Hi sciatica389,
Welcome back to our forum.
Thank you for sharing your experience with your BB mattress and your stats. It is good to hear that BB is honoring your warranty claim and replace the defective and/or warn out mattress that started to get lumpy and it is contributing to your sciatica pains. I’d guess that back in 2016 you purchased their reworked version of the best mattress ever in which the latex was replaced with polyurethane foam.
You may remember from your last visit here that we can certainly help with “how” to choose … but it’s not possible to make specific suggestions or recommendations for a mattress because the first “rule” is that you are the only one that can feel what you feel on a mattress. There are too many unknowns, variables, and personal preferences involved that are unique to each person for anyone to be able to predict or make a specific suggestion about which mattress or combination of materials and components would be the best “match” for you in terms of “comfort”, firmness, or PPP or how a mattress will “feel” to you based on specs (either yours or a mattress), sleeping positions, health conditions, or “theory at a distance” that can possibly be more reliable than your own careful assessment and testing (hopefully using the testing guidelines in step 4 of the The mattress shopping tutorial here) or your own personal sleeping experience (see post #2 here ).
The firmness choice should be based on the sleeper’s needs and preferences and not on durability considerations. Good and durable foams have higher densities. Higher-density foams can be produced in different firmness choices or IFD (X-soft, soft, medium-soft, medium, medium-firm, firm, X-firm) I’d recommend to first determine the quality of the materials and components used in any mattress you may consider so that you have a good idea of what to expect in terms of longevity. You may want to revisit the mattress durability guidelines here to pinpoint any lower quality materials or weak links that would be a cause for concern relative to the durability and useful life of a mattress before making any purchase.
The hybrid (12") BME is using 1.5" of TitanFlex (a type of polyfoam) and 1"-2" (depending on firmness) of Variflex Transition polyfoam. They do not provide on their site more details or the density for the Variflex foam type which would allow for an assessment of the quality and durability for this foam type. Their chat assistant mentioned that due to a worldwide foam shortage they have been forced to remodel some things and change foams.
Brooklyn Bedding patented VariFlexTM polyform in May of 2021 which according to VariFlex TM application description of identification is …
“Foam rubber; Low-density polyurethane foam for use in mattress surfaces; Polyethylene foam for use in the manufacture of mattress cores; Stuffing composed of polyethylene, rubber, or plastic for mattresses”
BB’s membership was discontinued in 2016 which is why there is little updated information on their new and remodeled products. Subject to confirming that the components within the mattress you are offered meet the quality/durability criteria for your BMI (see this article )and the quality/value guidelines here
I hope this adds some needed clarity and helps you move forward in one direction or another.
Phoenix