100% Natural Latex vs. 100% Natural Botanical Latex ???

[phoenix]

Hi rvneedsleep,

I tend to sleep hot, unfortunately, but I was definitely sleeping “hotter” on the Blended Talalay then on 100% Natural Dunlop. All other room and bedding variables have remained the same from my original setup of latex topper on top of Sleep Number bed right through to the final arrangement of the all latex mattress. My past experience with a supposedly “cool” memory foam topper was definitely too hot for my comfort.

I’m not sure which SleepEz mattress you purchased or whether it has a wool quilted cover or not but some of the suggestions in my previous reply may help to resolve temperature regulation issues … at least to some degree.

I’m not so sure that what I originally intended to purchase would have been softer than what I ended up ordering. Since Talalay is softer than Dunlop, I’m thinking that 2" soft + 3" medium Talalay MAY have been softer than had I gotten the 2" soft blended Talalay + 3" soft Dunlop. But perhaps not. Perhaps a “soft Dunlop” lies somewhere between “soft Talalay” and “medium Talalay” in softness.

Both Talalay and Dunlop can be made in a wide range of firmness levels so either one may be firmer than the other depending on the ILD of the layer. If you have two layers that are the same thickness (layer thickness can affect how soft or firm a layer feels) and both of them are the same ILD (and the ILD was measured using the same criteria which often isn’t the case) then for most people the Dunlop would feel a little firmer because it has a higher compression modulus (the rate that a material becomes firmer as you compress it more deeply). Depending again on the specific ILD … medium Talalay would generally feel firmer than soft Dunlop although it will also have a different and more resilient and “springy” feel. Soft Dunlop in the same thickness and ILD as Talalay would likely feel firmer than the Talalay.

I can’t remember exact details of my hip pain from the original squishier arrangements, but as best as I can recall at this point, my hip pain MIGHT have been less but my lower back pain was definitely worse.

Thanks … that’s helpful as a “pointer”.

I can tell you that with regards to the hip pain while lying on my side, it is definitely a case of my hip not sinking in enough to provide good support for the recessed parts of my body. (But in answer to the other poster “pungo”, no, I do not have particularly wide hips. If anything, I think they tend to be more narrow.) But if I were to go softer, as I had starting out, then it would throw my back out of whack in other ways. As I said in my previous post, I am the most comfortable on the mattress when lying on my back. So it’s a trade-off.

“Support” is often misunderstood because the goal of a “supportive” mattress is to keep the spine and joints in good alignment and this requires the type of contouring support that allows some parts of the body to sink in more (softer) and some parts of the body to sink in less (firmer) and this will vary on an individual basis based on body type and sleeping style. There is more about primary or “deep” support and secondary or “surface” support and their relationship to firmness and pressure relief and the “roles” of different layers in a mattress in post #2 here and in post #4 here that may also be helpful in clarifying the difference between “support/alignment” and “comfort/pressure relief” and “feel” and how they interact together.

It’s certainly possible that you may need both firmer deep support and softer or thicker comfort layers to solve or at least alleviate both the pressure relief issues on your side and the lower back pain on your back.

You could firm up the deep support by exchanging the firm bottom layer with the medium middle layer.

If this helps to reduce or solve the lower back issues when you sleep on your back then you may also be able to solve or at least help the pressure relief issue by adding a relatively thin topper to provide a little bit of extra thickness/softness and improve the pressure relief when you are lying on your side.

Bottom line: what I really need is a new body!!

While I can certainly sympathize with the thought (on some days more than others :)) … it still may be possible to make some adjustments that help to bring you a little bit closer to your “ideal” to the degree that is possible with the layers that you have available.

Phoenix