mattress shopping trip, and question for the pros

Hi!
Just thought I’d share my experience today at Royal Bedding. Tom and the sales people were very nice. They commiserated over my ill-fated Simmons Beautyrest Recharge purchase. One salesman said he got such a backache trying to sleep on one, and they get a lot of customers who also bought the Recharge.

I got to see a piece of latex with the holes drilled in different sizes to create the 7-zones in the mattresses, with more support at the hips, to supposedly keep your spine aligned. I must admit, I am kind of skeptical of that, because the last thing I need is anything firmer at the hips. I tried out the Mountain Top Desire, which has a 6" C3 firm latex core with 3" of C0 plush latex laminated to both sides. It was very comfortable, but hard to get an accurate sense of pressure relief because my hips are so sore from what I"m currently sleeping on, that a layer of warm marshmallows would probably aggravate the pain.

So my question for you mattress pros is an option I read about online (sleeplikethedead.com), that recommends buying a firmer innerspring mattress and using a topper (foam, latex or whatever) to make it as soft as you need it. That way the mattress will last longer as it will have minimal comfort layers to break down and form body impressions. A topper is cheaper to replace than a mattress. What do you guys think? Is this a viable option?

I will be honest, I am not as enthused about the latex as I thought I would be. Nor have the Tempur-Pedics I tried out been all that. It’s just that all the stuff I read says that innersprings aren’t the best options for pressure-point relief, so I was trying to expand my options. Maybe I should go to the doctor to make sure I didn’t suddenly develop bursitis or sciatica or something in the 2 months I’ve had these crap mattresses!!!

And I’m going to confess something, It’s probably REALLY sad, but I wish I could find a bed like my 2002-ish Serta perfect sleeper pillow top (maybe minus the pillow top though). It NEVER caused pain. I just started tossing and turning more, feeling less rested. Tom said Serta used to make a good bed but not anymore, what with most being no-flip models now, which he says was a result of 2007 regulations regarding mattress flammability. And from my personal experience, apparently they’re putting crappy foam in the comfort layers too, to save a buck I guess.

Soooo… I’m feeling kinda bummed about it all right now. :frowning: Still going to try out the Ensley Fairfield store, and go back to Tom’s to try out those innersprings.

Looking forward to hearing what you guys think about an innerspring with topper as an option.

Hi Vicky,

Thanks for taking the time to share your comments and feedback about Royal Bedding … I appreciate it :slight_smile:

You can read my thoughts about buying a mattress/topper combination that you can’t test in person in post #2 here. As you can see it’s not something I would generally suggest either in terms of risk or quality/value unless there were no better options available to you.

There is 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”.

The type of support material in a mattress would be a preference and a budget choice but not necessarily a “better/worse” choice. Innersprings and latex can both make great support systems in the right firmness. There is more about innerspring support vs latex support in post #28 here and the posts it links to but I would choose between them based on careful testing and based on your preferences rather than on a predisposition towards thinking that one is necessarily “better” than the other.

Did you happen to try any of the other mattresses at Royal Bedding?

Phoenix

Hi Phoenix,
I will check out all those posts you mentioned–am getting too sleepy tonight to read any more!
I tried a couple of the latex mattresses, the firmest (with a 3" latex topper on it) and then a “medium” version with a 2" layer of medium latex, and the one w/3" soft layer that I spent the most time on. I even tried the 3" topper on the softest one–perhaps toocushy! It’s cool they had the toppers laying around so you could experiment with different combinations.
I was kinda tired after all that laying around/talking/thinking about big investments so I didn’t even try the innersprings, so I’ll be going back in a few days to do that.
Thanks for responding, and I will read those posts tomorrow!