I’m in the UK and I know the info here is mostly towards US brands but I could use some help deciding whether to keep or exchange my new latex mattress.
Firstly, I’m so tired of the mattress dance, it is very stressful for me to get used to something new as I have various chronic illnesses one of which is Ehlers-Danlos syndrome type 3 (hypermobility) which makes it even more difficult to figure out whether a mattress is suitable.
My weak areas that give me the most trouble is my mid-upper back, shoulders and neck and occasionally hips and lower back.
I am 5ft 4 and my weight varies between 140-150 pounds. I’m presently 149 pounds. I have broad shoulders for a woman with slimmish hips, I dont have much padding of my own around the hip/bum area. I’m more top heavy with weight around my chest and stomach.
I have been through 5 different matttress in 5yrs, cannot afford to keep doing this. The one I just got rid of is an Octaspring 8500 which initally felt great, after 3mths it started going downhill and quickly became terrible, I was restless and waking every 30 mins due to it’s poorly designed zoning which meant my head ended up on an upward slope while all my weight sunk down onto my shoulder and my hips higher. It’s put me off zoned mattresses!
I now have just bought an adjustable bed with a ‘podded’ frame (not slats) and it has a softer shoulder podded arrangement and I’m able to firm up the lumber/hip area should I need to. I paired it with a soft 100% natural talalay latex solid slab mattress with about 1/2" of wool in the cover each side.
The specs of the mattress are:
Latex technology: Natural Latex made by the Talalay process.
Composition: Natural latex - halogen, metal and chemical free.
Fire retardant: Complies with BS7177 and BS5852
Cover: Easy care zip-off removable and washable stretch quilted cover, 100% Tencel, 100% natural wool
Latex density: Soft- 61kg per cubic meter, 4.2kPa
Comfort zones: 1 comfort zone
Mattress thickness: Approximately 24cm, 22cm thick latex core with deep quilted cover
The first couple of nights I put my 3" gel memory topper on it, while the mattress by itself felt initially soft and very jiggly the pushback was a little too much and once laying still on it for a while it felt quite firm or firm enough at least, strangely it felt even firmer laying on my back. I needed some extra cushioning and I do love the feel of the extra squish from the gel memory. The jiggle and pushback was far better with that on. Although I do think 3" was too much as I felt engulfed in it but it was very comfy.
Two more nights on and the wool in the mattres cover had already compressed but only in the hip area and you can visibly see (and feel) an upward slope to the head end ad foot end of the mattress made worse by the thckness of the topper and I felt like it was too soft and my hips sagged down, I was in a lot of pain in my hips and lower back all that day. So, I took the topper off and slept on it without which was ok which is a first for me as I have never been able to sleep on any mattress without adding extra cushioning but I really missed that added squishy comfort.
I had some slight muscle tightnesss around mid spine and behind shoulder blades when I woke up. I’m having trouble finding a pillow that works with it as well , I feel like I need something a bit lower and softer on this mattress which is perhaps contributing to the mid back, shoulder stiffness and pain.
The next night I tightened the lumber pods in the frame to the firmest to counteract the wool thats packed down there in the cover and put the 3" topper back on, that was much better, my hips no longer sagged down and I felt more level apart from the upward slope at the head end like the wool had not compressed there at all. but I woke again with tight muscles again in shoulder blades and mid back and also felt it a little while after I had got into bed that night. but no pain in hips/lower back.
Here’s my dilemma, due to the wool not packing down evenly in the cover perhaps causing some of the problem with sinkage in the hip area and foot and head end looking higher up, do I either take the cover off and buy one with no padding in to replace it because the wool seems to be sewn into this cover with a bit of mesh over it to keep it there then add 1.5" gel topper or do I actually need to exchange the mattress for a medium but I think it may be too firm. I feel like I’m on the cusp of it being too soft but when I slept directly on the mattress I had a bit of stiffness and pain around the shoulder and arm I lay on.
Or do I exchange for a completely different latex configuration altogether. They dont do choose your own layers, they have various types already set up as a mattress, some with just dunlop, some with dunlop on the bottom and talalay on top etc
I’ve never had latex before so I’m finding it difficutl to judge if it’s simply the wool compressing in one place causing me these aches or if it’s on the cusp of being not quite supportive enough. I fear a medium might be too much as my body is very sensitive and I need as much pressure relief as possible hence why I went for all talalay. The medium is 69kg per cubic meter, 4.8 kPa
I can’t get out to try any either due to ill health but I have a 14 day trial with this, only on day 5 now. They will exhange or refund if needed but I could use some help figuring all this out.
The adjustable bed is a split queen (split king in UK terms) on the other side is a viscolux mattress, memory foam that has been altered in some way to have a more immediate response and less sinkage or temperature response than standard memory foam and has a slight bit of bounce to it. It came with the bed frame and I only slept on it 2 nights with my 3" topper as it feels quite a bit firmer than the latex , no pressure was felt anywhere on my body and I woke with no tightness or pain in hips or shoulder blades apart from my shoulder and arm I was laying on and the right side of my neck very stiff, that side is perhaps a little too firm but it hasnt been broken in properly yet. I cant return it or exchange that one, it’s the softest one they do so it’s important for me to get this latex one right.
I’ll start my reply with some reference information that may be helpful …
While it’s not possible to “diagnose” mattress comfort issues on a forum with any certainty because there are too many unique unknowns, variables, and complexities involved that can affect how each person sleeps on a mattress in terms of “comfort” and PPP (Posture and alignment, Pressure relief, and your Personal preferences) or any “symptoms” they experience … there is more about the most common symptoms that people may experience when they sleep on a mattress and the most likely (although not the only) reasons for them in post #2 here.
There is also more about primary or “deep” support and secondary or “surface” support and their relationship to firmness and pressure relief and the “roles” of different layers in a mattress in post #2 here and in post #4 here that may also be helpful in clarifying the difference between “support” and “pressure relief” and “feel”.
These posts are the “tools” that can help with the analysis, detective work, or trial and error that may be necessary to help you learn your body’s language and “translate” what your body is trying to tell you so you can identify the types of changes that have the best chance of reducing or eliminating any “symptoms” you are experiencing (at least to the degree that any symptoms are from your mattress rather than the result of any other circumstances or pre-existing issues you may have that aren’t connected to a mattress).
When you have complex medical issues and you have purchased 5 mattresses over the last 5 years that haven’t worked well for you I would keep your expectations of success reasonable because there may be no “perfect” mattress and “best possible” may be your best outcome (see post #1 here).
A forum search on hypermobil (you can just click the link) may also bring up more information and suggestions that may be useful as well.
I don’t think the issue is that the zoning in your Octaspring is “poorly designed” but it does seem that once the mattress was broken in that it just wasn’t a good “match” for you in terms of comfort, firmness, and PPP (Posture and alignment, Pressure relief, and your own personal preferences).
Zoning systems can certainly be useful and well worth considering for people that have more difficulty finding a mattress with the right “balance” between comfort/pressure relief (under the shoulders especially) and support/alignment (under the hips/pelvis especially) or who have more challenging circumstances or sensitivities, body types that are more difficult to “match” to a mattress, more complex medical issues, or who have a history of having more difficulty in finding a mattress that works well for them. There is more about zoning in this article and in post #11 here and the additional posts it links to but the only way to know whether any specific mattress (zoned or otherwise) will be a good match for you in terms of comfort, firmness, and PPP will be based on careful testing or your own personal experience.
Wool will compress by about 30% of its thickness as you sleep on it over time and this will happen faster in the areas you sleep more often or under the heavier parts of the body than it will in the areas that you sleep on less or under areas of your body that are lighter. It will tend to even out over time as you spend more time on the areas that you sleep on less often and they “catch” up to the areas that you sleep on more often over the course of the first few months (up to about 6 months or so) but it shouldn’t have an effect on the comfort or support of the mattress. I would make a point of sleeping in different areas of the mattress initially and also rotating the mattress from time to time to help with the process … see post #2 here).
It’s much more likely that your “symptoms” were from sleeping on a mattress/topper combination that had comfort layers (the topper in combination with the softer latex comfort layers in your mattress) that are too thick/soft for your specific needs and preferences.
This sounds hopeful and if you were experiencing fewer symptoms than you normally do then I wouldn’t “argue with success” and I would tend to sleep on just the mattress for a few weeks.
I’m not sure how long you’ve slept on your mattress but I would keep in mind that here will be a break in and adjustment period for any new mattress or sleeping system as the mattress loses any of it’s “false firmness” and the cover stretches and loosens a little and the materials settle and your body gets used to a sleeping surface that is different from what it is used to (see post #3 here). This would typically be a few weeks but it can be shorter or longer depending on the specifics of the person and the mattress (higher density materials can take longer) and it can be surprising to many people how much their sleeping experience can change over the course of the first month or so. I would generally suggest sleeping on any new mattress for a few weeks at a minimum (preferably a month or so) whenever possible before deciding on whether it’s a good “match” in terms of comfort, firmness, and PPP and/or deciding to make any changes or additions to your mattress.
A suitable pillow is an essential part of good alignment for the head and neck and upper body because the gap between the head and the mattress and the curve of the cervical spine needs to be supported just like all other parts of the spine. Like mattresses … there are certain “needs” that depend on body type and sleeping positions but with pillows, personal preferences play a more important role because the face is much more sensitive to textures, temperature, smells, and other more subjective “feel” based properties of a pillow. There is more about choosing pillows in the pillow thread here. It’s not uncommon at all to need a new pillow with a different profile when you buy a new mattress.
Based on your feedback … I personally would have remained with just the mattress and your original pod settings for a little longer to give your body time to adjust before deciding on whether you need to make any changes and the type of changes that have the best chance of success based on your actual “symptoms”.
When the time comes I would also make very small and more incremental single changes so you can better assess the effect of the changes you make.
If you make too many changes at once (such as adding a topper and changing the pod settings at the same time) it will be much more difficult to assess which change is having which effect.
If you make changes that are too large (such as adding a topper that is thicker than you need) then you could go from one extreme to another (from too firm to too soft for example) and “jump over” the ideal combination.
If you make changes too quickly before any symptoms you are experiencing have had the chance to stabilize and form a consistent “pattern” (rather than just being an anomaly over the course of a few nights) then again it would be very difficult to assess the longer term effects of the change you made. It’s also more difficult for your body to adjust to making too many changes too quickly.
With your more complex medical issues 14 days may not be long enough to try the different options that you have available and be able to reliably assess whether they are working “well enough” for you or not.
While I can certainly help with “how” to choose … It’s not possible to make specific suggestions or recommendations for either a mattress, manufacturers/retailers, or combinations of materials or components because the first “rule” of mattress shopping is to always remember that you are the only one that can feel what you feel on a mattress and there are too many unknowns, variables, and personal preferences involved that are unique to each person to use a formula or for anyone to be able to predict or make a specific suggestion or recommendation about which mattress or combination of materials and components or which type of mattress would be the best “match” for you in terms of “comfort”, firmness, or PPP or how a mattress will “feel” to you or compare to another mattress 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 testing (hopefully using the testing guidelines in step 4 of the tutorial) or your own personal sleeping experience (see mattress firmness/comfort levels in post #2 here).
I or some of the more knowledgeable members of the site can help you to narrow down your options, help you focus on better quality/value choices that are available to you either locally or online, help you identify any lower quality materials or weak links in a mattress, act as a fact check, answer many of the specific questions you may have along the way that don’t involve what you will “feel” on a mattress, and help with “how” to choose but only you can decide which specific mattress, manufacturer, or combination of materials is “best for you” regardless of the name of the manufacturer on the label or whether anyone else (including me) would have the same criteria or circumstances or would make the same choice.
I’m not so sure that the wool packing down is the reason for your symptoms but here is also more information about the pros and cons of a wool quilted cover vs a more stretchy knit cover in post #6 here.
This is something that only you can decide based on your actual sleeping experience, on the actual “symptoms” you are experiencing, and on “best judgement” but I would certainly give any configuration you are sleeping on as long as possible so you can more reliably assess whether it’s a reasonable “match” for you in terms of comfort, firmness, and PPP.
For some reason my reply isn’t being added. I included pics as well. Basically it seems my mattress may be faulty, I’m in contact with the reatier to get it sorted.
Aah, thats probably why then, the photos were too big!
Well, yesterday I had to take a load of pics and strip the cover off to the bare latex so they could see. Even I was surprised to see what looked like a crease in the foam running down the length and a dip alongside it. I had someone else push down with their hands along the length of it and without telling them why they noticed the obvious difference in density from each end and the middle. It’s supposed to be a two sided, one density, no zones, one slab of talalay. The middle is noticeably softer, less pushback as if it’s been stretched and weakened.
In one pic from the end of the bed you can just about make out the latex leaning down towards the right, I had wondered since night one why I felt like I was rolling or leaning backwards, I assumed it was because the whole thing felt so jiggly and I wasn’t used to it but now I know!
I can see the uneven sleeping surface from your pictures and it’s good to hear that they are replacing it. Just on the off chance that it could be part of the issue as well I would also make sure that your support system under the mattress is perfectly flat.
Talalay latex only comes in 6" cores (that can be slit into thinner layers) so a mattress with a single core can’t be any thicker than that. Based on your pictures it looks like your mattress has 3 layers that are glued together. The middle layer of your mattress is a full 6" core and then there is about a 2" layer on one side and a thinner layer of about 1" on the other side.
I’m looking forward to your next update … hopefully with your issue resolved
Phoenix, that’s the first thing I saw as well. Double check that foundation, because it looks like you dips line up exactly with a sag on the foundation in your photo.
The base and frame is brand new, it was custom made and installed by them too., it seems flat. I will double check though.
The middle part of the adjustable frame can be made firmer and there’s a softer head/shoulder bit at the top.
The gaps between each plate are the same length and width. The angle of the photo perhaps wasn’t the best.
While your flexible support system certainly looks flat when there is no weight on it … the best way to confirm whether a support system is contributing to any of the issues you were mentioning would be by putting the mattress on the floor (which is firm and flat and has no flex) to see if it makes any difference. If it does then any difference would be the result of the support system under your mattress.
Tthe replacement was more coonsistent but now it’s broken in a bit, I have a similar problem, just not enough support under the pelvis/hips/lumber area. I end up with my shoulders curved higher and my alignment is off. I firmed up the base in that area and I was laying much straighter but it felt way too firm like the mattress was pushing into me too much and I woke 4hrs later with even stiffer hips/back of pelivis than when the base is not firmed up, so I’m even more confused.
I just dont know what to do now, I can stll exhange for another but it’s my last change.
Would a thinner 7" all talalay in medium 69kg 4.8k.pa feel a lot firmer than the same in a 8.5" or should I go for a soft 65kg 4.8k.pa dunlop zoned base with talalay on top bearing in mind they glue the layers so it’s all one mattress. I just need more support in that area to push me up a bit and help my alignment.
I have no idea how those densities translate to ILD.
If you believe your mattress is too soft and you are also experiencing actual “symptoms” that also seems to point to your mattress being too soft when you wake up in the morning (such as lower back pain or discomfort) then it would make sense to choose a firmer mattress but I would use your actual “symptoms” along with the previous information I linked as a guideline.
What is the single biggest physical “symptom” you are experiencing that you would like to resolve?
I don’t have any specific suggestions because I can’t feel what you feel or see you sleeping on the mattress but if you are confident that the mattress is too soft under your pelvis then it would make logical sense to choose a firmer mattress or a mattress that has firmer zoning in the middle.
I would also make sure you try any changes you make to your base for “long enough” to identify a pattern rather than just using your experience over the course of a night or two because your short term experience may be an anomaly and you may need to adjust to the changes before you can really assess whether it was successful.
It would also be helpful if you could find out and provide the thickness and ILD of the layers in the mattresses you are comparing (Talalay latex only comes in layers that are up to 6" thick)
I’m getting stiffness and pain behind each side of the back of my pelvis/lower back/hips . I get reffered pain down my legs and in the front of my pelvis as well.
I have very broad shoulders so this sink in the middle is torquing my shoulders/upper up higher and its affecting my neck with headaches.
I think a 8.5" slab of medium might be a bit too firm for me 69kg 4.8.k.pa and it’s a solid 8.5" no zoniing so thats why I wondered whether the same in medium but 7" would feel a bit softer than the equivalant 8.5" in medium and be somewhere between a soft and medium. I feel like I’m probably between a soft and medium you see.
They have various others, one with 65kg dunlop 7 zone on bottom with either 3cm or 5cm talalay, they call that soft. I feel I just need more lift/support in the middle part, the rest feels firm enough to me.
The most common (but not the only) cause of lower back pain would be a mattress that was too soft.
Head and neck issues can also be the result of a pillow that doesn’t keep your head and neck in good alignment over the course of the night and it’s very common that when you buy a new mattress you will also need a new pillow as well because the distance between your head and neck and the mattress surface may be different from what it was on your old mattress.
The only reliable way to know for certain whether any mattress is a good “match” for you in terms of comfort, firmness, and PPP is your own careful testing or your own personal experience but when you can’t test a mattress in person then the most reliable source of guidance is always a more detailed phone conversation with a knowledgeable and experienced retailer or manufacturer that has your best interests at heart and who can help “talk you through” the specifics of their mattresses and the properties and “feel” of the materials they are using (fast or slow response, resilience, firmness etc) and the options they have available that may be the best “match” for you based on the information you provide them, any local testing you have done or mattresses you have slept on and liked or other mattresses you are considering that they are familiar with, and the “averages” of other customers that are similar to you. They will know more about “matching” their specific mattress designs and firmness levels to different body types, sleeping positions, and preferences (or to other mattresses that they are familiar with) than anyone else and their guidance will usually give you the best chance of success.
I got the medium version sent to me and I literally could not sleep on it as within an hour I was so stiff and in agony absolutely everywhere the ‘pushback’ as I feared was way too much.
So I have stuck with the soft version. Still wondering how a 65kg dunlop on the bottom with talalay on the top would have worked for me but I ran out of exchanges,
I am trying to tweak this soft one to work for me, I noticed that my alignmnent didnt quite fit with the too soft or too firm images, I seem to have a mix of both going on. My broad shoulders went upwards from mid back because my shoulders aren’t sinking in enough plus a too high pillow but my upper hip was angled up and towards my shoulders at a slant a lttle and my waist sagged too far.
I firmed up one row of pods on the base which are under my waist… less stiffness and pain in my lower back and my shoulders sunk down more but still not perfect. My upper hip at the back of my pelvis still a bit stiff and sore and still a lititle angled towards my shoulders.
I stripped the cover off and laid directly on the latex and my alignment was a bit better again. I think the deep quilted wool cover is too thick and not stretchy enough contributing to this. I’ve had a heck of a job finding a replacement cover thats thin and stretchy here in the UK. I preferably wanted a jersey knit type but all I can get hold of it a coolmax type so thats what I bought.
So I’m still tweaking, hopefully a change in cover to allow my shoulders to sink in more will help, plus a lower pillow and possibly if necessary a thin 65kg dunlop zoned topper just to even everything up more. Not sure whether putting a zoned topper will even help lift my waist a bit more though.
If I firm up the pods on the base to the max I end up in pain because the latex then feels too firm and I get that pushback pressure feel like laying on a rock digging into my waist again.
It would be helpful if you could let me know the specifics of all the latex layers in both mattresses (thickness and firmness of the latex). It looks like there are three layers in the soft mattress and they are each a different thickness and could be a different firmness as well. It may also be possible to flip the latex layers inside the cover.
I wouldn’t take the images too literally … they are just examples of what could be happening with a mattress that is either too firm or too soft. It would be unusual that your spine will be “ruler straight” when you sleep on a mattress.
If your upper body is too high and your shoulders aren’t sinking in enough then it would make sense to have the shoulder setting as soft as possible to “allow” your shoulders to sink in as much as possible. In very general terms … the less your shoulders sink in on your side the thicker your pillow may need to be to keep your head and neck in good alignment.
Your hips may also not be perfectly perpendicular to your spine even if you are in good alignment (see the images at the bottom here)
I would keep in mind that you may not reach “perfect” and “better” may be the “best possible” configuration. I would also keep in mind that your shoulders wouldn’t be sinking down more if you only adjusted the firmness of the waist area even though they would look more “even” relative to the lower part of the body.
Again your pelvis may not be completely perpendicular to your spine when you are in good alignment. I would also make sure that you sleep on each configuration for “long enough” to identify any longer term consistent patterns in your experience rather than going by your experience for just a few nights on each configuration which may be an anomaly or may be the result of the change itself.
If a zoned topper is firmer in the middle then it would “lift” the parts of your body under the firmer zones more than the parts of your body under the softer zones and I suspect that your biggest issue could be whether the mattress is “soft enough” under your shoulders.
It’s also possible that the firmest setting may work well with a relatively thin topper.
Oh to live in the USA with lots of layer options and layer exchanges, you have far more choice (of everything) than here in the UK… No one does unglued layers here to mix and match. Mine is just one density all over 61kg 4.2kpa 100% natural talalaly (Radium foam) any layers are glued, it’s sold as a solid slab. The only other options were zoned dunlop core with 2" talalalay glued on top.
That would make more sense that it’s perhaps more my shoulders not sinking properly making me feel less even everywhere else. I’m changing to the new unquilted cover today and only making that one change for a while to see f it helps, I suspect it may as it’s stretchier and thinner than the deep wool quilted tencel thats on it already.
The shoulder zone on the base is already at ts softest so not much more I can do there. I feel like I need a higher pillow to fill in my neck but come morning my neck and head hurt so it must be too high. Getting the right pillow is a whole other saga, I have tried so many in the past and struggle to find something that works , curse my broken body, Having hypermobilty syndrome of course contributes towards all these things. I know I won’t get perfect but aiming for sleeping better with no new additional pain would be nice. This lower back stiffness/pain is new so I just want to eliminate that really.
At least I can tweak a little with this unlike my last mattress which was on a sprung divan base, I think you call it a box spring over there.
Fingers crossed as I do love the feel of the mattress and in general my sleep has been better.
Your mattress has three separate layers that are glued together and it’s fairly likely that the different layers also have different firmness levels as well so it would be helpful if you could find out and confirm their thickness and their firmness.
That’s good to hear. Making small incremental changes and then sleeping on each one for long enough to identify any consistent patterns about how it compares to the previous iteration is generally the most effective approach.
The specs of the mattress are:
100% natural talalay
Latex density: Soft- 61kg per cubic meter, 4.2kPa
Comfort zones: 1 comfort zone (same density all over)
Two sided mattress, can use both sides.
Mattress thickness: Approximately 22cm thick latex core (I measured it at 22.5cm)
Hope you don’t mind me updating along the way, this all may help someone else fine tune theirs as well. I found another post on here which gave me the idea of changing the cover, it felt much nicer, more pressure relief and perhaps even softer in general but I was very restless last night and woke up at 4am with my lower back even worse stiffness and pain so I went to medium firmness in the base underneath in the hip/lumber area and woke 4hrs later much less stiff and painful, just very slightly when moving first thing and no restlessness at all in those 4hrs after firming the pods on the base. So I will keep it there for now, see how it goes and tweak further if necessary.
Restless and not much sleep last night, awake from 5.30am. Pain again which is worse on my side from lower ribs to top of pelvis. I’ve realised it’s the pods in the base that are causing me most of the pain. There’s gaps going lengthways (2") and wdithways (1"), the pods also give in every direction not just up and down supposidly to give more pressure relief but it’s causing me pressure and pain.
I can feel the support there is uneven, I feel like part of my hips/top of pelvis are sinking between the lengthways gap or at least causing the pods edges to sink inwards and down feeling like I’m partly in a gap and part of me on the harder adjuster bit in the middle of the pods and when I firm up the pods there, the adjuster bits stick out slightly more than the pods themselves and are hard plastic which I can feel and they dig in to me.
When applying presure to the pods with the adjusters part of some of the clips holding them in are coming away downwards so no matter how much I firm it up they still act softer and give more on one or two egdes of the pod which is shouldn’t be doing as this only happens on 2 or 3 of the pods and not all of them. I am very sensitive to things like this.
I just phoned the bed frame retailer, they suggested changing that side to sprung slats (6cm gaps) and sending the pod frame back to the manufacturer as those clips shouldn’t be coming apart like that. I feel the pod base just doesn’t fit my body and medical needs as well… A little worried sprung slats will be too firm and cause some pressure but then the latex mattress is quite soft and very jiggly/bouncy. I feel it could use some more support and more even support than the pods seem to give. The pods are quite springy, similiar or perhaps even more so than my previous sprung base (box spring). Maybe slats will help make me feel like I’m laying more evenly supported than I am on this. I definitely need more even support in my hip/lumber area. If slats doesn’t work then I have absolutely no idea where to go from here.
This is all complicated by having Ehlers-danlos syndrome (hypermobility type) amongst other things which makes things far more difficult than it may for the average person.
