plate over a 10lb plate in each set), directly on the coils. Put one set in the hip area on the side I've been sleeping on, and shoved the other set over to the other side. I can't tell by just looking whether there's a difference in how much the weight plates sink, but when I lay a level across the area (the level is resting on both plates), nothing shows up. The level shows the plates being... level.

Don't know if that helps or not, or whether 15 pounds in each set is enough.  (OK, I just added another 10lb plate to each set, and the level still shows everything as being level. Is 25lb per set enough weight to implicate the foam on the bottom, as opposed to the coils? I weigh about 120 lb.)

Could the fiber-pad be a factor? Could it be worn out? Or since it was already partly detached on my side when I decided to stand on the mattress, would that be a factor? Seems to make a difference if I yank on the thing to tighten it across the mattress, but I could be imagining things by now.....

Also, the side that seems firmer is the one with the top quilted panel still attached, so there's more structural integrity over there. On the side I've been sleeping on, there's not a lot holding the whole thing together anymore. For all I know, my weight (when I was standing on the mattress) was pushing things outward and not just downward. This testing is hard to do with just one person.

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That makes sense.

Thanks for all your help, sandman. This problem has been driving me nuts for several months, and aside from the sleeping & pain issues, which are enough in themselves, it bugs me no end that I can't figure this thing out.

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Just thought of something: On the various specs pages of the Jamestown Mattress website, I don't see anything specifying what size mattress the specs are for. So I don't know if that 528-coil-count is for a twin, full, queen, or king. When I bought the mattress, I was told it had 660 coils, but who knows if that's accurate? Sigh.

Catherine, the whole zoning thing (which I am now pretty convinced is the answer for me, been sleeping on a crude zoned system for a week or two now, while meanwhile cutting a lot of firewood and other back-aggravating activities, and ZERO back pain, knock on wood ...) seems to me to make a lot more sense for males that females.   My shoulders are much wider than hips (circumference is like 15" more, when I measured for CSD's tool), so with un-zoned system my hips will be much lower, hence kinked spine and back pain.

Seems to me that the same geometry does not apply to women, generally speaking.    Not to get too personal :-) but based on your height/weight it sounds like you have a fairly classic feminine shape.

I honor you for using mirrors.   It's JUST the kind of geeky thing I would do - although I haven't yet.   A simpler way might be a camera on a tripod using the self-timer or perhaps a remote shutter release.

Yeah, I've been wondering about that, especially since I did not need any zoning for the first year on the mattress. My bone structure gives me an hourglass figure, of sorts (but without the Marilyn Monroe-esqe voluptuousness): about 38" for the shoulder circumference, about 28" waist, and about 38" at the hips. The CSD tool gives me results that specify zoning, but that's just someone's set of algorithms, which might or might not apply to this particular body.

I'm a tad long in the torso, and that makes me think more about the conforming aspects of memory foam. I might have to try an inch of it, just to know one way or the other.

Well, thanks. I don't have a tripod, though I might be able to set something up, but I don't have a remote shutter release, either. I suppose I should find out if my camera has a self-timer. It's an old one (in technology time-spans), but I have the manual.

I have spent way too much time on all this, but don't really feel like I have a choice, given what the mattress has been doing to my back the past few months.  And I still don't know whether the PU foam or the coils (or both) are the culprit(s). 

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(If using weight plates and a level isn't geeky, I don't know what is... )

Foundation sounds like it should be okay.   You can try laying right on it to see if it seems to sag at all.  You should try lying on both sides of the mattress to see if they seem different.  Walking or using weights may be too difficult to tell.   If there is a material difference, then you may have a problem beyond just the foam you removed.   You should not have the quilted panel over it for testing, but if it is hanging over the side it should be okay.   How thick is the fiber pad?  You do want to keep something over the coils.  Also, are the coils wired together?   I assume they are not pocketed coils.

Yes, taking the top of does affect the structure integrity a bit.  It probably helps to have a tight and tucked in mattress pad over it.  Most of the mattresses also have foam or some kind of support around the edges, which can help as well.

Keep at it!  You may want to sleep on it a bit before making any more decisions.  Possibly rotating to see what the other side is like as well. 

The coils are wired together. These are Lura-Flex offset coils (link to PDF).

If the problem does involve the coils, then I will have no clue what to do next.

I did not have the quilted panel over the mattress for testing. Just the Novabond fiber pads (& maybe the dacron, I don't remember now).

The sheet of dacron is about half an inch thick; seems fine. The Novabond fiber pad is really thin, maybe 1/8" inch.

I thought I was told (when I bought the bed) that to make this thing "extra firm," there was an extra pad across the hip area, or maybe across the entire bed, but there isn't one that I can see; there's just the Novabond pad and the sheet of dacron. It's possible that I'm remembering wrong... but it's also possible that what I got and what I thought I was getting don't quite match, for whatever reason. Maybe the guy at the store got the specs mixed up, or maybe I got the specs mixed up. No way to know. (I don't think anyone there was dishonest; if there is a mismatch, then one of us just got things mixed up.)

A mattress pad would probably help, though I can't put one on until I either put the quilted panel back over the top or cut the panel off altogether.

There is some foam around the edges, but not a lot. I might need to pick up a cheap mattress pad to keep everything together, and/or attach some straps of some kind to pull the sides closer together.

I just rotated the mattress. We'll see if that makes any difference, along with the extra inch of 14ILD for pressure-point relief.
(Such an exciting New Year's Eve here.... )

Welp, so much for the hope of waking up on New Year's Day feeling refreshed. Waaah.

I woke up in pain at about 5 or 5:30 AM; my shoulders & hips were throbbing (still are, 5 hours later). Finally got up around 6:30 and stripped the bed again. Took out the FBM piece; put back the N3 piece; folded the quilted top panel back over the mattress; put on my thin fiber-pad; then the 24 ILD and 14 ILD latex. Read for a little while (after feeding the cat), and then went back to sleep for a couple hours.

I might have just re-introduced the sinkhole -- can't tell after just a couple of hours. Pretty sure I put back too much soft stuff, though. Might have to change that again.

The company I bought this mattress from is having a half-price sale (ending today). I'm tempted to go in there and just start over. A lot of their beds use PU foam, but they do have one mattress that's just a 6" Dunlop core, with a wool and cotton quilted panel. Probably not a good idea, though, until I figure out what's wrong with this mattress and how to fix it. Otherwise, I'd probably wind up going through this whole thing again, 'cause I'd still have to figure out the right toppers for a comfort layer. If I can ever get that figured out, then it almost won't matter whether they're on a latex core or an innerspring -- unless, of course, I turn out to be one of those people who can't get enough back support from latex, in which case there'd be yet another expensive mistake. (Between the latex I've bought recently and the medium-firm Overstock 2" Dunlop topper that I brought down from the attic to check out, I've almost got enough latex to skip the springs entirely and build my own latex mattress.)

The last 2 or 3 years that I had my old mattress (we're talking 18-year-old mattress), it was really uncomfortable, and I'd wake up with numb arms & hands, and I could feel the coils. I am now wondering how I managed to tolerate that for so long. Maybe there are things I could handle in my mid-40s that I am not quite as willing to tolerate now.

Something else that puzzles me: For a period of at least several months, I was fine with using just my old thin fiber-pad, the 1" of 24 ILD Talatech, and the 2" med.-firm Dunlop topper over my mattress. That same combo now feels too firm. No idea why.

Anyway... Happy New Year, everybody. I hope we all figure out this mattress thing so we can sleep well and spend our precious time & energy on other matters.

My shoulders & hips were throbbing because the mattress was way too firm (that's why I finally got up and changed everything at 6:30 AM). There was no sinkhole -- the reason I did the surgery -- but there was no pressure relief, either, even with 2" of 14 ILD latex as the top layer, over 1" 24 ILD, 1" 27 ILD, and 1" FBM (guessing 28-30 ILD).

When I got up and changed everything, I put a bunch of soft stuff back on the mattress, just to get a few hours of cushioned sleep. I'm pretty sure it was too much soft stuff, though. Not sure what I'm going to try tonight. Wish I had something between 14 and 24 ILD.

Sandman, do you still use that 1" 4lb "mem-cool" memory foam from Overstock, or did you decide that it was too soft and interfered with support? (I know you have the 5.3lb memory foam from FoamOrder.com; can't remember what you thought of the mem-cool stuff.)