Any experience with Technogel Mattress Estasi+ or Armonia or Piacere

[phoenix]

Hi PrimeNo35,

An update to my mattress story:
First I bought Tempurpedic Rhapsody Breeze as mentioned before: it sinks after around 5hrs and loses lower back support and it also heats up, so I couldn’t sleep for more than 5 to 6hours.

One of the characteristics of memory foam is that it tends to soften with heat, humidity, and with continuous compression so it’s not unusual that you can start the night off in good alignment and then be out of alignment hours later or when you wake up in the morning.

Afterwards I exchanged the mattress with a floor sample of Technogel Vive luxury king mattress (since it was floor sample for few months the price was cut down by 50%).
Surprisingly Technogel Vive does not heat up even after sleeping on the bed for 8 hours. But Technogel Vive provided good back support only for about 6hours after which the mattress sinks just like Tempurpedic Rhapsody Breeze although not as bad.

The Technogel material is a “pure gel” rather than a gel added to a foam material and it will tend to maintain it’s thermal conductive and cooling properties for longer than gel memory foam. The Technogel also doesn’t have any memory foam that will soften over the course of the night so it’s quite possible that the mattress was already on the edge of being too soft for you to provide good alignment and the back pain and discomfort that can come from sleeping out of alignment is usually much more noticeable after several hours of sleeping or when you wake up in the morning than when you go to sleep at night.

There is more about the many variables that can affect the sleeping temperature of a mattress in post #2 here.

Since I am back sleeper I only get 5 to 6 hours of sleep and then wake up and move to the unused portion of the bed to get may be another hour of sleep. This has created some problems and pain in the upper portion of my body that I had to see the doctor. Sometimes I get tired of this 5+1 sleeping that I end up sleeping on the couch instead :-(.

There is some information about the many different symptoms that people may experience on a mattress and some of the most common causes behind them in post #2 here that may be helpful but if you experience upper body pain or discomfort on a mattress then it could also be a pillow issue which is causing causing your head to be “pushed” forward or it could be that the mattress comfort layers are too soft and may be causing you to sleep in a “hunched” position where your shoulders are pushed forward which can cause pain in the shoulder blade area as well. Sleeping better on the couch could also be “pointing to” a mattress where the comfort layers are too thick or soft.

There is also 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” and “pressure relief” and “feel” although this may be more than you really need to know to choose a mattress that is a good “match” for you in terms of PPP (Posture and alignment, Pressure relief, and Personal preferences).

Please note that sometime ago I had also tried Simmons Beautyrest Black Ava Luxury firm for few months. Initially it was ok, but later on the mattress began to sag and offered very little or no back support at all. This was the worst sleeping experience of all.

While the Beautyrest Black series has a range of firmness levels and some of them may be more suitable for you than others in terms of PPP … like most of the major brand mattresses they use some lower quality and less durable materials that are a “weak link” in their design that would be subject to premature foam softening and the loss of comfort or support much to quickly after a purchase relative to their price. It may be a good thing that you exchanged it since foam softening and the loss of comfort/support isn’t covered by a warranty. In general I would avoid all the major brands or any mattress that uses lower quality/density materials in the upper layers or where you can’t find out the quality/density of the materials in the mattress (see the guidelines here).

So now I am at a loss on which mattress to get for a good night’s sleep with proper back support for back sleeping. I had gone to Sleep Number store and experienced their sleep number bed that plots the stress vs length of the mattress and it was the most comfortable of all mattress I tried. Since the sleep number does not use memory foam or gel, apparently it would not sink after 5 hours of back sleeping in the same position.
The consumer report has rated the Sleep number bed as the best for back sleeping.
But I am very nervous about getting another high valued purchase and only to lose sleep and money in the end. (I learnt the hard way that Tempurpedic Rhapsody, with all the hype and advertisement, is actually not a good mattress at all). I only wish I had googled and found out about this website before I purchased my first mattress.

You can see my thoughts about airbeds in this article and while any mattress can be a good match for any particular person … in general terms I would tend to avoid them.

You can see some comments about the Consumer Reports mattress ratings and recommendations in post #2 here and in this topic. While they may be a good source of information about more “objective” purchases … as you can see I would consider them to be an unreliable source of information or guidance about purchasing a mattress. Many of the more knowledgeable people in the industry feel the same way (see post #5 here for an example).

Could you please let me know if you have any recommendations for a mattress that offers continuous good support for back sleeping (without getting hot)?

Please let me know if you have any suggestions for a good mattress for back sleeping.
Thanks very much for your help.

The most important part of buying a new mattress is that it’s a good “match” for your body type and sleeping positions so that you are maintaining good spinal and joint alignment in all your sleeping positions and that your joints and muscles can relax and the discs can rehydrate and recover from the stresses we place on them over the course of the day. While this is the most important priority for almost all people … when you have back issues then it becomes an even more important part of your choice because sleeping out of alignment can aggravate existing back issues and can prevent the normal recovery and healing process that occurs during sleep.

Each person is different in terms of their physiology, weight distribution, and body shape as well as the positions they sleep in, their individual preferences, and the specifics of any back issues they may experience so there is no such thing as a mattress that is “better for backs” in general because a mattress that is good for one person’s back (or back issues) may be completely unsuitable for someone else to sleep on … even if their body type, sleeping positions, or back issues appear to be fairly similar. There is only a mattress that keeps you in good alignment which would be best for YOUR back.

In general … what you would be looking for is a mattress with firm enough deep support and then comfort layers that are “just enough” in terms of thickness and softness to “fill in” and support the more recessed parts of your sleeping profile and relieve pressure in your most pressure prone sleeping position (usually side sleeping for those who sleep in this position) so that there is less risk to alignment in your other sleeping positions.

You are the only one that can feel what you feel on a mattress and there are always too many unknowns, variables, and personal preferences involved for anyone to be able to predict which mattress would be the best “match” for you in terms of PPP (Posture and alignment, Pressure relief, and Personal preferences) based on specs (either yours or a mattress) or “theory at a distance” (see mattress firmness/comfort levels in post #2 here).

Further more, since I bought the first mattress (Tempurpedic Rhapsody) at Sleep Experts store in Dallas, I can only exchange the existing mattress for another mattress available at this store. So no refund. I have been trying to sell my mattress for any interested parties, but no offer yet. It looks like I might get a store credit upon returning the existing mattress, may be I could sell the store credit at a lower price.

Like many of the members that have come here you are in a somewhat difficult position when you need to exchange a mattress and are “locked in” to a store that sells many mattresses that I would normally suggest avoiding and where there may not be any particularly good quality/value options available to you.

There are some suggestions and ideas in post #2 here about the two main strategies that you can use that can help you make the best of a difficult situation.

I only wish I read about mattress buying guidelines in this website before I made my first purchase…

It would be great if you could sell your mattress for a reasonable price and have the chance to start all over again with the information you have available now. If you do then it sounds like you’ve already read the mattress shopping tutorial which includes all the basic information, steps, and guidelines you will need to make the best possible choice … and know how and why to avoid the worst ones.

If you do end up starting all over again then the better options or possibilities I’m aware of in the Dallas / Ft Worth areas (subject to the quality/value guidelines I linked earlier) are listed in post #4 here.

Phoenix