In early January I purchased an Original Mattress Factory Luxury Firm mattress. It is very similar to my previous mattress, but without the 12 years of use. It feels pretty good, but as I’m a little bit older, and more of a confirmed side-sleeper, I was not surprised to feel a bit of side pressure after long periods on my side. Also – I’m 5’11" and about 185 pounds.
I was starting to think about a topper to give myself a bit of pressure relief, and happened to see a cost effective memory foam topper that had only been available at Sam’s Club online start to show up in the local stores.
Other than a bit of odor, the mattress topper fit the mattress well, and felt wonderful to lie on. I’ve had it on the bed about 3 weeks now, and it still feels great when I start the night, but in the morning my back is stiff and sore from about mid-chest down to my pelvis.
Reading around the forum, the numbers seemed right – 2.5" of 4 lb. gel-infused memory foam on top of a relatively firm mattress - for a side-sleeper. I’m starting to wonder if it is too deep and/or too soft for me, and perhaps my pelvis is sinking too far down during the night.
I’ve only had it three weeks, so I’m pretty sure I could return it (But I sure can’t get it back in the box again ). Not sure what to try next.
Thoughts? Would you agree I’ve gone too soft?
As a side note - I’ve been travelling a bit lately, and the most comfortable bed I’ve slept on in the last month was the four nights at the Bellagio. I pulled up the covers and it was listed as an iSeries mattress. That might give you an indication of what my back seems to enjoy.
Assuming that these symptoms are new … I would tend to agree that it is probably a combination of too thick and/or soft (thickness and softness work together and have a similar effect).
Another possibility is that the memory foam is holding you in position more and you are not changing position as much as your body 'wants to" over the course of the night and the lack of motion and more extended sleeping in a single position may be causing some stiffness in your muscles. This would be more specific to slow response materials. Can you tell if this is happening with back sleeping more than side sleeping?
It may be helpful if you knew which model of the iSeries you were sleeping on (there is a wide range of models) and also if the bed at the Bellagio had a mattress pad/topper/bedding package that was on it (which is common with hotel mattresses). It doesn’t seem like the mattress you were on was the “standard” Bellagio mattress that they list on their site. This information plus knowing the details of the OMF mattress you have (thickness of the polyfoam layers especially) may be somewhat helpful but you may not be able to get the information about the Bellagio so this couldn’t act as a “pointer”.
The OMF mattress you have already has some softness/thickness in the comfort layers (it’s in the middle range of the OMF range in terms of the thickness and softness of the comfort layer) so this would also point to the possibility that you may need a slightly thinner and/or firmer (higher density in memory foam) topper.
Assuming that these symptoms are new … I would tend to agree that it is probably a combination of too thick and/or soft (thickness and softness work together and have a similar effect).[/quote]
Phoenix - thanks for your always insightful response.
I believe this issue happens just as much when side sleeping as back sleeping. Based on my own experience and a sleep study last summer, I’m on my sides at least 70% of the night.
Serta needs to update their site! Looking around the Serta site, the mattress I was on more closely resembles the Trump Pillowtop show here: http://www.serta.com/Trump-Home-iSeries-by-Serta.html#levani-super-pillowtop I wish I had taken a photo. Other than a very thin pad (like a felt pad) and sheets, I don’t recall much in the way of an additional topper.
That makes sense too.
I took the topper off the mattress this morning, and will sleep without it this week to see if I can tell if the back issues switch back to feeling more like the simple pressure issues that go away after being up and moving for an hour as opposed to the all-day back “twinges” I’ve had for the last couple of weeks when sleeping at home. I’ve spent about 13 days at hotels since putting the topper on my mattress. The nights in the hotels were all better than the nights on my new mattress + topper. The first week or so (with just the mattress, and no topper - I do also have the St. Dormeir Wool Mattress Pad) I just felt some typical pressure points, and a little back stiffness that went away quickly in the morning.
If I try for another topper, I will go thinner and/or firmer, and open up to latex as well. I know the feel will be different, but at this point I’m just looking for a little bit of pressure relief to go along with my firm mattress.
Unfortunately … most hotel’s don’t disclose the details about what is inside their mattresses. Usually the way to “match” them to a regular consumer model made by the same manufacturer is by the type of coil, the general style, and thickness of the mattress (which would approximate the thickness of the comfort layers) but this may not be an exact match.
Trying to get enough information about any major brand mattress much less a hotel mattress to use it as a guideline for anything is a frustrating task at best and usually leads to dead ends.
I think your idea of sleeping without the topper for a week or so is a good one and then you can look at your experiences (hotel and at home) to decide on which topper has the best odds of working for you. I would agree that a little thinner or firmer (denser) may be the way to go.
If it’s happening in side sleeping as well then it would point to comfort layers that are too soft/thick for side sleeping which indicates that they would be too soft for back sleeping to an even greater degree. When you are adding a topper to a mattress that provides good alignment but needs help with pressure relief the key is usually “just enough” so that you are as close as possible to the support layers of the mattress with just enough in the comfort layers to form the pressure relieving cradle that you need.
I’ve had 4 nights without the topper now. The day-long pain has gone away. I’m back to the minor pressure related issues, plus a little morning stiffness in the ribcage area. That stiffness goes away after about 90 minutes of normal movement. I do miss the feel of the memory foam, but clearly, it was not good for my back.
Thinking about your comment of “a little thinner, or a little firmer” I started looking around again at toppers. (By the way, Sam’s took the topper back without an issue. I did have my receipt). If the topper I just got rid of was 2.5 inches of 4 lb. memory foam with gel beads, what should be the target of my search? It seems 2 to 3 inches seems to be the most common depth of either memory foam or latex foam mattress toppers. Should I try to find a 1 - 1.5 inch topper? Are you aware of any in the depth? Would a firm latex topper in the under 2" depth be a better target than memory foam for me?
I think I was spoiled by the local availability and low-cost of the topper I tried. Looking at Sam’s, Costco, and Walmart (at least physical stores) I’m not seeing any good candidates. Looking online at your manufacturer’s list, there is again a very wide range, but I have only seen a few in the thinner sizes.
From the sounds of it you are in the range of a touch or a little or maybe a bit more so your idea of 1" - 1.5" seems reasonable to me in the same density or if you go thicker then using more supportive materials.
The choice between memory foam and latex is really a preference issue depending on how you feel about slow response vs fast response and how comfortable you are with each and the difference in feel between them. With a topper that thin you will feel partly the topper and partly the foams below it though so if you do use memory foam you won’t sink into the foam as much as you would if you had thicker layers of memory foam and you will feel some of the resilience of the foam below.
If you were to go with latex in the 2" range then around 24 ILD would probably be suitable. It will be more supportive than 4 lb memory foam but also different.
You may have been OK with of 5 lb memory foam (although it will typically feel a little firmer than 4 lb when you move especially) so if you stay with 4 lb then a little thinner would probably be good.
You could also try slow recovery latex which comes in 21 ILD and has a bit of the feel of both.
Walmart probably has the biggest selection of toppers out of the big box stores but some of them come from Wayfair or other vendors which have different return policies.
One of the links in the component post goes to this post which has links to lots of thinner memory foam toppers but again check return policies if that’s important to you.
[quote=“Phoenix” post=14028]
If you were to go with latex in the 2" range then around 24 ILD would probably be suitable. It will be more supportive than 4 lb memory foam but also different.[/quote]
What would you think of a Dunlop topper in 1" like this one?
At this stage your “educated intuition” will be more accurate than anything I could tell you and there is really no way for someone else to know other than providing some guidelines when you are considering a combination that you haven’t personally tried.
In terms of their knowledge, quality and value Rocky Mountain mattress is a member here and I think very highly of them. They also sell toppers that use memory foam, latex, and Energia (a very high quality polyfoam) so they have good experience in using different toppers on different types of mattresses.
If you were to talk with 5 different manufacturers you could easily get 5 suggestions that are all slightly different because there is no “formula” that can know these things for sure … especially without a more detailed and nuanced conversation.
Having said that … if I was going with slightly firmer Dunlop and was comfortable with the feel of Dunlop then I would probably tend towards 2" (you seem to be just outside the “just a touch to a little” range and Dunlop is firmer than Talalay in the same ILD) but I would count that as just one of the suggestions and would add it to a few others then put the most weight on your own intuition after you had talked with a few people to see what they all had to say
After considerable additional research I decided to purchase a 2" blended Talalay topper from Arizona Premium Mattress / Mattresses.net
I ordered on February 26th, and the topper arrived on March 8th, which was within the expected delivery window.
I unpacked the mattress topper and let it air out for about 24 hours. Unlike the memory foam topper I replaced, the latex had very little smell. I’d say the memory foam still had more smell after 3 weeks than the latex topper had after two days.
As far as layering, I have the box spring/mattress/old fitted sheet/latex topper/St. Dormeir mattress pad/sheets.
I’ve now slept on the new configuration for a total of 13 nights (with a couple of nights at a hotel). The feel of the new setup is great. It is on par (but different) from the memory foam topper feel, but better than sleeping on the mattress alone. Pressure points are clearly reduced. The biggest gain so far is that I don’t believe I have an alignment issue with my hips sinking too far, which I think was the case with the 2.5" memory foam topper.
I still have some slight stiffness in the ribcage area in the morning, but to be honest, I’m just older now. I am going to try to work harder on stretching both before bed and in the morning.
While I was originally focusing on reducing thickness of the topper to 1-1.5" it seems that is not a very popular size. I had more higher quality options with the 2" size topper.
). Not sure what to try next.