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I have an "S" brand mattress that's about 13 years old now. The whole time I've had it, it's been on a captain's bed with a bunky board, and for the last 3 years or so I've had a 3" memory foam topper sitting on it. That last step was mainly because, at the time, I didn't have the savings handy to buy a cheap mattress, never mind something like a TempurPedic, but my lower back was so sore every morning that I had to do something. It's worked pretty well until fairly recently, but for several months I've been tossing and turning more and once again waking up with pain in my lower back every morning. My wife and I went to the local Sleepys to try out the mattresses and start the ball rolling on buying a new one. Long story short, I literally laid down on every level of spring mattress they had to offer, and every single one made my lower back hurt in no more than two minutes. The Dormia pillow-top bed was close, but even that had my lower back getting sore after about five minutes or so; the standard Dormia was out in under a minute. The only bed I was comfortable on for a long period, both on my back and on my side, was the TempurPedic Celebrity Bed. The Rhapsody Bed was a close second; perfectly fine on my back, but it was uncomfortable to lay on my side as I started to feel it in my hip and shoulder. Of course, the Celebrity Bed is the most expensive bed in the store. :-\ So I'm pretty much ready to go for the Celebrity Bed, but I'm wondering if I should give a spring mattress a try with the topper that I have. The topper certainly helped when I first got it, and it may be that using it with a new mattress will work as well or better than it did with a then 10-year old model. That would save a boatload of money, and I could even pay in full up front rather than financing it (although the current 0% financing offer certainly makes things easier); but I'm wondering if it will pan out in the long run. I'm guessing that the mattress being on a solid platform, rather than a boxspring, might be contributing to the problem (although all the mattresses in the store were on box springs and still killed me). Sleepys does offer a 30-day return for credit option, so I could try some other spring mattress with the topper, and if I'm still hurting after a month I could exchange it for the Celebrity Bed. But I'm so sick of waking up sore / in pain every morning that I really want to just get something that works from Day One. My lower back pain is due in part to having tilted hips, so that my spine is never really straight in that area. It just seems sensitive to pressure points pushing on it from the mattress, and the fact that I couldn't stand lying on my back for more than a couple of minutes, even on a pillow-top mattress, makes me think that I'm one of those people who basically has to go with tempur foam. But my wife and I are trying to avoid spending more than necessary if we can (whether up front or over a 3-year financing term). I've looked at knock-off foam mattresses like Select Foam and Angel Beds, but I've seen lots of negative reviews of the latter, and the Select Foam web site just doesn't give a "professional" feeling or leave me feeling comfortable with the merchant (there are LOTS of typos all over the site [they can't bother with spell check or a copy editor?], they don't really detail the mattress construction the way TempurPedic does, and so on). I'm really hesitant to put my money on the line with one of those knock-offs. Can the folks here with lower back issues chime in with how they've gotten back to restful sleep? I've read through several pages of the postings here, including the "mattress surgery" thread. But I'm trying to keep things simple, and I'm hoping that I can get a general "go with this route" consensus. Thanks in advance! It took a while to find this site, but I'm glad it's here and that there's such an active community! :-) - Joe - This message was modified Mar 9, 2010 by JLMoran1705
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JLMoran1705 wrote: Thanks for the replies so far. To answer some of your questions / comments:
Thanks again! - Joe - I think Budgy can give you a more technical explanation but I'll tell you what I can based on experience, in layman's terms. Tempurpedic foam is a type of visco-elastic foam designed to conform to your body's heat and pressure. It is sold in terms of Density such as 3lb density, 5lb density, etc. The more dense it is, the more support it provides in my opinion. Tempurpedic uses a proprietary type of visco foam (also known as memory foam) which is maybe around 5lb. desnity. But there's more to it than just how dense it is, I think Tempur. has a special patented formula which makes it somewhat better than most other memory foams. However, that does not translate into it being a great foam for sleeping, in my opinion. To me, Tempurpedic was great for the first few nights then got too soft and hurt my back. Everyone is different and I'm certainly a difficult case, so one has to try for oneself. All I am saying is that Tempurpedic seems not to have a huge success record among members here. I know Budgy knows people who have been happy with it, though. So I say "whatever works" for you, and certainly you may want to try it, as I did. Now, as to High Resiliency foam, it is not a visco foam at all, it is just a glorified PU or Polyurethane foam. It is glorified because it lasts much longer than most of the cheap PU used in mattresses. It is also higher density than most of the foam used in mattresses so it provides more support and lasts longer than most pu foam. It is amazing to me that the Big S companies insist on using the cheapest crappiest foam out there even though they keep getting tons of complaints and returns. You'd think they'd want to solve that problem by using a higher quality foam such as HR foam, but they keep using low density cheap PU foam. Go figure. Like most of the world nowadays, I think it's a case of short-sightedness: profits now, and no thought of quality or the future or our business. [Okay, off my soap box now.] This page explains what HR foam is: http://www.carrscorner.com/foam.php I see where your confusion comes in, as in my search for the above link I saw some sites calling Visco Foam "HR Visco foam". I am not sure what that means, but HR poly foam is different from HR memory or visco foam. HR poly foam is simply a more dense, higher quality PU or poly foam, which lasts longer than most cheap PU foam. HR foam does not have the "memory" effect or any of the same qualities as memory or visco foam, it's a completely different thing. Basically HR foam will last 3-10 years (my experience is that it lasts only 2-3 years for a mattress layer because one notices the breaking down of the foam more when sleeping on it. It is really designed mostly for furniture and so it probably lasts much longer for a chair or couch because you aren't spending 8 hours reclining on it so you don't notice the softening or lack of support that will inevitably happen to any foam over time. It can work for a component type DIY mattress because it is easy to replace when it breaks down and no longer gives the support you want. However, it also does not give the type of support and comfort that latex gives. But if you're on a budget it can work at least for the core or bottom layers. Also, in my experience, HR foam provides a more "dead" feel, in that it does not conform to your body the way latex does, and the way - imho - visco does too much of. That is, to me, visco foam including Tempur., allows your body to sink down into it too much, whereas latex does not unless maybe it's a super soft latex. But with super soft latex you would only use that as a thin topper, not as a mattress layer. For a mattress layer you would use a higher ILD latex such as a 28-36ILD latex, then maybe just put a thin soft latex or a thin visco layer on top. I hope you were able to make sense of this, I kind of threw it together. This message was modified Mar 10, 2010 by jimsocal
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