Looking for some advice on hip and shoulder pain

Discussions General Mattresses Questions
1

I bought a Savvy Rest latex bed back in the spring. I’ve had several problems going on with my body, and I am looking for some advice on how to get everything squared away.

Background:
I have a mild scoliosis of the back, which I treat with stretches and lying on a curved board every day.

I also have frequent pain in my R shoulder, which I thought was from the scoliosis.

I bought the new bed in March, after much research here and elsewhere. Initially the bed was comfortable, but I was having shoulder and back pain that was happening in the mid-late AM. Shortly after I bought the bed, I got the flu, and was bedridden for nearly 2 weeks, which really messed up my lower back from all the coughing. So I thought that the back pain was from that, not the bed.

In May I went to the doctor for some other issues, and he then diagnosed me with compensatory scoliosis (one leg was 1/4" shorter than the other), which we are treating with a shoe shim. Seemed to help my balance, but didn’t do much for the back and shoulder pain, so he prescribed a lot of core muscle exercises, which helped, but I was still in pain. I suffered through the summer with this; the doc poo-poohed my mentions of continued pains, saying that my body was adjusting and I needed to be patient.

Come September, I was still having hip and shoulder pain, as well as worsening neck pain. I was using a Savvy Rest shredded foam pillow, which was initially comfortable, but as the night wore on, my head would sink into it and the support was much less, which seemed to cause neck pain. I just recently tried a generic stuffed foam pillow that is a lot thicker and I could tell it was helping after only one night- the neck pain is about 90% reduced, and my R shoulder pain was also reduced maybe 75%. So far, so good.

But I am still having hip and pain in the L shoulder, which becomes noticeable enough about 3-4am to wake me, and it only gets worse from there.

I suspect that the bed isn’t working out as well as I had initially thought, so I was thinking of seeing if the dealer had any ideas as to how to change the layers to make it work better. The biggest issues are that a) the dealer is over an hour away, and b) the hip and shoulder pain isn’t evident for a long period of time, so just lying on a different layer type in the store may not be that helpful.

I have a Savvy Rest bed with firm Dunlop on the bottom layer, medium Dunlop middle layer, and medium Tantalay on the top. No topper, etc. I primarily sleep on my sides, but revert to a back sleeper in the late AM (4-5am) when I can’t sleep on the sides anymore.

I am looking for some advice as to what direction I might start adjusting the bed before I go back to the dealer to see what he thinks; a soft top layer? Adjust the middle layer?

The bed is out of the 90-day warranty period. So I am not sure, short of contacting Savvy Rest, how they would handle layer exchanges, if needed. The store had said that if I needed an exchange during the 90-day period, that it would be $100 to exchange layers, which was kind of a deterrent to switching willy-nilly, but perhaps I should have at that time, but I was still recovering from the flu and what with the other issues going on, things were rather confused.

2

Hi Bill S,

While it’s not possible to “diagnose” mattress comfort issues on a forum with any certainty (especially if there are health issues involved) because there are too many unique unknowns and variables involved that can affect how each person sleeps on a mattress in terms of PPP (Posture and alignment, Pressure relief, and your Personal preferences) or any “symptoms” they experience … there is more about the most common symptoms that people may experience when they sleep on a mattress and the most likely (although not the only) reasons for them in post #2 here.

There is also more about primary or “deep” support and secondary or “surface” support and their relationship to firmness and pressure relief and the “roles” of different layers in a mattress in post #2 here and in post #4 here that may also be helpful in clarifying the difference between “support” and “pressure relief” and “feel”.

These posts are the “tools” that can help with the analysis, detective work, or trial and error that may be necessary to help you learn your body’s language and “translate” what your body is trying to tell you so you can identify the types of changes that have the best chance of reducing or eliminating any “symptoms” you are experiencing (at least to the degree that any symptoms are from your mattress rather than the result of any pre-existing issues you may have that aren’t connected to a mattress).

[quote]Come September, I was still having hip and shoulder pain, as well as worsening neck pain. I was using a Savvy Rest shredded foam pillow, which was initially comfortable, but as the night wore on, my head would sink into it and the support was much less, which seemed to cause neck pain. I just recently tried a generic stuffed foam pillow that is a lot thicker and I could tell it was helping after only one night- the neck pain is about 90% reduced, and my R shoulder pain was also reduced maybe 75%. So far, so good.

But I am still having hip and pain in the L shoulder, which becomes noticeable enough about 3-4am to wake me, and it only gets worse from there.[/quote]

A pillow can make a significant difference for neck and upper body and shoulder issues so it’s good to see that a thicker pillow helped you with your neck and some of your shoulder pain.

While the only way to know for certainly whether any combination will be a good “match” for you in terms of PPP will be based on your own personal experience … if I had to guess (and of course it would only be a guess that would need to be confirmed by your own experience) I would think that you may do better with a softer top layer in your mattress (which could also mean that you may also need a thinner pillow because you would be sinking in to the mattress more deeply which would reduce the gap between your head and neck and the sleeping surface).

You would need to contact the store you purchased from to find out if they would be willing to make an exception to their exchange period (which would probably be unlikely after such a long time) but if you do decide to try a softer top layer and you are out of your exchange period and need to pay the full price for a new layer then there are also some sources for latex layers in post #4 here that would be less costly (some of which also have exchange/return policies) that may be worth considering.

Phoenix

3

Thank you. I suspect it is that the bed it too firm in the top layer, but I have to talk to the store and see what they say.

I am expecting that I am going to have to pay for another latex layer, but I am dreading that, since it is still a roll of the dice as it were, trying to see if it helps or not.

I’ll update this post as things develop.

4

Hi Bill S,

I would agree that this is the most likely possibility.

If you do end up choosing a softer top layer and would need to pay full price with your Savvy Rest retailer then there are certainly lower cost options available to you some of which also have a good return exchange policy as well so you can reduce the risk involved in making a new purchase that doesn’t turn out as well as you hoped for.

I’m looking forward to finding out what happens and what you end up deciding.

Phoenix

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As expected, the dealer wasn’t able to help me further than to quote me the cost for buying new layers - I was way out of their 90-day exchange period.

I used the contact information for someone at Corporate that my mother had given me (she also had recently bought a Savvy Rest bed and had been dealing with Corporate for some reason). The lady there was pleasant to talk to, and was VERY helpful; she agreed to let me do an exchange, even though I was seriously out of their exchange period, and gave me some ideas as to how to proceed.

So I’m hopeful that this will get worked out.

6

So glad I came across this forum! My husband and I are long overdue for a mattress and after reading a lot of posts here and trying some latex combinations out at Savvy Rest have decided to purchase from SleepEZ. We are going with (starting with bottom layer) all dunlop for my husband (F, M, S) and for me, I will go with the F dunlop, M Talalay and S Talalay. This website has been invaluable to us as we sorted out our mattress options. I appreciate all the help from this site! I have already talked with Shaun from SleepEZ and he is extremely helpful.

I have a bit of scoliosis and have had a frozen shoulder, so have had problems in the past with neck and shoulder pain, as well other spinal related pain. Finding the right pillow has always been an issue for me, but I found one called therapeutica. They come in several sizes and there is a measuring guide on the website (you measure from the shoulder to the neck). It is unusually shaped and has three places for your head…one for sleeping on L side, one for back sleeping, and one for R side. It has worked beautifully for me. As Phoenix pointed out, with a new soft top layer, you may need a different pillow. The therapeutica is a bit expensive, but to me totally worth it.

Currently, I am using this pillow with our 20 year old coil spring mattress. Not sure how the therapeutica will work with our latex combos, but will post once we get the bed and have tried it out.

7

perhaps the pushback from the latex is an issue. or it is just t0o hard or soft for you. for me the main issue is pushback and a layer of memory foam took away all the bounciness and all the discomfort.

i just wrote in another post how a really cheap 1" piece of memory foam which offers no support or pain reduction took away all the qualities of latex that my body doesn’t seem to respond well to on a 6" extra soft dunlop day bed.

it’s possible the medium talalay is too hard. i think savvy rest uses radium 100% nr talalay. and as far as i know they say the ild is proprietary. but the ild should be 23 for medium. but maybe it is 28? maybe phoenix has a better idea. on the night bed, i sleep on 6" of 28 ild nr radium talalay. it was too hard for me for side sleeping and again that pushback!. after much trial and error a two inch memory foam topper did the trick.

i know for me i was hoping to have an all natural, high quality component bed and in the end my body told me to do something different.

i think i am just saying have an open mind about what might work. i was stubborn at first. and of course if you have an allergy or intolerance to memory foam please disregard that as a solution.

best of luck!

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Hi cardinal,

I switched your post to a new topic of its own so your comments wouldn’t get mixed in with the posts in another members topic.

I’m glad you found us.

As you probably know from your reading here … I think you certainly made a great quality/value choice … and congratulations on your new mattress :slight_smile:

I’m looking forward to your comments and feedback once you’ve received it and have had the chance to sleep on it for a bit.

Thanks for your comments about your Therapeutica pillow as well.

Phoenix

9

Hi Bill S,

[quote]I used the contact information for someone at Corporate that my mother had given me (she also had recently bought a Savvy Rest bed and had been dealing with Corporate for some reason). The lady there was pleasant to talk to, and was VERY helpful; she agreed to let me do an exchange, even though I was seriously out of their exchange period, and gave me some ideas as to how to proceed.

So I’m hopeful that this will get worked out. [/quote]

It’s great to hear that they went “above and beyond” to help you and I’m looking forward to finding out how your new layer works out for you :).

@mattress maven,

I noticed that you have been mentioning “pushback” in several of your posts and I thought I would mention that pushback is really a misnomer that can be somewhat misleading for those that don’t know what it means or that it is just another word for resilience. It has very little to do with firmness or pressure relief and resilience is one of the properties of a material that is part of how it “feels” and responds (which is a preference issue) but not part of its ability to relieve pressure. There is more about what many people call “pushback” in post #136 here.

Phoenix

10

They are sending me a soft Tatalay layer to swap with the Medium Tatalay top layer in the bed currently. She did mention that I should also try putting the old Medium Tatalay in the center layer (replacing the medium Dunlop) to see if that helped as well. I’ve got at least 3 possibilities to try out before I go and consider a topper at this point.

11

Thanks for letting me know about my post. I wasn’t quite sure if it fit into the other person’s post or not! I basically wanted him to know about the pillow.

Yes…I will definitely post my experience once we get the mattress. We won’t have it until the latter part of Nov., since we are going away for a few weeks. Wanted to make sure I waited until after we got back to get the full benefit of the ninety day swap out period,. We are getting an S-cape split king, so will also give feeback on that. We were going to go with the 13" version of the latex mattress, but Shaun suggested the 10" works better with the adjustable frame. After trying some out at Savvy, I definitely agree with him. Thanks again for putting my post where it should be!

12

Hi cardinal,

While I’m not as “strict” as many moderators on other forums about topic creep … I generally switch a post to a new topic if it includes comments or information that is outside the main scope of the ori9inal poster’s topic or questions. I probably would have left your post in the original topic if it was only about your pillow (although they weren’t really asking about a pillow) but since it also included your comments about your mattress I thought that it was more appropriate in its own topic.

You are certainly welcome to post your comments and experience about your pillow in a separate topic or in the main pillow topic here :slight_smile:

Phoenix

13

Thanks, Phoenix…and thanks so much for all your work on this forum!!!