Hi JannyGoats,
That can certainly be true. Comfort/pressure relief is what you feel when you first lie on a mattress and is relatively easy to determine based on “feel” but alignment/support is usually what you feel when you wake up in the morning and can be a little more difficult to assess.
Post #2 here has some suggestions about some of the more common sleeping symptoms that may be helpful.
The first thing I would suggest when you need to make some changes is a more detailed conversation with the manufacturer who will have more experience with their own mattresses and different configurations than anyone else.
I’d also be happy to make some general suggestions but it would be helpful to know a little bit more to get a better sense of what may be happening.
Alignment issues … and the lower back pain that can go with them … can involve some detective work to identify the underlying cause. The most common cause is from a mattress that is too soft and doesn’t have firm enough primary support under the pelvis. This can allow the pelvis to sink down too far and tilt which in turn affects the natural curve and alignment of the lumbar spine. It can also be from a mattress that is too firm and doesn’t have enough softness on top to fill in the gaps in the sleeping profile and provide the secondary support that is needed under the recessed curves of the spine. A mattress that is too firm can also lead to sleeping in a “twisted” position to avoid pressure points which can also cause lower back issues.
The first question I would have is whether you think your mattress is too soft or too firm.
It would also be helpful to know your body type and sleeping positions.
The type of mattress you have been used to sleeping on previously can also make a difference.
Finally it would also be helpful to know the specific configurations you have tried and rate them as better or worse in terms of the differences in your experience or symptoms in each of them over the course of a few nights so that they can be used as a reference point for the “direction” of change that may work best for you.
Generally the best approach is more detailed conversations with the manufacturer in combination with an incremental and “one step at a time approach” which can identify the effect and “direction” of each change and moves you towards your ideal combination but of course I’d also be happy to provide any thoughts I have as well.
Phoenix