Is there any block material with an extremely low ILD? I’m thinking shredded latex, but need to make a custom cuboid for it.
Background: I cut off the head-most 20" of latex from my mattress, 6" deep (2 layers). This was to relieve pressure from my shoulder. My body weight is supported at the normal height, and the pillow picks up the weight of my head. Needless to say, this is far from ideal, and requires me to sleep in a more or less exact position all night. It does solve the original problem quite nicely, but also causes other issues.
I think the best option is to make a sort of pillow case 12" high x 48" wide x 6" deep and stuff it loosely with shredded latex. Then I’d restore the edges with 6" thick standard latex. I tried a standard 53" pillow case, but it doesn’t work. Perhaps, if I could find one that’s gussetted perfectly square, and better if it had a zipper to replace the filling. I want something that would go inside the mattress cover that looks normal, but crushes to practically nothing when any presure is applied. Or as much as possible. I know that the mattress cover will eliminate most of the advantage, which is why it needs so low an ILD.
Should I just go ahead and get a custom sort of gussetted cover and fill it loosely or densely as it needs? Or is there some kind of block material, latex or otherwise, that would fit the bill?
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You’ve clearly put a lot of thought into this, and I actually respect the level of experimentation you’re doing here. Most people wouldn’t go as far as modifying foam layers and trying to “engineer” pressure relief like that, so you definitely understand your own pain patterns really well.
That said, what stood out to me is how much effort is going into essentially trying to micro-adjust pressure at the mattress surface level to solve a shoulder loading issue. I went down a similar path myself trying to solve hip and shoulder pressure — swapping materials, adjusting zones, experimenting with toppers, even changing sleep position more rigidly than I should have.
What surprised me is that the biggest improvement I personally found didn’t come from fine-tuning materials or ILD or custom inserts. It came from changing the sleeping geometry itself. I eventually learned about incline sleeping — slightly tilting the entire sleep surface instead of trying to stay perfectly flat. There’s a site called Incline Sleep that explains the concept in more detail. I tried a simple 6" foam wedge that they offer under my existing mattress, and it reduced shoulder and hip pressure in a way that all my earlier modifications didn’t really achieve. It seriously feels like I’m floating because it uses gravity to take the weight off my joints. There are also some good DIY videos on that site on how to achieve this concept without buying products.
The reason I bring it up in your case is that what you’re describing — cutting foam, trying to offload a very specific shoulder zone, and then needing to maintain a very precise position all night — sounds like you’re fighting both pressure and alignment at the same time. That often becomes a moving target when you try to solve it purely with localized softness changes.
Not saying your approach is wrong — it actually makes a lot of sense from a materials standpoint. But I’d personally be cautious about going deeper into increasingly custom foam constructions when there might be a simpler way to change how load is distributed across the whole body instead of just one section of the mattress.
For me, incline sleep ended up being one of the few changes that reduced the need for constant repositioning and “spot fixing” pressure points during the night. I hope this helps! Let me know if you have any questions
Thanks for the response. It is the kind of help I’m looking for. However, I don’t think your suggestion would work for me. The only issue I have is a slightly worn rotator cuff that only bothers me when there’s pressure from the mattress.
I’ve tried adjusting my position, looking high and low for suggestions, but so far everything causes misalignment of the neck and shoulder. And I actually have a moderate medical issue with my cervical spine and neck that’s enough to be under medication and a doctor’s care. So far, this is the only thing that allows me to position my shoulders perpendicular to my spine and keep my neck in alignment with the rest of my spine. So you can see why I’ve kept at this for several years.
I tried the MedCline Shoulder Relief System and reviewed it here on Mattress Underground. One thing not mentioned is if I slept on it too long it felt like every disc was misaligned and putting pressure on the nerves. I wont go back to an incline. But it certainly stopped the shoulder pain. Note: I added a reply to that post to include this information.
There was a product that hasn’t made it to market, but it had a cutout straight across the entire thing for your shoulder and arm to fit. That could do most of what the MedCline offers without the incline–give some space for your shoulder so it’s not pressing into the mattress which presses back.
I also did a little post about my experiments. I don’t recommend anyone read it–it’s a confusing mess. The first post is from Feb 2024, the last in April 2025. So I’ve been using this for a while. Obviously, the remaining issues are minor, and the original problem more or less solved.
So I guess I’m determined to stay the course of removing as much pressure on the shoulder as possible. However that ends up.
There are a lot of people here asking about shoulder relief. Hopefully, your suggestion would work for some of them, at least those without the additional cervical & neck problems.
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