I bought a pretty firm (“7” on what seems to be an accepted scale in the online mattress discussion world - or at least an email I got from Derek at Sleepopolis) Sealy spring mattress five years ago. I think it has been good for my back, because i generally have not had back pain sleeping on it. But I’ve never particularly liked the feel of the mattress, and have recently gotten pretty caught up in the dazzling online mattresses window-shopping frenzy. One particular night i was sore from a workout and found my mattress to be so harsh I decided to look for a new one.
Hours of reading and friends’ recommendations later I bought a Leesa. Immediate lower back pain, and after 2 weeks of trial I’m about to return it. It feels unsupportive and saggy to me. I’m 6-3 and 190 pounds. Broad shoulders and what I imagine to be regular hip width. The pain though was in my lower back, suggesting my hips were not supported.
The more mattress information I read online, the less I feel like I know what I’m doing.
I can keep trying online mattresses (Purple, Helix and Amerisleep all recommended as mattresses that are more firm than Leesa which was called a 6 or 6.5.) I like the ease of the buy / try / return process.
Go into a store and try mattresses like you recommend.
Keep my old spring mattress and put something on top of it to make it slightly more enjoyable. 1,2,3,4"? Pad? Topper? Foam? Latex, gel? High or low density? Will this very idea cause me more lower back pain like the Leesa did?
I’ve never spent a full night on a tempurpedic but I’ve loved the feel of laying on them for 1-2 minutes at friends’ houses. I wonder if they feel good for a minute but would ultimately hurt my back again.
I know that’s a mouthful but my brain feels like a hurricane of overwhelming raw information. At the very least I wonder if you can recommend an appropriate pad or topper for me to buy and try.
Thanks Phoenix! I have a lot of appreciation and admiration for the amount of attention you put into this site.
That’s a common comment from people coming here to the site, as unfortunately most online sites choose to focus upon ratings, opinions and subjective stories to tell you “what” to choose instead of providing you objective information about a product that empowers and allows you to know “how” to choose (which you can accomplish by reading the mattress shopping tutorial here.)
I wouldn’t be able to tell you if adding a topper will make your back hurt, but if the mattress beneath is simply too firm but still offering good support/alignment, a topper can be an excellent choice to provide extra comfort and extend the useable life of your current mattress. There is more information about choosing a topper in post #2 here and the topper guidelines it links to. Make sure to read through all of the links, especially near the end of the post with the guidelines of how to select a topper.
If I like the feel of the firmer Tempurpedic mattresses I’ve briefly encountered, would memory foam necessarily be the most accurate topper to replicate that feel?
The uppermost layers of a mattress will have the most dramatic impact upon your comfort, and as memory foam has a very unique feel (viscous and elastic properties), to achieve a “memory foam feel” you would probably be best suited with a memory foam or slow recovery latex topper.
Subject to confirming that any retailer or manufacturer on the list is completely transparent ( see this article) and to making sure that any mattress you are considering meets your specific criteria and the quality/value guidelines here, some options or possibilities I’m aware of in and around the San Francisco/San Rafael/Oakland/Berkeley areas are listed in post #2 here. Site members located “close” to you are FloBeds in Fort Bragg, Nest Bedding in San Francisco, and Bay Bed and Mattress in Santa Cruz.
