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I have bad back/neck/shoulder problems from a car accident 3 years ago, and no one has been able to help me fix it. I just live with pain, AND with tingling in my arms at night. Just for background info, 4-5 years ago my wife and I tried them all: Simmons, Sealy, Spring Air, Flobeds, Latex, Tempurpedic, etc.. None of them helped me with my back pain, and in the end we started using high-density foam and latex to create our own combinations. Of these, I hated Tempurpedic the most, I hate Simmons because they go bad so fast, the Spring Air just wasn't good, and the Flobeds was probably the best of the lot. However, that also did not work and in the end we bought 2 twin Sealys because they seemed as good as anything else and we got a good price and were tired of messing with it. We got 2 twins and put them side by side because they were so bouncy that otherwise my wife's constant tossing and turning (she has restless leg syndrome) kept me awake. As to my back, nothing worked, although the Sealy was okay for the first couple of years. Now they both have gotten way too soft and give us both back aches. I'd never buy another Sealy. 4 years is not a good lifetime for a mattress, and actually it started getting bad almost a year ago, so that's only 3 years... Our experience with high density foam and the harder memory foam toppers and ultra soft latex toppers was pretty good overall, so ... What I'm thinking of doing now is going back to experimenting with the high-density foam wtih latex on top idea... making our own combinations because we have a foam distributor nearby where we can get it pretty inexpensively - good high density regular foam and decent memory foam. Sometimes they have latex, sometimes they don't - we may have to buy the latex on the net. My back hurts so much now that nothing I am trying seems to help. If it's too soft, my lower back kills me; if it's too hard, my upper back kills me; and if it's between those 2 extremes, my back still hurts... But I'm trying to find a "happy medium". I think 5" of high compression foam and then a 2" high compression memory foam with a 1-2" latex topper might be good to experiment with (with and without one topper or the other...)(maybe buy a couple different denstiies of memory and latex to experiment with...) |
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LOL. I always wanted to be Queen of SOMETHING! :-) Lynn is my Co-Queen and what's-his-name (zoned latex expert) is the KING! :) I'm at the magic number---3 inches of foam. Actually, 2 and 3/4. Two inches of that is latex and then the HR PU foam. That might have been my trouble with the memory foam. I had it over approximately 2 inches of latex. Some of it medium and some of it soft. The inside of my mattress was firm latex and HR foam. But it was those TOPPERS that were tending to give way to my back. You know, I have to laugh because I had found this quote on a foam website: "If we were to select what we feel is "the best memory foam mattress topper" we would probably choose the 2 inch 4 lb or the 3 inch 5lb. Either of these would be an excellent choice. And this is what we choose when we are asked to recommend "the best" memory foam mattress topper. But our all time best selection is a 2 inch 4 lb memory foam topper on top of a 1 or 2 inch latex topper. With this combination you get the softness of the memory foam surface and the orthopedic support of latex". Anyway, that's what made me want to give it a try. Obviously, my experience wasn't the same as theirs! I'm still wondering how it would feel INSIDE my mattress. Has anyone had 4 lbs. memory foam inside a mattress? cloud9 wrote: I came across a few posts in the old forum from people who had performed mattress surgery. I think one person just took a box knife and cut around the top of the welting and just lifted off the top. At this point you will have a mattress without a top on it, but it will have sides and a bottom. Kind of like a box without a lid. Inside you will find PU foam and underneath that there should be some kind of mesh or compressed cotton pad between the foam and the springs. Many mattresses today have reinforced sides so the mattress should hold it's shape without the top. Remove the foam but leave the pad in place. This keeps the springs from chewing up the foam. </p><p>Someone else suggested just cutting open the foot end of the mattress top and not removing the entire top. I suppose they wanted to close it back up again, but you may find the foam bonded to the upholstry is sagging too, in which case you will just want to remove the entire top. If I was doing this (and at some point down the line I actually will be doing it) I would open one end first, peek inside and see if I can get the foam out without taking the whole top off. Then go on to Plan B if necessary. </p><p>If the top is unusable at this point just cover the new foam and sides of the existing mattress with a mattress pad that has elasticized sides deep enough to tuck under the bottom of the mattress. Once the bed is made you shouldn't even notice it's gone.</p><p>BeddyBye is by far the Foam Queen of this forum and I have already saved her suggestions for layering. I just want to stress that if you are trying to alleviate back pain the less foam you can bear to sleep on the better. Keep your layers thin and build them up in small increments. Don't over do it. Since you have some soft latex around you could try placing 2" of it over the fiber pad and seeing if that's comfortable. If you need more padding the 1" of HR foam BeddyBye recommended sounds like a good foundation to build on. Try not to go over 3" of foam total. I have found that seems to be the magic number. More than 3" and you lose back support.</p><p>My experience with memory foam is that it works best OVER firmer PU foam in thicknesses of no more than 2". When you put it over latex you tend to sag into both layers of foam and that is definitely NOT a good idea for lower back issues. Placing it under latex would probably be even worse. |