Hi Phoenix,
My boyfriend and I recently purchased a new queen-sized mattress to replace the one that he’d had for 14 years. I’m not sure what it had in it, but he claims it was air pockets (no coils), although there were no adjustment mechanisms for it so I don’t think it was an airbed. In any case, it had a pillow top on both sides with what I assume was polyurethane foam. I don’t remember the model, but it was one of the “S” brands. He was ok with it (aside from some back pain in the morning, which he says is the norm for him after lying down too long), but I felt it was pretty saggy and didn’t offer great back support.
I did some research and thought that a latex mattress would do the trick, based on excellent reviews (on your site and several others I consulted), its durability, and the hope that it would help with my boyfriend’s dust allergies. We ended up purchasing one from Literie Laurier in Montreal (which I learned about from your site). It’s got an 8 inch firm talalay support layer (can’t remember the ILD info), and a three-inch 28 ILD talalay topper that’s removable. We had a platform made for it, with the total coming to $2650 CAD. It sure felt great in the showroom – we both loved it.
I slept on it well the first night. My boyfriend, on the other hand, woke up with massive back pain. I urged him to give it a chance to see if his body would get used to it. But after almost a week of pain and zero sleep, he refused to sleep on it anymore. He moved into the spare bedroom, which has a firm coil mattress and a 2 inch topper of memory foam that I bought from Costco years ago before we met. (We decided against a memory foam mattress, incidentally, as he didn’t like the quicksand feeling of it, and we both tend to sleep hot. Also, over the Easter weekend we slept on a medium-firm memory foam mattress at my parents and that also caused him pain). He’s not a fan of the mattress in our spare bedroom (again, too hard), but he seemed to find it preferable to sleeping on our new mattress. Meanwhile, I can happily sleep on any of the beds described so far (heat from the memory foam notwithstanding). To try to address the problem, I arranged to exchange the 28 ILD topper for something softer. The guy at Literie Laurier suggested we try a 21 ILD. Since they didn’t have it in 3 inch layers, he put two 2 inch layers in one (giving us an extra inch in the comfort layer). We brought it home, and he slept reasonably well on it the first couple of nights, but this time I was miserable. It’s like I’m sinking into it too much, so much so that when I lie on my side it feels like my lower ribs are close to touching my hipbone (mind you, I’ve got pronounced thoracic scoliosis, so there’s that to consider as well). When I lie on my back, I can feel pain emanating across my mid- and upper back. So now I’ve moved into the spare bedroom.
At first it seemed like the solution was simple: we would have a topper custom made that’s 21 ILD on his side, and 28 ILD on mine. But then he came to me after the third night and told me that he’s now waking up with some back pain with the 21 ILD topper … although it’s still not as bad as what he experienced with the 28 ILD (and maybe comparable to what he had with the old mattress). We happened to go away this weekend and I’m guessing the mattress at the hotel was a medium-firm (foam over coil support base) because I slept fine, while he said he felt much as he did when he was on the 28 ILD … like his hips are being pushed up and not sinking in sufficiently.
My boyfriend is 45 years old, and primarily a side sleeper who also sleeps on his back. He’s 5"10 and about 170 pounds, and carries a bit of extra weight in his stomach. I don’t think his hips are particularly wide though, so I was surprised that he feels he doesn’t sink into a medium firm mattress enough. I’m 42 years old, and sleep on both my back and sides. I’m 5’7, weigh about 130 pounds, and am not especially curvy … not an hourglass figure anyway. I’m not sure if this matters, but I do intensive yoga a few times a week to keep my core reasonably strong (trying to keep back pain from scoliosis in check), whereas my boyfriend doesn’t exercise much (so maybe there are other issues that a mattress can’t be expected to completely fix?)
According to what I’ve been reading, a medium-firm mattress is found by most people to cause the least amount of back pain, that lighter people tend to prefer a softer mattress, and that heavier people tend to prefer a firmer mattress. So I don’t know what to make of the fact that I’m the lighter party who sinks uncomfortably into a soft comfort layer and prefers the medium-firm option, whereas medium-firm pushes my boyfriend’s hips up. I also don’t know what mattress would be appropriate for him at this point since he now wishes we’d never gotten rid of the old mattress, although the 21 ILD option seems to be the least offensive of all available options (although still not providing a totally pain-free sleep). In his opinion, we’ve spent too much money to be having these problems, and that he’s seen tons of ads for cheaper mattresses, so why not just go with that? I’ve tried to explain that these are likely inexpensive for a reason (poor quality materials), and that we don’t want to find ourselves with a saggy mattress problem again if we cheap out and buy something from one of the big chains (e.g. Dormez Vous, Leon’s, The Brick).
We have a thirty-day return policy for our mattress that runs out in less than two weeks. We don’t know whether we should return the whole thing and start shopping all over again … or take a chance and have a likely non-refundable “his-and-hers” topper made (21/28 ILD) … or buy a king-size frame and each of us buy whatever XL long twin mattress we want … or take up permanent residence in separate bedrooms …
Any advice would be very much appreciated.
