Hi,
First of all, I really appreciate all the information I’ve gleaned from this community these past few weeks. The mattress industry has changed dramatically since we were last on the market, and while I sometimes suffer from information overload, I’m so glad these resources now exist. Now of course I’m here with my story and with one question.
I’m 5’2", about 120 pounds, evenly built I suppose by the definitions of this forum, and until recently never gave quality of mattress a second thought. I have no general aches or pains, have slept on a large variety of mattresses in my life, many clearly of which were terrible, without any consequence. Which may explain why the first time my husband suffered from herniated discs, it never occurred to me that our then 10+ year old McCroskey mattress might be slowing his healing time. It also never occurred to me when he ruptured two discs a few years later that our now 15+ year old mattress might not be helping, even though he was up in the middle of night pacing the stairs for weeks struggling with his sciatica. And when his sciatica roared back a second time a few months ago, creating more weeks of sleepless nights, I still thought nothing of our McCroskey … until we visited my parents, where he slept on a cheap Tempurpedic in their (sleeper!) sofa, and was able to sleep through the night for the first time.
It finally dawned on me: Our now 17 year old mattress sucks. We’ve switched places on the bed (he is 6’2", 185 pounds, so much bigger than myself). We used to flip the mattress years ago but then, well, we stopped paying attention. While he’s better, even I am feeling a touch of lower back pain when I awake for a few minutes. And I never, ever have that problem. So we want off this mattress ASAP.
We read your tutorial and visited Naturally Organic Sleep in Burlingame, where we spent hours testing mattresses and discussing them with the very patient Pete. And surprise - my particular, very detail oriented husband, the one with the serious back problem for whom this mattress is really for - liked four finalists (Omi Duo, Omi Terra, Magniflex and a memory foam whose name I can’t remember), but couldn’t narrow further. He thought they all were supportive and while he felt differences between them, he didn’t have any personal preference.
I, on the other hand, the one who doesn’t need a fancy mattress at all, am the princess and the pea. I didn’t like the very soft (to me) Pure Latex Bliss, I found the Duo OK, I liked the Magniflex plush a tad better. I liked lying on the memory foam one but hated the struggle to get out of it. And I LOVED the Terra. It was plush, yet so supportive; it didn’t feel spongy at all but instead had this lively, dynamic feel. It was weirdly almost energizing, an odd thing to say about a mattress. I couldn’t stop smiling when I was on it. While my husband didn’t have a preference, Pete and I thought his alignment looked better on it too (though it’s hard to tell and, let’s face it, I am totally biased at this point).
As you know, the Terra is mighty expensive, even with the discount Pete generously offered us. And the part that makes me feel a tad guilty is I am the one who wants it the most, and I absolutely do not need it.
I have read many threads and understand I could custom make something close to the Terra, but my worry is that it won’t be quite the same. I don’t want something similar to the Terra - I want the Terra. We have kids and spending a lot of time in mattress stores is challenging, to put it mildly. So this is a long way of saying I’m very close to pulling the trigger.
Am I making a mistake? Can someone build that exact mattress? I know I could maybe do as well or better but I don’t know how many hours of study that would take. And I don’t know how much longer we want to put up with what we are sleeping on now. When we got on one of Naturally Organic’s hardest beds, our first reaction was how much softer it is than our McCroskey!
