I’ve been sleeping on a new SleepEZ latex mattress for the past month, the 8" natural latex special in top-to-bottom S/M/F (2" nat Talalay, then 2x3" natural Dunlop), and would love some advice on what my symptoms might mean before I call SleepEZ and consider either a layer exchange or purchasing an additional topper layer at additional cost. I was really impressed with the latex layers themselves and the simplicity of the construction and nonquilted cover, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that the latex only smelled a bit like buttered popcorn rather than what I was expecting!.
The most perplexing symptom I have is joint cracking. Ever since I started sleeping on my new mattress, my joints have been noticeably popping and cracking (similar to the sound of knuckles cracking) occasionally throughout the day… It was ridiculous the first few nights on the new mattress–I remember waking up in the middle of night and changing position and hearing tons of cracking and when I would get up I’d often feel a deep crack in the middle of my back. I’m a healthy 140 pound woman who has never in my life had an issue with this before! The popping is not painful, just really odd feeling. A forum search didn’t seem to be fruitful–any ideas of what this indicates about the mattress?
My other symptoms along with the joint cracking have me suspecting that the issue might be pressure relief as well as my shoulders not sinking in far enough.
One issue is my hips. On my old crappy mattress that had developed a big indentation, my hips sunk too low and I would get a burning pain along my side. With the new latex mattress that has gone away and my hips look and feel well aligned judging from a picture I took lying down. However, I seem to be more vaguely aware of certain boney areas of my body such as the back and sides of my hips when I lay down, and I notice when I sit up in bed with pillows behind me, the back of my hips ache and feel uncomfortable. What’s strange, when I take a photo of my back lying on a hard floor, the alignment is not all that drastically different and my hips just angle down a little more but not that much.
The other issue is my shoulders and upper body. While my hips are perfectly aligned now, my shoulders are not sinking in enough and my spine is angling sharply upwards in a straight line starting from my waist even worse than it did on my old mattress and I’m feeling more upper back and neck discomfort now. I can’t seem to find a pillow that works despite trying a wide variety of thicknesses and heights. Thicker pillows make my neck start burning from being pushed forward/high, and thinner pillows don’t feel supportive enough. On my old mattress I had issues with my arms falling asleep, and now that’s gone but it’s replaced by upper back discomfort.
Given all of the above, I am thinking that issue is likely that the mattress is offering me good support but not enough pressure relief (i.e., the soft 2" top layer of Talalay isn’t enough and I’m feeling the firmer layers below) and I need more inches of comfort layer. I haven’t a clue how much and am worried about my hips sinking in too far again. Any recommendations for going with an additional 1", 2", or 3"?
Other details: I am an equal back and side sleeper and seem to have more discomfort on my side. I bought this latex mattress after trying to replicate a pureLatexbliss Beautiful that I loved laying on at the store. I built a foundation out of wood strips placed about 1-1.5" apart with a metal bar reinforcement halfway through to ensure no flexing. I have a very thin (like 1/4") Ikea Rosendun lyocell mattress protector on top that does affect the feel a bit since the latex is not right underneath.
Would love advice since I have stuck it out for more than 30 days and am still not sleeping very well!