Thank you very much! This website has been very helpful to me during this mattress quest. I have purchased the Dynasty mattress after a few rest-tests on it and a few other mattresses in the same store and other stores.
Unfortunately this mattress hunt started after arriving home from a very pain free vacation. I figured I would have a few days of back discomfort after arriving home because of prolonged, uncomfortable travel. However, my back pain did not subside after a week and a half and I realized it had to be the mattress. I decided to move to my old bed which alleviated my lower back pain but this caused my back to hurt the way it did before I stopped sleeping on that mattress. So I moved onto a 30 year old twin spring mattress in a spare room. My feet hang off but all the major pain is gone except for some achiness.
The current mattress that caused all this pain is a Simmons Beautyrest. Luckily I had purchased it used out of necessity with a bulk of very lightly used furniture from an acquaintance that had to move quickly. From what Ive read Im very glad I did not purchase it for retail price or I would be quite angry. Although you cant see a hump in the middle, it is obvious when rolling across it. My hips sink way down when Im on my side and all of my lumbar muscles were debilitatingly painful in the morning. This would improve slightly during the day but it did such a job on my back that the pain did not go away until switching mattresses. I have had back pain throughout my life which have been caused by strain (ie sitting, extended periods, various sports, not from medical back issues). Looking back at this it is very hard to discern pain from strain during the day vs pain from having an improper mattress or a mattress that has slowly stopped providing proper support (which is easy to blame on daytime activity or inactivity). I certainly should have been more aware of this but it wasnt as blatantly obvious as it was after returning from vacation.
Prior to this I had a Select Comfort mattress. I was comfortable on it for many years, it had certainly served its purpose but eventually the comfort layer pillowtop gave out. This hurt my midback plus the bed was rather hard to sleep on. I considered replacing the comfort layer but it seemed way too expensive at $700 for a foam top. The bed was originally quite expensive but other than cost and foam deflation no other issues came up. The air pump still works and the sides do not leak air and the bed is about 15 years old. After reading other reviews of this bed on the internet recently Id say I was lucky.
The Select Comfort purchase was prompted by serious recurrent pain and throwing out my neck on a waterbed. That was so long ago however, that it is hard to analyse other than there was no support and I felt like I was lying on the surface of a ball.
Back to my current mattress quest-
I was interested in a two sided mattress because this is what I slept on during my painfree vacation. It seemed pretty old school but It gave me a starting point. I did some research on the internet, read a few reviews, and stumbled across this site. I visited Xtreme Discount mattress. They were pretty helpful and showed me the specs that they had but foam densities were not available for the mattresses I tried. It is possible they could have gotten them if I asked specifically but there wasnt anything there that I really liked. City Mattress was also helpful, I tried some Pranasleep options too because after reading about latex I figured Id give it a try. It was nice but way out of price range there. They also gave me the same sort of specs as the other store but I did not press for foam densities at that point. They did say that noone makes two sided mattress anymoreā¦which we know isnt true.
I found Jamestown Mattress because of this site. They were great! There was no sales pressure, all of the components of the mattresses were on display with densities, and every step up in mattress price was becuase of type of materials so it was easy to compare. I liked the all latex line and the Dynasty line which is their top tier coil/ polyfoam line. I decided not to spring for the extra cost of all latex at this point. The Dynasty kept my spine in alignment on my side and back, I did not have that sinking-down feeling, the polyfoam was of higher quality, it was 2 sided which I personally value, and the price was right.
Thanks again for for my Associates in Applied Mattress Science!
Itās fascinating material! I recommend your site to everyone.
Zoftra
