Adjustable Tension Slats, Zoned Latex, or something else?

[phoenix]

Hi jd,

S/M/F combination:
When sleeping on my back it hurts and feels as if my tailbone/butt is falling into the mattress while the rest of my upper body is higher and it’s a pulling aching feeling that’s isolated to the middle of the bed. The head and foot of the bed is firmer and doesn’t not create this sinking feeling and is physically more supportive than the middle section of the bed. This is why I say hips are dipping into the bed too much and it wreaks havoc on my entire body, causing misalignment issues, I feel better standing than I do getting into bed. I have measured, the relative distance of my forehead, waistline fairly accurate when standing, the waistline is an inch lower in the bed with no pillow, where as when I stand they are even and don’t feel any strain or pulling at the bottom of my spine.

Once you have purchased a mattress and are sleeping on it the amount that different parts of your body are sinking in or how firm it “feels” to you or how far it feels like your hips are dipping into the mattress aren’t really as important as the specific symptoms of pain and discomfort you are feeling when you sleep on a mattress over the course of the night. It’s the norm that the heavier parts of your body (such as the hips/pelvis) will tend to sink into a mattress more deeply (which is why the middle feels softer to you) than the lighter parts of your body such as your shoulders.

I’m assuming that the part of your body that hurt with this combination is your lower back which is generally an indication that either your comfort layers are too thick/soft or that your support layers are too soft. The two most common ways to “fix” this would either be exchanging the firm layer with the medium layer which would create firmer support (and would be the most common adjustment because you can keep the softer layer on top for side sleeping) or to exchange the soft layer with the medium layer which would firm up the upper layers of the mattress.

M/F:
Removed Soft layer, felt better for a few days, hips were higher up, but still lower, and pain reflected that, Meaning I felt like my tailbone was as low, but once I adjusted to it, it was still a little low and felt the pulling, at the same time I could kind of feel the slats in my bed so it was a little harder than I’d like, but I didn’t have problems with my joints sinking in to the top layer.

This would be significantly firmer than your previous 3 layer combination partly because you removed the soft layer and partly because thinner mattresses can’t adapt as effectively to the contours of the body and this would be significantly firmer both in terms of the sleeping surface and in terms of support. For most people in average to higher weight ranges this wouldn’t be a solution that would work well except possibly for back or stomach sleepers that don’t need as much thickness/softness in their comfort layers. There is more about the effect of thickness in post #14 here. As you also mentioned it would also be more likely that you could feel the slats under the bed if you were heavier or very sensitive. I’m also not clear if your back pain was better or worse than on the S/M/F combination after a few days so I don’t know what your experience with this combination is pointing to in terms of how it changed your experience. Again … it’s the actual symptoms that are most important not how much it may feel like different parts of your body are sinking in.

2" (1.5"+.5") S/M/F
Good pressure relief, but ultimately too soft I kept sinking at the hips. Uneven in different spots and would sometimes cause joints to stick in a misaligned position, always equals pain later.

I would need more specifics about how this affected your back pain compared to the S/M/F by itself. It seems that the pressure relief was already good with the S/M/F (at least you didn’t mention it as a “symptom”) but it wouldn’t be particularly surprising that adding additional soft layers wouldn’t help your alignment (either in your lower back or in your joints). The unevenness could just be from the normal ILD variation in the Dunlop across the surface (which you may feel more than most because of your sensitivity) or because it was cut unevenly.

1.5" S/M/F
Pressure relief is a hit or miss, I slept better because hips rose up, but it was a little harder and causing bad circulation, numb hands and it irritated pinched nerve at the shoulder when side sleeping. I still had lower hips, just not as much, but just meant slightly less pulling/aching. Less problems with mushiness of layer, but still there with unevenness in different spots of the layer.

It would be very unusual that most people would feel any difference between a 1.5" topper and a 2" topper that were in the same approximate ILD range but of course you appear to be much more sensitive than the norm. Based on your symptoms it seems like the biggest difference here was in the pressure relief of the 1.5" layer (which is the firmest of the three) compared to the 2" layer. This would be firmer both because the 1.5" layer is firmer and also because thinner comfort layers will also “act” firmer on the same layers below them. I’m not clear how this compared to the S/M/F (with the soft Talalay on top) without any toppers in terms of pressure relief.

It seems obvious the integral structure of every Talalay layer S/M/F was softer in the middle. I can feel it lying down, I see and feel it when I push on the mattress in the middle of each layer and I have the measurement to show definitive height difference of the waistline and forehead with no pillow. Measured on more than one person, not hypermobile, stiff and curvier.

This actually isn’t accurate and the middle of a Talalay layer would be closely comparable to the rest of the sleeping surface in terms of it’s ILD. The reason that it would “feel” softer is because your hips are the heaviest part of your body so they will tend to sink in more deeply. This is also why some people experience a mattress as being soft while others experience the same mattress as being firm. The more you sink into a layer the softer it will generally feel even if the layer is the same ILD across the surface.

So I decided to try modifying S/M/F thinking if I have enough support in the middle the pressure relief of the soft talalay layer might be pretty good.

S/M/F Talalay modified with Polyfoam and an extra Latex square.

35ILD .25' polyfoam layer cut into 2 pieces and placed over the Firm layer, this cut covers 1/3, the mid section and then Medium layer smaller about 1/2 the size and covers the tailbone section.
13ILD 1" thick 25"x30" Talalay Latex placed over the middle of the bed (you can see its outline)

This is confusing to me and I’m not clear on the specifics of this layering. If you could describe the dimensions of each of the layers of polyfoam and exactly where they are located in the mattress it would be helpful. I “think” I understand that one of the firm polyfoam pieces is in the center third of the mattress in between the medium and firm latex layer but I’m not clear where you put the second smaller piece and if it was under the tailbone then it would be overlapping with the first piece in the center third of the mattress. 35 ILD polyfoam is also firm … not medium so I’m not sure what you are referring to when you mentioned a medium smaller layer.

Your description of the 1" Talalay layer is a little more clear and if I understand you correctly it’s also in the center third of the mattress on top of the other layers.

This gave me relief at the tailbone initially but as I suspected it only lasted a few night before it started becoming problematic. My pelvis didn’t feel like it was sinking anymore, but later on it felt like pressure against the tailbone which didn’t feel very good. So maybe this is too high, my waistline measured the same as it did on the floor, so I though it might be too much. I did enjoy have more space for my shoulder, but my knee joints were hanging off the latex square causing instability issues when standing.

There are really too many changes between this combination and the one before it for me to isolate the effect of each of the changes. It’s normally better to only make one change at a time so that the effect of one particular change can be more easily identified. It’s not surprising that your pelvis was “lifted” higher if my understanding of this layering is correct (which I don’t think it is). Was the pressure under your tailbone painful or did it just “feel” uncomfortable. While I don’t have your weight or body type to use a reference … it would be very unusual if you had a pressure issue in your tailbone with 3" of soft latex and an additional 1" of 13 ILD Talalay underneath it. If you are taking a zoning approach I would also use layers that went all the way across the width of the mattress which would solve the knee joints hanging off the edges of the latex square.

S/M/F Talalay modified with Polyfoam (Current Status)
I removed the latex square this more closely resembles my waistline to forehead ratio when standing and knee problems went away. But tailbone still feels like it’s sinking a bit, but it also feels pressure. These adjustments feel a little uneven as expected it physically raises the middle like a small hill, which I’d like to reduce so it’s more even and causes less problems. When I’m on my side my upper and lower body feels lower than my hips yet firmer at the very end of the bed like a wave and this causes misalignment at the spine, hips, and knees.

Again I’m not clear on the specific symptoms you are experiencing on this combination or how they changed compared to the other combinations you tried. Again … the “clues” I am looking for are specific symptoms (pain or discomfort) and how they change with each combination. In other words descriptions about how each combination was either better or worse relative to a specific symptom is the information that is most helpful.

If you can fill in some of the gaps in my understanding particularly in the specifics of the zoning you have tried and by using descriptors such as “better or worse” relative to specific symptoms it would help me more than trying to describe how much each part of your body is sinking in or how your alignment “looks” in mathematical terms.

We need to be on the same page and using the same “language” and “methodology” for me to have any chance of making any meaningful suggestions.

Phoenix