I have a year old memory foam made by local bedding company.  It is on top of a platform bed with drawers.  The mattress felt fine in the store on the slat foundation, but I wake up aching every morning.   Would the difference be between the solid wood and slats?  They actually moved the display mattress onto an box spring and it felt much better, but I dould then feel movement on other side of the bed.  Worst part is that I can go sleep on motel beds and feel fine in the morning.  Help!

I am so sorry for your troubles. I wonder if this is a new situation for you. In other words, was the bed fine up until a month or two ago? Were you comfortable until recently and then suddenly found yourself aching? My experience with memory foam was that it was great for a short while, then it "bottoms out" and you are hitting the extra firm base after you sink in during the night. I found I would wake up a couple hours into the night and be in pain, but I went to sleep feeling good. Fortunately for me, this occured very quickly and I could return the item.

My sister has a tempur-pedic and swears by it. I think one of the reasons hers has not given in yet is that she has a king size bed and lives alone. She only weighs 115lbs. or so, and there is very little pressure on the bed. Many people swear by the tempur-pedic brand, and I think comfort is very personal. For my arthritis, it was a nightmare.

Tempur-pedic beds are made for flat rigid foundations. That is where they do best. If, however, your personal comfort dictated a box spring, use one. I would check your warranty first and see if this will make a difference. The Tempur-pedic brand specifies a "flat, rigid foundation" for the warranty to be in affect. At least they did when I tried it. Things may be different now. Also, this may be one of those situations where you get what you pay for. Our first memory foam bed was a "private label" store brand. Supposed to be just like "the big one" in every way. Well, it lasted two weeks in our house. The quality was very poor and the comfort level followed suit.

We sleep on latex now. If I could do it over again I would go with the flo-bed system. That way you can change out comfort levels as needed. For now, I will try to get at least 5 years out of my very expensive Spring Air bed and hope it holds up. Look at flobeds.com and see if that is to your liking. Otherwise, if cash is an issue, I would try a slatted foundation.  You can always use a slatted foundation under a different mattress choice. Best of luck.

Ouch, nothing is worse than a mattress that causes pain. You mention that you wake up feeling fine in hotel beds. Are those mattresses memory foam, latex or innerspring? It could be that your own mattress is not providing the correct kind of support. Sillymom makes an excellent point about cheap MFmattresses--and even about expensive Tempurpedic mattresses.

Slats will provide more "give" to the mattress than a solid platform foundation if your pain is caused by bottoming out and lying on a too-hard surface all night. A box spring will provide even more give, but as you've already discovered, you will also feel movement on the other side of the mattress. But if those motel beds are standard innerspring units, you may need more support than a foam mattress can give you.

Do any motels use anything but innerspring mattresses?

Slats do not provide much "give" unless they are flexible slats. They may flex a tiny bit, but that depends on what material they are made of, how thick they are, and how many of them there are. A slat foundation with slats spaced 1.5" to 2.5" as is typically recommended for foam mattresses is going to be pretty rigid even if the slats are made of garden variety 1x3 pine.

I don't know what "more support than a foam mattress can give you" means. I weigh 240 lbs and my all-foam mattress is more than supportive, and it's not even the most firm latex that's available. I will say that it seems to be harder to get a foam mattress that is both supportive AND comfortable, given how many of us fuss and fight to achieve a happy balance.

Some high-end hotels actually have latex mattresses. If you're talking Comfort Inn -- innersprings for sure... or maybe concrete.

Slat foundations flex, so yeah, that qualifies as more "give." A platform foundation is just hard and unyielding. Kind of like the floor.

I had a latex mattress, 32, 38, 44 ILD. Plenty of support. Just not the right kind of support. Foam, both latex and MF is conforming. One of the causes of back pain is lack of rigid support. Not all innerspring mattresses provide rigid support. Pocketed Coils for instance provide a level of support similar to latex. If Jacquie slept comfortably on a motel mattress she may need the rigid support of a Bonnel coil system. On the other hand she might just be bottoming out into a hard foundation. If her year-old MF mattress is not very high quality it may have softened to the point where she's hammocking into it.