New member and first postā¦ First, I am glad to have found this site. It feels like a cove of refuge in a storm of information. There are so many sites that seem to be intended to appear brand neutral but seem to be designed to drive business to a certain vendor. Finding TMU was a welcome relief.
When we bought our Tempurpedic in 1998 it was relatively obscure and I had the audacity to order it over the internet, which at the time was not a very common method of procuring a mattress. I ordered it from Healthy Foundations before Tempupedic crushed their online discount vendors.
It was the first successful bed compromise for my spouse and I. I came from full motion waterbeds and my wife came from traditional S mattresses. We used a hybrid waterbed for a while with linear tubes covered by a more traditional mattress top. It was tolerable for both, but not very good for either.
The Tempurpedic was a revelation. After āmelt-inā I could sleep for a whole night on my back, barely moving, despite having had a back injury. Although very different it reminded me of the great sleep I used to get on a waterbed when splashing down in the middle of my king size bed by myself. Worked well for my side sleeper wife as well, but I digressā¦
Back in '98 we looked at Stroebelpedic, Tempurpedic and a few others. I was a little uncomfortable with the initial offgassing of the Tempurpedic original, but after that it has been great. Even now itās not too bad, but I notice kind of a high point ridge in the middle that slopes to either side. When my wife was away I slept right in the middle and noticed that the memory foam worked better there, more like original.
Now looking at mattresses again, it is a whole new world. Now internet purchase is common and there is a whole new category of industry disruptor bed in a box companies.
I spent time doing research and started to head in two directions. One was toward a newer memory foam mattress. The Select-a-bed tri-pedic or the related Tempflow series looked like a good best in class memory foam alternative. Even back in '98 I was intrigued with the idea of memory foam over latex so I started looking at that type of hybrid like the Select-a-bed Soft-pedic. Then the latex bug bit me hard and I have been looking at all the full latex options like those from SleepEZ and others.
Unfortunately all of those companies listed above that interested me are not based here where I am in the Pacific NW. Now on to some particulars:
I am 5-11, 170 lbs and prefer to sleep on my back or on my back with legs rotated to one side. I often need to move around now as the old tempurpedic does not seem to provide the same support and find myself also on my side. Sometimes if my back really hurts I might wake up on my stomach in the morning. Based upon what I have read here, and knowing a bit about my PPP I think I would like a soft Talalay comfort layer, but relatively thin so my lumber still gets good support. My wife is 5-6, 200+ side sleeper. We are 58ish in age.
Any ideas would be appreciated. I have been studying up on the different latex variations and ILD and the like. Have others gone from memory foam that they liked to latex and been equally or more happy? Are there any vendors in the greater Seattle area that would have some high quality latex to try? Sorry for the long first post.
