I searched around extensively on Mattress Underground before I bought my new bed (thank you, Phoenix, for all the great information on here!), and I ultimately chose a PureCool Supreme from Brooklyn Bedding, along with a Simple Life foundation. I feel like I got a really high-quality mattress for the price and am happy with my choice to buy from Brooklyn Bedding, but the bed has been causing some issues for me and I’m wondering if it’s just too firm for my neck. I’m considering exchanging it for a softer PureCool Luxe bed, but I don’t want to jump the gun on this decision.
To give you some context about me: I’m 6’ tall and about 185 pounds with narrow hips, broader shoulders and most of my weight carried on top. I almost always sleep on my back which I trained myself to do years ago (a doctor told me it’s the best sleeping position for spine problems), but every so often I’ll find myself rolling over onto my side during the night. I have a bulging disk in my neck and cervical-spine kyphosis (my neck has lost its normal backwards curve), both of which I’ve had for many years, but I don’t have any other orthopedic issues.
I’ve had my new bed for about a month-and-a-half now, and I’ve been having a major flare-up of my neck issues. I’ve had a lot of neck pain, as well as “lightning strike” feelings across the top of my shoulder on the right side (the direction that the disk bulges) and down the outside of my upper arm. I’ll be seeing my neuro next week, and I’m sure he’ll tell me that the bulging disk in my neck is acting up and inflaming my nerve because that’s the diagnosis I always receive whenever I have flare-ups, and I think it’s accurate. I’ll definitely be letting him know that I think it’s related to my new bed, but I honestly don’t expect to get any detailed suggestions from him beyond “Maybe you should consider getting a different bed” :dry: . I’ve never been able to get many specific suggestions from him in the past about these things so I’m not hoping for much more this time around (which isn’t super surprising since mattresses aren’t his area of expertise…)
I know neck issues are often related to pillow choice, but I have a pretty big array of pillows in my arsenal, each of which I’ve used for about a week on the new bed, but with no luck in terms of relieving my pain. I’ve used a water pillow, a buckwheat pillow, a shredded latex pillow, a shredded latex pillow with a cervical roll, and no pillow at all. Believe it or not, the “no pillow at all” option is often the best solution for me both in terms of keeping neck pain at bay and getting flare-ups to settle down (and I really don’t mind sleeping without one), but it didn’t do anything for me this time around.
Because of my little pillow experiment, I’m wondering if this bed is just too firm for me. However, I know there’s a breaking-in/softening period for mattresses, and that’s what I was hoping to pick your brain about before I make any decisions. Basically, I don’t want to exchange my mattress for a softer one and then have the new one soften up so much that it leads to more problems/discomfort. And I probably wouldn’t want to exchange my current mattress yet if you think it’s still breaking-in and is very likely to get softer (I’m only on day 40 of my 12o-day exchange period). So, on the one hand, I really don’t want to jump the gun too soon with moving to a softer mattress; on the other hand, I don’t want to cling to a futile hope that my mattress will get softer over the next month or couple of months if that’s probably not the case, especially if there’s a likelihood that exchanging it for softer mattress could help alleviate my pain.
I’ve read your other posts about the breaking-in period, and it sounds like higher quality memory foam like the material Brooklyn Bedding uses takes a bit longer to soften up if I understood correctly. Do you think it’s probably still softening up, and, if so, how much softening do you think it would be realistic to expect?
A few more questions specific to my situation:
I keep my bedroom fairly cold (72 degrees), and I saw that mattresses get firmer at colder temperatures/lower humidity. Is 72 degrees low enough to make the mattress firmer, or would it only happen at much lower temperatures? If 72 degrees is low enough to make memory foam firmer, then I guess I’ll need to choose a softer mattress to compensate for that.
I have a Luna waterproof mattress protector and 400 thread-count sateen cotton sheets. I wasn’t sure if it was just the pressure of your body or also the warmth that “breaks in” the mattress. If it’s the warmth that helps to break it in, do you think I should try sleeping without the mattress protector for a while to see if that helps to soften it up given that there’s less body heat transmitting to the mattress when the protector’s on?
My last question’s sort of random, but I don’t always sleep on the same side of the bed every night and am thinking that would probably extend the breaking-in period that’s needed. (I have a queen bed, but my dog’s generally in bed before I am so I just choose a side based on which side she happened to pass out on that night .) I can of course start scooting her over and sleeping consistently on one side of the bed, but, even with that, I’m wondering how much time you’d recommend giving this mattress until I pull the trigger on the exchange (assuming you don’t think I should go ahead and exchange it right now).
Part of the reason I went with a somewhat firmer mattress, as opposed to the Luxe which is the softest one, was because I’d read your posts about finding a sweet spot between posture/alignment, pressure relief and personal preference. Although I’m a little worried that getting a softer mattress might cause my hips to “hammock” into the bed at night, I think I might be willing to take that risk to have some relief from my neck pain. I would be a little worried, however, about my shoulders sinking so far into a very soft bed that it exacerbates my neck pain, which is one of the main reasons I’m trying to get a good handle on how much more my current bed is likely to soften up before I think about pulling the trigger and exchange it for the softer bed.
Despite all the neck pain and issues I’m currently having, I’m honestly willing to put up with another month or two of awful sleep and neck pain if I ultimately end up with a mattress that has a level of softness that’ll be right for me over the next ten years or so. I’m just really unsure which way to go with this decision and want to make sure I have realistic expectations about the softening/breaking-in period, which is why I’d love to hear your thoughts on all this.
One last bonus question for you if you don’t mind: do you have any particular pillows you’d recommend I try out other than the ones I mentioned above just so that I can be as sure as possible that it isn’t somehow a pillow-related issue? I’m more than willing to give any and all pillow suggestions a trial run even if none of them end up working out for me.
Sorry this turned into the longest post ever, but I was hoping to anticipate the questions you might ask and give you as many specifics as possible since I know the little details often matter the most. Thanks so much for your feedback and thanks again for all the great information you have on here! : )
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