Hi Sidesleepernyc11,
I’m sorry to hear you’ve been having lower back pain with the 2 mattresses you’ve tried. I’m not an expert, but I have a few suggestions based on personal experience and things I’ve learned from this forum.
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Try changing your pillow. Your pillow and mattress need to work together to put your spine into proper alignment. The first thing I’d try is changing your pillow (if it’s a high loft one, switch for low loft, and vice versa). This exact thing happened to me when I bought my last mattress - I purchased a new pillow, too, and experienced lower back pain while sleeping on the new mattress. It turns out that this pain was entirely because I had too much shredded latex in my pillow, which was raising my head up too high, putting my spine out of alignment. Reducing the fill in my pillow quite significantly entirely alleviated my lower back pain.
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Make sure that the foundation your bed is sitting on has proper support, is appropriate for your mattress type, and is not sagging. If any doubts, try sleeping with your mattress on the floor for a few nights and see if that makes any difference.
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Give it a few more weeks. It’s common to experience some aches and pains when changing mattresses, while your body gets used to the new mattress. Some minor to moderate aches in the first few days or even weeks of a new mattress is not uncommon, and many times they will go away once your back muscles adjust. A common recommendation is to give a new mattress 30 days.
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Search the form for other posts on lower back pain. For instance, Phoenix recently responded to another post about lower back pain here, and that post contains links to some other posts on this forum where lower back pain has been discussed. You may want to have a read through of those to learn more about what can cause lower back pain while sleeping, and other recommendations for helping the situation.
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If none of the above helps, you may want to reply with some more details about your sleep preferences/habits and the pain you’re feeling. For instance, do you experience lower back pain on your back, side, or stomach? Are you feeling any other sorts of pain? Is your boyfriend also experiencing pain with the 2nd mattress?
Welcome to the forum, and keep us posted of your progress towards a good night’s sleep!
Best,
Emily