Thx so much for the detailed explanation. I am marveled at your patience in explaining the various details and ways of approaching this topic.
So to respond to your suggested steps of approaching this,
- The Ikea model I got is the SULTAN HANESTAD, the lowest model coil mattress with active-coil (individual coils) system.
The reasons I chose this model are the following:
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the 25 year mattress warranty Ikea offers does not cover the foam. To me this implies that Ikea’s foam could well be low quality foam. So I just wanted to get a good coil mattress and build the topper myself instead.
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the coil gauge according to the sales rep is 13 3/4 gauge, which is the strongest among all the Ikea’s coil mattresses. I look for a mattress with a firm core so can provide me a good support. This mattress fits my need in this regard.
I checked, and I think the Ikea mattress has about 2.5 inch of top soft foam. From Ikea’s product description density is (Polyurethane foam) 1.5 lb/cu.ft.
- My current experience with the Ikea mattress.
The active coil response system works well and when I sit on the mattress I feel it is responsive and there is enough support yet not to hard. However, the top foam layer is so weak that within 1 week I can start sensing the top of the coil if I push my hand hard on the mattress (i.e., the top foam has bottomed out).
Pressure Relief
I am finding I often sleep on my side. And with that the top foam bottoms out fairly quickly and I am having pain on the side of my hip already.
This is the one single area that I really need to take care of – within a short amount of time, as I had a back injury working in the backyard a year ago, and this ‘bottoming out’ of the top foam is only causing more pain in the hip area. I am waking up in pain pretty much every morning at this point. If I sleep on my back I have the same back pain around my hip.
I have put in 2.5 inch soft generic brand convoluted foam as a starter to just see what it can do to help out w/ the lack of pressure relief/hip pain issue. I feel the mattress has become somewhat more comfortable in most areas but along the hip it is of no help – it bottoms out right away. This tells me the convoluted foam is of really low-density and perhaps way too soft plus there really is not enough foam to help out.
My temporary solution is to have a long King size pillow to lean on to when I sleep on my side as I tilt 45 degrees toward the pillow (I’d be half sleeping on my stomach – on the pillow that way), so there is less pressure on my side where it contacts the mattress. I am finding this greatly relieves the pain issue on my hip as I wake up in the morning.
Alignment issue
I don’t know if there’s any alignment issue perhaps if you can provide some examples so I can tell if I do have this situation, but the ‘bottom-out’ issue is definitely what causing my hip a lot of pain (my back injury obviously make it more sensitive of course).
I notice that if I sit on the bed I don’t feel my hip hitting the top coil. I wonder if it is because of the amount of weight is concentrated the coil is compressed. When I sleep on my back/side, the coil is strong enough that it’s not compressed yet to form the right alignment, but the top foam already bottoms out–and hence my hip is hitting the top of the coil. At that point the alignment isn’t right (as the coil isn’t compressed). As a result, the pressure isn’t evenly distributed along my side/back and my hip gets more pressure than it should be and hence the hip pain.
My goal:
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As you can see, my primary goal at this point is to look for a topper that won’t ‘bottom’ out as I sleep on my side/back.
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For personal preference, I like the cloud-like feeling of a memory foam but regular foam is ok w/ me. I also tried the latex top while I was @ Ikea which I sensed was of higher density (compared to regular foam) and that also help quite well from hitting the coil.
Let me know if you’d have some input at this point.
Looking at these online foam stores, many of them only offer medium firmness HR foams.
An important question is:
Are medium firmness foams not suitable for my current situation? (Obviously I don’t want more ‘firmness’ that’d cause me more hip pain)
If only soft HR foam would work for me, currently only foamonline has the soft HR foam, but at their $250 price I can find 2" latex foams from like overstock.com (although I don’t know if those are reliable latex foams) and I’m tempted to try out the latex foam, as my impression @ Ikea on the latex was that latex is much denser foam and would save me from the ‘bottom-out’ pain.
I also read your post here, and this gets me concerned in whether the topper solution I’m considering would last – as if the top foam in this mattress wears out say in 4 years or so. Perhaps I should have considered building a foam mattress altogether instead so I won’t need to tackle the issue of low-quality top foams inside mattresses from the mattress manufacturers.