Hi Lisa,
The most important part of any mattress is that it provides pressure relief and keeps your spine in alignment in all your sleeping positions. Everything after that is about durability (quality of materials and construction and how long will it perform these functions), preferences (all the subjective factors that are part of ācomfortā for each person), and value (the price you would pay for one mattress that provides you with the āmixā of features that you need and want vs the price of another that will do the same). If a mattress doesnāt do the two things that are most important (pressure relief and alignment), then no matter how good its āvalueā or quality or how good it feels in the store ā¦ it isnāt the mattress for that individual.
Every different type of material or mattress has a wide variety of different types and layering and construction methods ā¦ all of which are designed to help different people with different weights, body shapes, sleeping positions, preferences, and budgets to find a mattress that relieves pressure, keeps you in alignment, feels good while you are on it, and will last as long as your budget allows. There are stories of people who have purchased a $50,000 mattress that will last a lifetime, but the mattress didnāt do what they needed and wanted it to do and it would be a lifetime of poor sleep. Many others purchase a āperfectā mattress for $500 or $1000 that will only last a few years ā¦ but those few years would be years of great sleep. Others yet purchase a budget mattress that also didnāt do what they needed or wanted it to do and they would have a few years of poor sleep.
No matter what your budget ā¦ the most important part of buying a mattress is PPP. Pressure relief, Posture, and Preference. More than anything your budget will determine how āperfectlyā and how long the materials and construction of your mattress does this.
Each consumer really faces a choice between learning how to ācontructā a mattress which satisfies all these things for them or finding a reliable outlet that can be trusted to do this for them. An online purchase will generally require more education to replace the ability to actually test the mattress. Most will choose a combination of the two (education and reliable advice from a knowledgeable outlet that has the customers best interest in mind). For most people ā¦ the reliable advice is the most difficult to find and they often end up buying a mattress that is either completely overpriced or may have great value for someone else but doesnāt have the PPP for that person.
Because there are so many variables ā¦ the easiest and ābestā choice for most is a local manufacturer. As a group they generally have much better value but most important of all ā¦ they will have the knowledge and expertise to āfitā a mattress to your needs and preferences inside your budget. They will also be able to tell you why a mattress costs more or less than another so you can make informed choices. These types of factory direct outlets and/or sleep shops that sell mattresses that āfitā with great value are worth their weight in gold ā¦ especially if you can actually go there and test their mattresses and take advantage of their expertise in person. Nothing will ever be as āaccurateā as personally testing a mattress in combination with knowing how to compare one mattress to another.
Without knowing how or being able to test a mattress for how it fits you for PPP ā¦ you are somewhat rolling the dice unless you or the place you buy it from knows how to āmatchā the online purchase with mattresses you have tested locally for PPP. If there is ever a choice between a local manufacturer (such as Flexus) or sleep shop who āknows their stuffā, (and puts your needs, budget, and preferences above their profit) and an online purchase, there is no doubt in my mind that I would go with the local manufacturer or a sleep shop who sells them over an online purchase. Without taking into account how a mattress fits and interacts with your unique needs and preferences, then you may end up with a high value mattress (based on price, durability, quality and materials) that doesnāt work for you.
All memory foam will soften (break in) over the first 90 days or so. The more closed cell and āslow reactingā varieties of memory foam more so than the more open cell (faster reacting) varieties. There is often a few week adjustment period as well for any mattress as your body lets go of its habitual sleeping patterns which are compensating for a worn out or inappropriate mattress and ārelearnsā to relax and sleep in alignment without having to tense muscles or constantly change sleeping positions to find pressure relief or relieve strain.
There is very little correlation between a mattress thickness and how appropriate it may be for you. Higher quality materials can and often should be used in thinner layers. If a mattress provides you with PPP ā¦ then the thickness makes no difference. Any additional thickness above this is usually about buying unnecessary material.
Since you have already purchased the Sams Club mattress ā¦ I would give it at least a few days to see how it goes and if the back pain changes in either direction. If it is clearly creating back pain (from sleeping out of alignment) ā¦ then this would be more about how appropriate the layering was for you than about the material value of the mattress itself and I would certainly return it and āstart againā ā¦ with the help of a local manufacturer.
The rest, recovery, and healing we get from good and deep sleep IMO is too important to leave to chance alone. In a case like yours where there are high quality and value manufacturers and outlets so close to you ā¦ this is where I would go if your mattress doesnāt work out for you. āBetterā is always more about how a mattress works for you than about the ācommodity costā of the materials in it.
Phoenix
