Hi Csj0952.
I am sorry to hear that you are still waking up with back pains and that you are back on the lookout for a suitable mattress. There is quite a fine line for finding the right comfort/support combination for a prone sleeper and your past experiences with Jamestown and now with Arizona seem to point to something that may have been overlooked. Side sleepers need a bit more pressure point relief on the surface to accommodate the wider dimensional variances between the shoulders and the hips and the waist (and it looks that you got this right) but someone who sleeps in the prone (stomach) position needs a surface that is firmer and less forgiving ….so if anything I would go towards the firmer surface layer so that you avoid hyperextension in a swayback positon that can cause back issues for your primary stomach sleeping position.
Sometimes it takes sleeping on a different product (hotel, vacation rental, relative’s house) to notice the clear difference and deficiencies in your own and, in your particular instance, to show that your current mattress layering specifics and design is not meeting your own posture and alignment needs…While it is true that no theory at a distance will replace your own personal testing based on your actual sleeping experience I would also be cautious to consider a few nights of good sleep as a reliable indicator of how well you will sleep on this particular mattress after the adjustment period. “Hotel mattresses” in general tend to be more basic versions of the retails products that many mattress companies offer (which isn’t necesarily a good thing). They tend to be firmer products using softer “top-of-bed” materials to create extra plushness. There’s more good information about hotel mattresses in post #3 here
While it is not possible to diagnose mattress issues via an online forum because of the many variables involved…both your lower back pain in the morning when prone sleeping and the relief you get when you sleep on your side seem to point to not having enough surface support when reverting to stomach sleeping. I would definitely call Arizona and have a detailed phone conversation with Ken and ask him to “talk you through” what you can expect replacing the layer with a softer version based on the information you provide him, (including the hotel testing you have done that you liked). If on the other hand your patience came to an end and if you are convinced that you’ll sleep well on the Beautyrest mattress (long-term and not only a few days), it may be worth the tradeoff between getting a few years of good night sleep and replacing the mattress a few years down the road. If you chose to go this way and manage to find out the information listed here directly from Gaylord (as this is an exclusive model) I’d be happy to comment upon it. According to Gaylord’s shipping and return policies page here they do not have an in home trial, and you may wish to take this into consideration in case the choice you make doesn’t turn out as well as you hoped for.
Another option you may wish to consider would be to use the experience that you gained in the process and start from the beginning with testing for the pressure relief, alignment, and overall feel that you need and prefer, and best try to approximate the feel that you prefer of the mattress that seemed to work out for you, but … doing so using a product containing quality materials and the advice of a good retailer/manufacturer that could try to approximate the mattress feel for you. Something along these lines could provide a feel that is in the range of what you experienced in the hotel, but it would have a longer comfort life.
I hope this gives you a bit more fuel and keeps you going in the right direction to find the best solution.
Phoenix