Why is there infinite trouble selecting a mattress for person with low back pain?
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Why is mattress selection close to impossible for a anyone with low back pain? why are mattress makers using different names for the same mattresses in different stores? Why are they making it so hard to compare mattresses? Is this some kind of scam? Why is it that man has gone to moon but mattress makers can't make a mattress for people with low back pain? I have a herniated disk and wake up with aches and extremely tired every day. Life is hell or close to it. It can't get any worse. thanks for honest replies. This message was modified Jan 25, 2010 by lowbacpain
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Re: Why is there infinite trouble selecting a mattress for person with low back pain?
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Polyurethane foam is undoubtedly (from the consumer POV) the worst thing to be implemented in mattress construction in a long time. It is actually to the point that I now blatantly tell people that I have no problem selling them a pillowtop bed if they are okay with the prospect of replacing it every few years which is very likely possible. What I do try my best to do is offer people as many ways out of that cycle as I can. Usually this costs people more up front, but in the end they are usually much happier. Of all the warrantied mattresses I have seen (and the ones that should have been warrantied but were denied by manufacturers) I can count less than a handful of beds that actually had legitimate spring failures. The other ones that I have completely lost count of were undoubtedly caused by polyurethane foam breaking down prematurely (or right on schedule if you want my honest opinion). Leggett and Platt does produce a lot of springs for a lot of manufacturers, but we also have a lot of things being brought in from overseas these days. Some companies still produce their own in house, but not necessarily for all of their mattresses, just the more expensive ones. As far as tempering steel goes, its completely unnecessary if the coils are designed correctly and good quality steel is used in the first place. The main reason it is done today is because of the mass production itself. If a coil is made overseas or across the country from where the final mattress construction is done the coils are usually tempered. I can't really think of any built this way that are not tempered to be honest. It is because they vacuum pack the coils down to maybe 5% of their full height before they get put on a truck, train or boat before they get shipped to their factory destination. The tempering is done for shipping reasons, not as an end benefit to the customer. As far as if any cost cutting has happened with coils we are starting to see a little bit of that, one good example, Simmons pocket coils for the longest time were always wrapped in oversized cotton shells for its ability to breathe and also to allow the coils to move somewhat freely and do what they are intended to do. Very recently they made the switch to really stiff polyester shells just barely big enough to hold the coils, they can hardly move now without effecting the surrounding coils effectively making them behave almost like any interactive type coil joined by helical lacing wires. But in short, all of these things are minor compared to the copious amounts of foam used in most mattresses. |
Re: Why is there infinite trouble selecting a mattress for person with low back pain?
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budgy wrote: Polyurethane foam is undoubtedly (from the consumer POV) the worst thing to be implemented in mattress construction in a long time. It is actually to the point that I now blatantly tell people that I have no problem selling them a pillowtop bed if they are okay with the prospect of replacing it every few years which is very likely possible. What I do try my best to do is offer people as many ways out of that cycle as I can. Usually this costs people more up front, but in the end they are usually much happier. But in short, all of these things are minor compared to the copious amounts of foam used in most mattresses. Budgy, thanks for confirming what I thought to be true! I am surprised you even say: "I have no problem selling them a pillowtop bed if they are okay with the prospect of replacing it every few years which is very likely possible. " I say this because I personally know people and have read on this and other forums where people bought a pillow-top and had to IMMEDIATELY replace it due to lower back pain from the non-supportive foam. OR, they had to "eat" their purchase because the "copious amounts of foam" broke down in a month or two after they could not replace it or exchange it. My sister-in-law is one of those. One more question: Are the springs from, say, a 15-20 year old S company bed made better than the springs are made now ? And are they likely to still have good springs after that time? And aside from being flippable, what makes an older bed better? Is it that they used LESS foam or did they use something INSTEAD of foam, or ??? I have recently slept on 2 older mattresses - not sure how old - and both felt infinitely better than the Sealy and the Englander I bought within the last 5 years, both of which were basically terrible. In fact if it weren't so far away I would offer to buy my friend's mattress from his guest bedroom! I slept on it for 4 nights and woke up feeling fine each morning. I am going to ask him if he can find out the model etc. so I can try to get specs on it. Is there any way to get specs on an old mattress? |
Re: Why is there infinite trouble selecting a mattress for person with low back pain?
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yeah, you know Jim, you are right. I can't even guarantee people really any time on a normal mattress. Unless they bought one with say less than 2" of PU foam I know that wouldn't break down too much and I don't really see any customer issues with this unless its too firm and then we sell people toppers at our cost to correct the comfort issue. I have had customers wear out thicker pillowtop mattresses within a span of months thankfully to get warrantied and then put them into different product altogether. These people are usually not upset with us because we do warn them that the beds won't last forever, and as long as you can look after them they will usually be happy because they know you told the truth from the beginning, and unlike the guy across the street I didn't tell them it will last 10 years as the warranty implies. But you would be surprised how many people still want to buy these types of beds even after being warned lol. Maybe I am not a very good salesperson because not everyone believes me haha. And yeah other then being flippable most beds back in the day either had very minimal PU foam or it was usually all just cotton batting and heavy damask grade fabric covers that tended to be very durable as well. Granted you can also debate that these types of mattresses were not the most comfortable either, but if you could buy something similar, add a latex topper or some other natural fibre topper you atleast wouldn't have to replace the mattress very often. EDIT: To answer your question the springs themselves, I honestly don't know if there has been any large changes in terms of the quality of steel used. But I do maintain my position that most coils do last pretty well these days. Will they be the same in 15~20 years, no, especially the lacing wires on interactive coils because they are made from thinner guage steel than the coils themselves. Thing is metal does fatigue, twisting bending, compressing, it all fatigues metal bit by bit over time. I know this from many different applications, even cars lose a great deal of structural rigidity over their life as the chassis absorbs energy from the suspension, it twists, and goes through various stresses that all weaken the structure of the car over time, coils are susceptible to the same basic type of wear and tear, but as far as how much...I can't say. If someone could actually test the spring rate of a coil when it was brand new and then test it after 20 years of simulated wear and tear than we would know exactly how much the metal has fatigued. This message was modified Jan 28, 2010 by budgy
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Re: Why is there infinite trouble selecting a mattress for person with low back pain?
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Unless I missed it, you did not address one other question I asked: Which - if any - S company sells good springs nowadays? I realize most of these are made by L&P and I realize "best" depends on which type you like as well, but in general, are any of these big S companies selling springs that are any better than another? I bought Englander because at least their name doesn't begin with an "S"  , and they had some of the heaviest gauge steel I could find in a cheapo mattress.But for example, are S&F springs any better than Sealy? ( I know they're the same co. but I heard S&F springs were better...) Are Spring Air springs any better than Serta? etc.? |
Re: Why is there infinite trouble selecting a mattress for person with low back pain?
| out of any of those companies none of them stand out to me as clear winners however the worst of the lot IMO, Serta. There mattresses literally have nothing to them.. I know this sounds really unscientific, but as a general rule of thumb, good quality mattresses have some decent weight to them. It may not always be in direct proportion to quality but if a mattress is a feather weight its lacking something. Continuous coils used by Serta are very light weight, they might have high spring counts but they are low on the # of turns in the wire with an average or thinner than average steel. |
Re: Why is there infinite trouble selecting a mattress for person with low back pain?
| Budgy and others, do you have thoughts on Shifman, basic level (e.g., the Shifman Chateau, which is a firm all-cotton innerspring with minimum padding)? I heard the original family sold the company several years ago and since then the quality has suffered, but haven't been able to verify. Am trying to decide between this and a horsehair innerspring. |
Re: Why is there infinite trouble selecting a mattress for person with low back pain?
| To my knowledge there are no Shifman dealers in my area, so I honestly have never seen one in person (even at furniture shows). I just looked up that mattress @ bloomingdales website. Based on that price it sounds a little bit high for what it is. Looks to be a quality constructed set and their boxsprings sound highly functional, its more of an actual functional sleep system as opposed to just buying a mattress, this is generally something that tends to seperate this company from more standard brands. I think if you get a chance to lay on one in person and like the way it feels you probably won't have any quality issues persay, but I am a little worried about the battle tank offset coil they use. Probably perfect for a heavier person, but limited in how well it can conform to body shape compared to say a hand made pocket coil. Im not sure where you are located, but I think you may want to check and see if there are any Hastens dealers or Vi-Spring dealers near you...I believe their basic models should be priced around the same as the price I found on this Shifmans @ bloomingdales, but I do believe they will typically use higher quality upholstery materials and the spring systems are far more luxurious, you would also have with those brands the option of ordering your springs in the firmness level you desire. Happy hunting though, and let me know if you have any other questions or concerns too. |
Re: Why is there infinite trouble selecting a mattress for person with low back pain?
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budgy wrote: out of any of those companies none of them stand out to me as clear winners however the worst of the lot IMO, Serta. There mattresses literally have nothing to them.. I know this sounds really unscientific, but as a general rule of thumb, good quality mattresses have some decent weight to them. It may not always be in direct proportion to quality but if a mattress is a feather weight its lacking something. Continuous coils used by Serta are very light weight, they might have high spring counts but they are low on the # of turns in the wire with an average or thinner than average steel. Thanks Budgy. I came close to buying a Serta just because I had a limited budget and I figured "I'm just using the springs anyway" so was going to buy Serta. Luckily I remembered Englander and how I had once slept on one I really liked at a hotel so I bought that instead. So just to clarify, would you say that S&F springs are not substantially better than Sealy springs? I am just gathering info in case I have to replace my Englander springs at some point. Do you have any particular theory on what TYPE of springs are best for people of average weight or a little over average weight (like me)? I really am not very knowledgeable about the various types of springs out there and what makes one better or worse than another... |
Re: Why is there infinite trouble selecting a mattress for person with low back pain?
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in theory a properly designed independent coil (pocket coil, marshall coil, any name you wanna use) is best for everyone. However because most of them are not made properly this doesn't always work out to be the case. And unlike Latex which you sometimes can actually buy based on specific firmness levels a spring you cannot. Because there are so many variables it is impossible to say one is better than another, much like how if we had a much heavier person we would probably recommend they start with a higher ILD rating than someone of lower body weight would typically use, you cannot do this with a spring system in the same way. With coils it is first of all impossible to compare apples to apples when we are comparing one design vs another. I will try my best to illustrate why its almost impossible to compare spring rates (durability) and contact area (pressure relief) especially when comparing one type versus another. Lets take a quick trip to fantasy land for a couple of examples. Let's make up a couple of scenarios here for coils and try to compare them, lets also say for the sake of comparison that there is literally NO upholstery material on any of these springs, and that they are all queen size mattresses: Scenario A: We have two coils, both of them are a classic bonnell coil, hourglass shaped spring (wider at the top and bottom than in the middle). Both of them are 15 cm tall and have 6 turns in each coil, both of them use helical lacing wires that run side to side across the surface of the mattress, both have a coil count of 608 in a queen size, one has a 14.50 gauge of wire and the other one is a 15.5 gauge of wire, both are made in the same factory and made from the same quality of steel. In this case we know that the only variable is the gauge of wire, which even though we don't know the actual spring rates we at least know the 14.5 gauge of wire will provide a higher spring rate and be slightly more durable. It would also in theory because you wouldn't sink into it as much, provide less contact area. You might make a recommendation on one coil over the other based on the sleepers weight. However if any one of these other variables changed, it would be much harder to objectively compare. Scenario B: Two coils, both 15 cm tall, 6 turns in the coil, coil count 608, 14.5 gauge of wire, same quality of steel. Now one of them is an open bonnell coil like the last scenario, hour glass shaped, and lacing wires running side to side. The other coil is an independent coil placed inside a cotton shell and hand tied in the middle to attach adjacent springs, no helical wires used, and a barrell shaped coil (slightly wider in the middle than it is on the top and bottom). In this case we don't even really know for sure which coil provides the highest spring rates overall. Reason being that helical lacing wires artificially raise the spring rates at the surface of the spring system, furthermore both springs use what is called 'progressive' rates, this is because the diameter of the coil is different at different compression levels. An hour glass shaped coil actually becomes progressively weaker as it becomes compressed because the middle portion of the springs is a smaller diameter. A barrell shaped pocket coil although weaker initially will become progressively stronger because of the wider diameter in the middle portion of the spring. So we don't even know which coil is more durable in this case, all we know is that you will probably get a lot better conformity from the independent spring which would help it shape into harder to reach areas like lower back and provide more contact with the body. As complicated as all this may sound, it is actually somewhat simplified. But lets just say it is very difficult to objectify what springs are better because it also depends on what your needs are, some people might place conformity of the coil higher up on the list than overall durability. This message was modified Jan 29, 2010 by budgy
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Re: Why is there infinite trouble selecting a mattress for person with low back pain?
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Thanks for the explanation. I agree that pocket coils are great - in theory. But my experience with Simmons about 15 years ago was that after only a year or so they began to kill me. And that was BEFORE I had such a bad back. At that time I had only a mildly bad back.  I then read that what happened with Simmons coils at that time was that they would come loose from each other because they were tied very delicately and so the springs would migrate and thus, back pain. I heard they changed their way of tying them and are better now, but that does not jibe with the tons of negative reviews you can find on the net re Simmons. As I understand it my Englander has Bonnell coils of 12.5 gauge tempered steel but honestly I never got a definitive answer on that so I don't really know. One store said "I think they're Bonnell" and another store said "I don't know". One store said "They have x # of coils in the Queen" and another said "they have y # of coils in the Queen" and none could tell me how many in the Twin which I was buying! This is the main problem with mattress buying: they won't tell people what they are made of. The dealers even claim they don't know and it is difficult for them to find out! The mattress store guy who was on here for awhile made the assertion that most people don't really want to know anyway, and the facts would only confuse them! Ha! I do agree that not everyone would know what the specs meant. But still, I think we should have the right to know and what would it hurt to just have a print out available - at least if asked for! - that showed how much foam, what kind of foam, what kind of springs, how many springs, etc... Actually I think it should be required to be put right on the label or at least on a paper that comes with each mattress. Sorry, sometimes I go into rant mode on the subject of mattress stores! |