So after lots of back and forth with Phoenix on here I pulled the trigger on a Sleep EZ 13" Talalay Blend.
My layers are
Bottom: XFirm
3rd: Firm
2nd: Firm
Top: Medium
all on a 8.5" KD foundation we got from them.
Both of us side sleepers with a combined weight of about 470lbs…I weight 230 he weighs 240
Took us longer then we thought to set it up probably because we don’t have a ton of room around the bed so it was hard to maneuver 2 twin sz pieces of foam around. I was SUPER excited. It felt great when we laid on it!. This made me super excited to have my first night on this bed.
My plan was to sleep for 30 days without changing anything but now I am not sure if I can do that. On my old spring mattress I hurt every single day in lots of areas so I figured I could handle just about anything because ANYTHING would be better then that. I woke about midway through the night and realized my lower back was REALLY hurting. I sleep with a pillow between my legs (a long body pillow) by this morning my lower back REALLY hurt. It’s funny a lot of my other aches and pains aren’t there but I generally didn’t get this pain in the hollow of my back like this. I’ve been really struggling moving around. I know they suggest Not moving stuff around for a few days but is this something my body has to get use to or should I try flipping the med and putting a firm on top because I think after a few days of this I may just want to send the bed back but I really feel after all my research that a latex bed so work well for us. Any thoughts on what I should do???
I normally wouldn’t make any changes after only a single night because there is no way to know whether your experience is a result of an anomaly, needing to adjust to a new mattress, or whether the mattress needs a different combination of layering (the more different a mattress is from what you are used to sleeping on the longer it can take some people to adjust to it depending on “muscle memory” and the sensitivity of your body to changes in what you sleep on). Normally 30 days or at least a couple of weeks is best but if that’s not possible I would try and give it as long as you can so you can see if things are improving, staying the same, or getting worse over the course of the first few days. There is more about the normal break in and adjustment period in post #2 here. There is also more about the most common symptoms that people may experience on a mattress in post #2 here.
If it’s not possible to sleep on the mattress for at least a couple of weeks to get a better sense of how your mattress will feel over the longer term then the first thing I would suggest is a phone call to SleepEZ who will be able to help “talk you through” the types of changes that may work better for you.
I don’t know whether your mattress is too soft or too firm for you (too soft can lead to lower back issues if your hips/pelvis are sinking in too far and for side sleepers too firm can lead to “twisting away” from pressure which can also lead to back issues) but either way I generally wouldn’t put the firm layer on top … at least as the first change to make. Top layer is more about comfort and pressure relief and the deeper layers are generally more about support/alignment (which lower back pain often points to). If your mattress is too soft for you the most common change to make (based on very limited information and again I would have a more detailed conversation on the phone with SleepEZ before making any changes) would be to move the X-Firm layer higher up in the mattress so it was either the second layer from the bottom or directly under the medium layer which will provide firmer support.
I did talk to sleepez they think I should do as you suggested perhaps moving the xfirm up a layer and also they suggested having me lay on the bed in my sleep position for at least 15min and then have someone look at me to see where I was or wasn’t sinking in. Therefore seeing if it’s more in the hip area or in the rest of the body not sinking in that may be leading to the problem.
I hope you have the chance to let us know how any changes you make work out for you.
Of course you are also welcome to post about your experiences with each combination as well (and any changes between each combination that you experience) and I’ll be happy to make any comments or suggestions that I can see that may be helpful.
We didn’t make any changes last night but my husband looked closely at my spine. I told him that after laying there for a long time I feel like my hips are the farthest down …almost like I feel like I am “falling” but the rest of me mostly high. Hubby said that my spine looked fine but then it dipped in and then back out right at the hip area. We were talking about if a firmer mattress would help raise my hips OR would a softer top drop my shoulders etc… more in. We don’t have a soft so I am actually going to take a nap this afternoon and I flipped the med topper with the 2nd layer of firm. So now it will go…firm, med, firm, xfirm. Hubby thinks we need more firm I am thinking maybe we should exchange a firm for a soft. All I know is I didn’t wake up as much but the back hurt worse then the 1st night. It was very bad and hrs later I am still feeling it. Still…all my other aches are gone which continues to make me believe the latex is a good choice if we can just get the right combination. it’s frustrating because we are leaving here on sat for a 2 week vacation so I will lose vital time. What are your thoughts if this doesn’t seem to help tonight or tom? Should we just try to switch for a soft…send a firm one back?
The only thing I really have to go by is your actual sleeping experience and your “symptoms” so how you sleep over the next few days will say more and provide better “pointers” than any suggestions I could make … although I probably would have started by moving the X-firm layer higher up in the mattress and leaving the medium layer on top so you would have firmer support and still have the softness of the medium comfort layer.
I would also keep in mind that the spine will never be “perfectly aligned” but that it needs to be “aligned enough” that you don’t experience any pain or discomfort.
Well I napped for a little over an hr and while I didn’t have a lot of lower back pain my other body parts were hurting.
maybe we will take your suggestion and move the xfirm up and med on top and see how we do
[quote]Well I napped for a little over an hr and while I didn’t have a lot of lower back pain my other body parts were hurting.
maybe we will take your suggestion and move the xfirm up and med on top and see how we do[/quote]
While a nap may not be enough to provide enough meaningful information … it certainly “points to” firmer layers being helpful for your back but changing the comfort layers instead of the support layers was probably the cause of the “other” symptoms you experienced because your comfort layers may now be too firm for you and may not be providing you with enough pressure relief (which is primarily the job of the upper layers of the mattress).
You can read a little more about primary support, secondary support, and pressure relief and the relationship between them in post #2 here and in post #4 here that may help you understand some of the “theory” behind different types of layering combinations.
So last night I switched to (bottom) firm firm xfirm and med(Top) like you had suggested. This seems to have been the best night for my back but it’s still hurting very badly this morning. My neck is also hurting for the first time. I know through reading here and what you have said we should give the mattress time and our bodies time but I tell you it’s been very hard when you feel THIS bad in the morning. This was the worst morning with my overall feeling of my body. More of my “normal” feel like I use to wake up to but when you throw in the lower back feeling like an elephant stepped on it I would say this would be the worse I have felt just because of everything combined. Its funny…I truly thought I would be able to handle anything because I have been so sore for so long but I guess I just had very high expectations after researching this bed for so long that it is leaving me so very sad . I did NOT expect a miracle but I guess I really didn’t expect to feel worse then I had been. I didn’t know it was possible.
I keep thinking…should I try to exchange a firm for a soft and then see if a softer layer would help? I just don’t know. I just want this bed to work . I keep thinking that softer would be worse but I don’t know. I wish I could find someone on here that was similar weight and a side sleeper and just ask them what their combination was lol but …I know it’s personal preference.
So night 3 is probably the worse based on all the other pains but the lower back wasn’t AS bad as the first night. I did wake about 6x.
I can certainly understand this but as you are mentioning one night isn’t really enough to tell anything because your body may not have had enough time to “catch up” to a new layering.
If you believe that all your combinations are still too firm then I would certainly talk with SleepEZ about this and I think it would be worth trying because it will tell you whether a softer layer somewhere in the mix (probably either on the top layer or the second layer from the top) improves things for you. You would have also the chance to experiment with various configurations that included a softer layer in the mix to see which one worked best for you before deciding which layer to send back.
It’s not only a preference issue but it can be an issue of different body types and weight distributions and slight differences in sleeping positions as well which changes the surface areas that are in contact with the mattress. Your current layering is inside the “averages” that would work for most people that were similar to you and when you are “outside the averages” that would normally work well for others in your general weight range and sleeping positions then your own experiences will tell you much more than any “theory” or other people’s experiences.
I was SUPER excited. It felt great when we laid on it!. This made me super excited to have my first night on this bed.
What are your thoughts if this doesn’t seem to help tonight or tom? Should we just try to switch for a soft…send a firm one back?