That's the problem I run into any time I tweak my mattress. I have chronic lower back pain and if I engage in some activity that puts additiional strain on it it hurts even more. And sometimes it just hurts a lot for no reason in particular other than the barometric pressure has changed or it's damp out or cold at night... who knows? So I can never really be sure now if the mattress configuration is to blame or if it's just me. One thing I haven't run across yet is an arrangement that actually makes it feel better.
I hope you come up with something that is comfortable for you. I tend to think the less foam between you and the springs the better. Especially with lower back pain. But since you have pain in other areas of your body you may have to zone the mattress which makes it even more complicated.
Yeah, cloud9, ain't it great having back pain that seems to be caused by anything or nothing?
Well, you apparently did not notice but I AM zoning my mattress! I bought all pieces of foam 1" x 25" x 37-and-1/2" just so I could zone it into 3 zones.
My back has been slowly getting a little better (that is, out of acute pain!) over the past week and last night I think I finally hit on a very good combination of foam for my mattress.
Since I also have upper shoulder/neck/arm problems this is what I had confgured 2 nights ago:
For my shoulder area, from top to bottom:
2 layers of medium ILD visco foam (3/4" each)
2 layers 3/4" latex - low ild (24?)
1/2" Extra Firm HR foam (61ILD)
Sealy springs
For my hip section I had this from the bottom up:
1" Medium HR foam 31ILD
1" Firm HR foam 41 ILD
1/2" Extra Firm HR foam
Sealy springs
If you notice, the shoulder zone in the above configuration has an extra inch of foam, but since it was mostly very low ILD I thought that I'd sink down into it enough that it would not put me out of alignment.
Well, for the first night since building my mattress I found that I woke up with NO lower back pain, which had been really plaguing me (also, I had a higher ILD under my hips in previous configurations which I guessed, finally, might have been too firm, so I was right, the Medium over Firm was better for me than Firm over Firm and Firm over Very Firm.
So I got a much better night's sleep last night.
However, I woke up with a slightly sore UPPER back, now!
But on waking up I had my wife shoot a photo of my back as I lay on my side and sure enough my back and head were curving upwards from the extra foam at the shoulder area and the too-high pillow (before it was too low) .
So NOW I took out one layer of latex from the shoulder area so it is now only slightly higher than the hip section, and I took the visco foam of my pillow and shaved off about an inch using my electric carving knife.
So now I have the same middle section as above, but now the Shoulder section is as follows:
2 layers of medium ILD visco foam (3/4" each)
1 layer 3/4" latex - low ild (24?)
1/2" Extra Firm HR foam (61ILD)
Sealy springs
In my view, the feet section doesn't matter much. I generally just use it as a storage area for 2 different ILD's of HR foam that I can interchange as needed with the shoulder or hip area.
If all this sounds crazy, all I can say is, IT SEEMS TO BE WORKING!
And my wife likes her mattress just fine (we have 2 twins right together so as to avoid disturbing each other with tossing and turning/ cover stealing in the night).
I'm anxious to see if tonight, having made the change to my pillow and shoulder section, I might wake up with NO pain! That would be amazing...
But like you say, it's not ALL the mattress, sometimes it's just my back hurting for no good reason, or from something I did "wrong", and so sometimes it hurts no matter what. But if I can find a configuration that gives me at least SOME good nights of sleep, then I think I'll stick with it for awhile and see if I can work on my back problem during the day by doing the right exercises and stretches and so on.
