New mattress, but still sore!

Discussions General Mattresses Questions
1

Hi Phoenix -

This site has been so helpful for us as we have researched and shopped for a new mattress. We are in the DC metro area, so we checked out the few places around us that you recommended in other posts.

After looking around, we actually surprised ourselves by falling in love with a latex bed from Healthy Back - the Pure Latex Bliss Elegance, which is the 12-inch blended latex. I can’t remember the exact ILD specs right now, but I know the top layer is 15 ILD, the second layer 19/24 (this is how it is written on the spec sheet they showed us at the store, not sure what the slash means), and the base layer was 36 with a stabilization base of 40 (just 1 inch, I think). I expect you will know the specs better than I!

Anyway, we both loved the feel of this mattress. We also tried the Essence, which is the 10 inch. I didn’t feel a huge difference, but my husband loved the Elegance so we bought it. Long story short, we have been sleeping on it for nearly 3 weeks, and I wake up slightly sore in my lower back every morning. We went back to the store yesterday to talk with them about it, and their best theory was that my body is still adjusting after sleeping on a sagging mattress (10-year-old innerspring S&F) for so long.

I don’t know how much detail would be helpful, so I will err on the side of too much. (Sorry!)

I am 5"8’, about 145 pounds and 38 years old. I started having moderate lower back pain after my second pregnancy, 3 years ago. (Little man was a whopper and ruined my core muscles.) The pain has lessened a lot in the past year or two as I have been trying to exercise and strengthen those muscles again. (I also have mild scoliosis, but this has never given me any problems before, so I doubt it’s related.) I was hoping that a new mattress would make things even better, but now I am discouraged. :frowning:

When we started looking for mattresses, I noticed the pressure relief in my lower back the most when comparing mattresses. That is why we honed in on the softer ILDs of latex. I laid on the mattress for 15+ minutes and still felt great. Both the salesman at Healthy Back and my husband looked at my spinal alignment and said it was good. Yesterday, the salesman suggested I try sleeping with a pillow under my knees. I did that last night and it definitely helped. But I confess, I am a bit annoyed to have spent $3100 on a mattress and still need to sleep with a pillow under my knees!

I am so confused here, that I’m not sure I even have a coherent question. Do you have any thoughts or advice? HB has a great return policy, so we could just send it back and start over. The other option would be to try the 10" Essence, in case the Elegance’s thicker soft layers are causing the soreness? I feel like I am grasping at straws here. I am mostly frustrated because the mattress feels so good initially - even after 15 minutes on it, so I am not even sure what the strategy would be to find something better. My husband even wonders if it’s just my back and that no mattress will be perfect. That thought makes me sad! :frowning:

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

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Hi chopeb,

It’s certainly possible that you are still adjusting to a new mattress and your body can take some time to change from its “learned alignment” that comes from sleeping on an old mattress (see post #7 here).

If your back pain isn’t from a normal adjustment period then the most common cause of lower back pain is from a mattress that is too soft and which “allows” the heavier parts of your body to sink down to far before “reaching” the firmer support layers which can put the lumbar spine out of alignment. There is more about some of the more common “symptoms” on a mattress in post #2 here and the posts it links to.

Finally it’s also important to remember that a mattress can’t “fix” a pre-existing back issue that isn’t connected to the mattress itself so there may be no “perfect mattress” that fixes things until the back issue itself is healed (although it’s still important to have a mattress that keeps you in good alignment because it can still be an improvement and will be much less likely to aggravate any back issues). A pillow under the knees when you are sleeping on your back (or using an adjustable bed with the legs slightly elevated) is well known to relieve some of the stress and compression on the lumbar spine and is a good suggestion for any mattress for back sleepers. Sleeping with the knees slightly bent (on your back or side) is a more natural and less stressful sleeping position for the body.

If your continuing experience indicates that the Elegance is likely too soft for you then the Essence would be the next most logical choice and has thinner comfort layers that will keep you closer to the firmer support layers of the mattress so your pelvis doesn’t sink into the mattress quite as far.

Phoenix

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Thanks, Phoenix! I think we will give it a couple more weeks and if it’s not better, switch to the Essence. I appreciate all of your expertise!

4

Hi Chopeb,

I had a similar problem to yours with my new bed, a 100% natural Talalay mattress with a blended Talalay topper of ILD 19 over the top. I felt like my hips sunk in too far, and I woke with lower back aching and some shoulder aching, too. I tried swapping layers around with no improvement and finally went back to my original configuration with a very inexpensive and easy fix. I’m now sleeping great and waking with no pain. You might want to give this a try before giving up and exchanging beds. This is what I did. I bought a couple of yoga mats from Walmart. They were both 68" long, 24" wide, and one was 3mm thick, the other 5mm thick. I put the 5mm mat crosswise on the bed under the topper between it and the mattress in the area of my hips. I put the 3mm mat crosswise under the topper under my shoulder area. I put the two mats all the way across the king size bed, but it could be cut to size if your husband doesn’t want it on his side. My husband hasn’t noticed it, but he can sleep on anything. When I had slept on this for a few weeks and was sure this was my solution, I taped the two mats together so they wouldn’t shift around. I used a decorative duck tape for that. The two mats together cost about $20. You might not need both mats, but I found that when I didn’t use the thinner one under my shoulders, I woke up with some shoulder-upper back aching. Anyway, good luck with your bed, and I hope this might be of some help in making your too-soft bed just right.

gtwflorida