I feel compelled to write this post, mostly to thank Phoenix for this excellent MU site, and to ask if others have had my experience.
We bought a new Tuft and Needle 10" mattress in December, and this is proving to be the best mattress FOR ME over the past 20 years sleeping on 5 (I think?) different mattresses. This is the first time in 15 years+ I haven’t woken up stiff in the morning, or had some degree of back pain at night and during the day.
Our last mattress was a latex/innerspring mattress, made of high quality of materials, and I thought the mattress would be perfect- but it turned out to be a poor mattress for me. Before that, we had a variety of one of the “S” pillow top mattresses that sagged within a year or two. 20 years ago I was sleeping on a double sided mattress, but it eventually gave out. I should mention, this was all before I had found MU (our latex/innerspring mattress was bought around 6 years ago).
Starting about 12 years ago, I started going to doctors complaining of neck and back pain. I had x-rays, MRI’s, physical therapy, medications, acupuncture. Yes, I had bulging disks, and my doctors assumed that was part of my problem.
Now on my new mattress since December, I am sleeping the best I have in years. I am no longer taking medication at night to sleep. I haven’t had one back “flair up” that leave me immobile during the day since getting this mattress. I don’t wake up stiff. I have fibromylagia, and have been taking significantly less medication for that, I firmly believe it’s because I’m sleeping more soundly (I’ve long suspected a link between sleep quality and my pain levels).
Somehow I lucked out with “PPP” on a sight unseen mattress, but failed completely trying to find a proper mattress in the prior 20 years in mattress showrooms, picking mattresses that felt good in the store, including the last quality latex/innerspring (that one was before I found MU and knew about comfort vs. support layers).
I learned about Tuft and Needle here, and the only reason decided to try it is because I determined by various visits to showrooms after reading MU tutorials, (including a local “natural” mattress store that sells latex), that my body didn’t like memory foam nor latex. That left polyfoam. I did not expect the Tuft and Needle to work for me, but after visiting three local mattress stores, decided to use TN as a starting place for a polyfoam mattress since nothing locally at those 3 local stores seemed quite the right for PPP. I really wanted all latex, and spent a long time in our local mattress store, not to find anything “just right” and also discovering that i just don’t like the feel of latex!
So this leaves me to: I do think a lot of my chronic back pain was exasperated by my prior mattress choices. Except for the last mattress which was very uncomfortable over 6 years (I ended up in the guest room for 4 years), the mattresses before that were “okay” comfortable, but now that I’m experiencing what a proper “PPP” mattress feels like, I know those prior mattresses weren’t quite a good fit either. All of them had toppers and or thick mattress pads… Our TN needs nothing…
Switching gears, my mom was complaining about hip pain last fall. I thought it might be her mattress, but she didn’t explore that option, she choose to get hip injections instead. After they didn’t work, she decided to try a memory foam topper. Wow, her hip pain went away on the first night.
I know back pain is among one of the top reasons that people visit their doctor.
I wonder how much back pain that people experience is actually related to their mattress? Perhaps not the root cause of their back pain, but a factor that increases pain levels.
Thank you Phoenix for this site, I would have probably ended up with yet another mattress that didn’t work for me if I hadn’t found this site…
Edited to add: I thought waking up with a stiff back was just part of aging, but now that I’m waking up without stiffness or pain, I no longer think that, and realize it was likely my mattress. I’m not getting younger!
