Trouble with DIY latex build for well over a year and a half! Please help!

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1

Hello everyone! I am in a serious conundrum. For well over a year and a half I have suffered through pain every single night. I know I knowwwwww it is a little bit nuts to allow yourself that but as time has gone on I have become more confused about what to do. From bottom to top I have a 3" dunlop firm/ 3" dunlop medium/ 2" talalay soft. I am 5’5" and 165 pounds. I am a back sleeper who sometimes likes to turn on my side for comfort. I mostly sleep on my back due to a long-standing series of back injuries and a very physical job and it is what my PT has told me to do. With all the copays I am gonna trust the woman. Anyway! Every night I have godawful hip pain and buttock pain. Seemingly depending on my position, I then either get lower back pain and/or middle back pain. I wake up with terrible hip pain and usually a significant amount of stiffness. But whew doggy that hip pain is no joke. Then other times there is not the same hip pain but a different type. More of the side of the hips and mid back pain. Thankfully I have to wake up and start moving at my job which helps the stiffness. But on the weekend it will last for hours and forces me to stretch to stand up straight.

I have tried putting the firm overtop of the medium. I have tried sleeping with no talalay. I have tried any combo you can think of. Without the talalay was torture. I tried it for nights and the stiffness/pain went from my hips down my entire legs and even into my feet. At this point I have added a 1 1/2 " memory foam topper hoping it would help. It doesn’t but I admit I am a sucker for the feel of memory foam. Anyway I believe in latex and the magic it can do for my body. I do not find the talalay uncomfortable and am capable of falling asleep on it. After an hour or so I am up fitful all night long.

Pleaseeeeee give me some advice. Is it too soft or too hard? Do I need a soft dunlop or a harder talalay? A taller soft talalay or no talalay at all? This pain and lack of sleep has finally caught up to me and I am suffering from it. Not to mention the pain! What does the pain in those areas mean? From all my research it seems I am sort of in the middle of too hard or too soft. I have been directed to get a 2" soft dunlop. I have been directed to get a 3" soft talalay. I have been directed to get a 3" firm talalay. Ugh! This feels impossible and notgonnalie we all know this is expensive.

ANYTHING ANYONE can offer me is muchly appreciated!!! Thank you!!!

2" talalay: 19-22 ILD
both the dunlop are SOL and notgonnalie I am confused about their different rating system

2

Hi Granby and thanks for the inquiry! Based on the information you’ve provided, I think adding a 2" soft Talalay topper to the mattress would be the next best step, and this is for a few reasons. Talalay is bouncier and springier and is generally better at contour and pressure relief on your hips and shoulders. However, Talalay can also be helpful in avoiding back pain because it provides more of what we call secondary support. Secondary support fills in the gaps between your body and the mattress. For side sleepers, this is normally the area between a person’s ribs and waist. For back sleepers, this is normally the area between the small of your back and the mattress. If these parts or your body aren’t being held up by the mattress, your muscles will work all night to hold those parts of your body up, which can lead to back pain. Aside from that, women tend to be curvier, especially around their hips, and having an extra top layer of Talalay can help avoid hip pain and keep the mattress from pushing their hips up, which can also lead to back pain.

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Thank you for your response! You are saying to add another Talalay topper on top of the current one?

4

Yes, but only a 2" soft, and my advice is to use it as a topper to go on top of the entire mattress. I recommended the 2" instead of a 3" just to make sure you’re not making the mattress too soft. Of course if the 2" still makes the mattress too soft (which I doubt will happen) you could always rearrange the layers to s/s/f/m, or s/m/s/f, etc.

5

yeah man, i’m in the same boat as you, pretty much giving up on latex and trying to salvage what parts i have of it left

my wife has no issues with her side all latex, however for me, it causes all the pain i’m struggling with right now, confirmed by spending the weekend in VT on an all foam mattress and waking up with improved back pain

i’m keeping my 6" xfirm dunlop as my support layer, and working on a foam comfort layer. the key here is something that is conforming that can keep me flat. playing a lot with 1" layers and working around that

something about latex, maybe its the fact that it WANTS to be pushing back at you vs other materials that dont, i dont know. but it was bending me backwards in a way in the lower back that just caused pain, every, single, night for a year and a half and i’m now in PT for it…

good luck, i’ll post back when i get a winning combination

so far i’m on 6" of xfirm dunlop, and am MOSTLY happy with 1" SOL medium, with 1" SOL soft over top. i find the support to be perfect, but the comfort to be lacking. i’m going to try and put a 1" super soft polyfoam over/under it and see if thats enough to soften it up without losing support. i just ordered 2" and 3" 4lb memory foam from brooklyn bedding and foambymail/foamfactory, WAY to soft, maybe if it came in 1" i’d be ok, but 2" sends me out of alignment and 3" even further. i’ve been on the hunt for FIRM memory foam, and can’t seem to find it. my parents have this really old memory foam pad that has firm memory foam in it, i’ll see if i can track that down and just take it out of the encasement

anyway, dont be afraid of the whole ‘memory foam is bad’ that this forum keeps posting. it can be a perfectly acceptable material to DIY with, however with the perk that you can now switch it out when it fails in a few years. not everyone is compatible with latex

6

Do you believe this will also help with middle/lower back pain as well? Last night my hips hurt but the middle and lower back are off the charts in pain.

What makes you say the 2" soft talalay atop my current 2" soft talalay as opposed to a 2 or 3 inch dunlop?

7

Talalay is bouncier and springier and is generally better at contour and pressure relief on your hips and shoulders. However, Talalay can also be helpful in avoiding back pain because it provides more of what we call secondary support. Secondary support fills in the gaps between your body and the mattress. For side sleepers, this is normally the area between a person’s ribs and waist. For back sleepers, this is normally the area between the small of your back and the mattress. If these parts or your body aren’t being held up by the mattress, your muscles will work all night to hold those parts of your body up, which can lead to back pain. Aside from that, women tend to be curvier, especially around their hips, and having an extra top layer of Talalay can help avoid hip pain and keep the mattress from pushing their hips up, which can also lead to back pain.