Hi, I am new to this site. I found this site doing research for organic mattresses in Toronto area. The reason I need to find an organic mattress is because I have been poisoned by the VOCs found in the LUCID memory foam mattress toppers purchased from amazon.ca. I bought a 3 inch one, then threw it out after developing strange body stiffness and joint pain, thinking it was a structural issue. I then bought a 2 inch topper, and all my symptoms got worse over time. I got the toppers in the first place because I replaced a king mattress with two twin XLs, and because of the poor quality of manufacturing, my mattress was twice as hard as the mattress in the store. So I was trying to soften my new, hard mattress. And that is how we got here.
I was a healthy 34 year old female. Now my symptoms are: internal cramping, itching eyes, sore itchy throat, muscle weakness, dizziness, trouble getting spoken words out, inflamed lymph nodes in neck, racing mind/anxiety/insomnia, major fatigue, joint pain (hips, knees feet), lower back pain, mild asthma/lung irritation/cough.
Through your mattress forum, I found that Lucid is owned by Malouf Marketing Inc. their website is here: https://www.maloufsleep.com/contact-us/
I have sent them an email demanding to speak to someone. Nobody appears to answer their phone and there is no outgoing message identifying the number as theirs. I donât exactly expect to hear a response from that kind of reception. I will however follow up with a scathing review on Amazon.com.
Secondly, I was able to identify my symptoms as being memory foam related thanks to a nutritionist I am working with out of BC for a nutritional balancing program, and she directed me to this website:
http://www.chem-tox.com/beds/frame-beds.htm
Over 230 people complaining that they became acutely or chronically ill after limited and prolonged exposure to a memory foam mattress.
4 months ago, I replaced a newish King Sealy mattress (due to structural reasons - the âsupport coreâ seemed to have been in stalled vertically up the mattress rather than horizontally as one would expect, and as a result there was considerable sagging) I exchanged this king Sealy (regular box spring pillow top from 2013) for two Twin XL mattresses: mine is a Sealy with a foam interior (fyi, Sleep Country is the only one who now has removed all the spring coils from their Sealy models, and has replaced them with a thick foam interiorâŚwhich has subsequently prolonged the warranty to something like 10 or 20 years, I learned this AFTER purchasing the mattress. I assume they did this to prevent common complaints of âsaggingâ, the reason why I was exchanging the first Sealy, how ironic). My boyfriendâs is a new Simmons with the memory foam pillow top. Both are top of the line Sealy and Simmons models. Both have a helluva lot of foam or memory foam in them, and both still smell sickly sweet when I peel back the sheets to sniff them. Gross.
I never would have made the connection to mattress toxicity had it not been for my nutritionist sending me the chem-tox link above. At the same time, within these last 4 + months, I have been having some seasonal allergy symptoms as well. I thought it was a lot of allergies, not the mattress. I also thought the nutritional balancing program was to blame. So in my mind, I was blaming these other two things, when really, the biggest blame was to the mattresses and mattress toppers.
I had a foam mattress when I was a child, and I also had childhood asthma, tonsilitis, and a lung infection that lasted 3 months one summer. It was horrible. I cannot help but think that my mattress might have been a huge factor in this!
Right now, I am feeling flu-like sickness symptoms, the ones I described above. I am seeing my doctor today to inform him of what I suspect, and to request a blood test. I doubt the blood test will show anything, as they usually donât for VOC exposure.
I am planning to break the news to my boyfriend that we need yet another new mattress for our home, and itâs going to cost another several thousands of dollars that I donât have to replace them.
I have looked at Essentia sold from their storefront in the Beaches area of Toronto, and Obasan, sold through Soma Organic beds in North York by Yorkdale mall. Both are well reviewed for being near-organic and have very little VOC emissions compared to conventional beds. I know of the brand OMI (Organicpedic) as well, but they contain wool, and I am actually allergic to wool, so I am less inclined to consider them, even if they could manufacture one for me without wool. OMI is sold through ELTE in Toronto.
This is a site that I found in my research that profiles the âbestâ organic or natural beds:
Thanks for reading. I felt I needed to get this information out to the masses.
Do not buy LUCID anything or Malouf Marketing anything. It is a total money grab and these people donât stand behind their products at all.
***EDIT: In fairness to the company (Lucid/Malouf Marketing Inc.), I decided to make this edit to say that they offered to refund me the money after speaking them over the phone, and apologized if their website had misled me in any way to believe the mattress topper was made of something it wasnât. Their product is not âbadâ for the entire population, just for some people, like me. I must also add that after becoming ill from VOC exposure/toxicity, I must also include under my suspicion, both of the Twin XL Simmons and Sealy mattresses that were bought just prior to purchasing the Lucid mattress topper - both mattresses are made of some kind of polyurethane foam and/or memory foam, and both emit a chemical smell. I am most likely one of the few people in the population that is especially chemically sensitive to VOCs and industrial glues, agents, flame retardants, etc. and just because I have had a bad reaction to this/these product/s does not rule it out from anyone else purchasing it and not having a problem with it.
***I would just like to say: if you have a history of being allergic or reactive to industrial chemicals like cleaners, emissions, or anything with offensive vapors and chemicals, like generic home cleaning solutions or cleaning sprays or air fresheners or detergents or soaps, for example, then I would strongly urge you to rethink purchasing ANY mattress product with âmemory foamâ or any kind of industrial polyurethane foam product. Even though you canât smell the sources of all VOCs, your reaction and natural aversion to the above things are, in my opinion, a good indicator of your chemical sensitivity.