I am a 115-lbs side sleeper, with apparently a weak back. Based on a previous thread, I purchased a 3-layer Sleep EZ mattress: S Talalay/M Dunlop/F Dunlop. Here have been my results:
S-M-F: back pain
S-F-M: back pain
F-S-M: back pain
F-M-S: too hard, some numbness
M-F-S: best so far
It seems my best configuration is with medium on top. But I am imagining I don’t want to keep a soft Talalay as my base, correct? I’d like to exchange it.
would you recommend M/M/F or M/F/F? or something else?
should the top M layer be a Talalay M or stick with the Dunlop?
Hi Amma and thanks for reaching out on this! What size of mattress do you have, and are your layers split down the middle or is each layer just one piece of latex? If the layers are split, my advice would be to borrow a medium Dunlop layer from the other side of the mattress and put it on the side you normally sleep on so you can try m/m/f all Dunlop. If you try that and it’s perfect, then you know you’re fine to order a medium Dunlop layer for exchange. There’s no wrong way to set up the mattress, as long as you’re comfortable, so if an all-Dunlop mattress works for you, there’s certainly nothing wrong with that.
OK, in that case, my advice is to get a medium Talalay for exchange so you can try medium Talalay/medium Dunlop/firm Dunlop. The increase in firmness should eliminate the back pain and the top layer of Talalay should eliminate the pressure point issues, and can help with back pain as well because Talalay provides plenty of what we call secondary back support. Secondary support is needed to fill in the gaps between your body and the mattress – back sleepers normally need secondary support to fill in the gaps between the small of their back and the mattress; side sleepers normally need secondary support to fill in the gaps between their mid-section and the mattress, and stomach sleepers normally need this under their belly or in their upper shoulder / clavicle area. If these parts of a person’s body aren’t supported by the mattress, their muscles will work throughout the night to hold these parts of the body up, and by the time they wake up they’ve got back pain.