my aching bed

February 26, 2018 8:58 AM

I recently replaced my mattress last year due to Harvey flooding. I am a side sleeper and experience frequent pressure point pain on my shoulders. So I thought I had chosen my new mattress carefully. I ended up getting a softer one with a pillow top.

Alas, I still have the problem despite having pillows I love. So I was researching other types of bedding. Particularly I was looking at one of the foam types. I have heard mixed reviews about these. Some say they are very comfortable and some say they can be hot. As an aside my old bed had a foam top and I still had the pain.

Can anyone share their experiences with foam beds? Good and bad? My arms may thank you.

posted by jtexman1 to Shopping (9 answers total)

I also am a side sleeper, I also get back pain. that is, I used to get back pain until I got a high-density foam mattress.

I think with the foam mattresses, the firmness really makes a difference. For me, I need a really firm mattress, and this one absolutely works - it's something I got cheap at a foam-and-futon warehouse type of place here in NYC years ago, and is nothing more than a huge thick slab of foam. They let me lie down on a couple of densities and try out which one I thought would work best. They also offered me an allergen-proof cover, but I said no (but such a thing exists). It's held up for something like 12 years now.

There is the issue of heat retention, but I fix that by simply spreading an old blanket on top of the mattress in the summer before making the bed. In winter the heat retention is good and I leave it as is.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:48 AM on February 26, 2018

I've got a foam mattress (from Costco). My bedmate and I recently decided the mattress was too hard and got a softer foam topper (also from Costco) and now the bed is even more comfortable. I think both the firm base and the soft top are important in this effort. I struggle to find pillows that are reliably comfortable, and I do get neck and shoulder pain at night sometimes, but at the moment I feel like the mattress situation is pretty well sorted.

I don't think the mattress feels hot to me, but it's been so long since I had a spring mattress I'm not sure I can compare. I do like to turn the heat way down at night and pile on blankets. Sleep temperature sensitivity seems like a wildly personal thing - when we were shopping for our current mattress I found it really hard to distill any sense of popular consensus in that regard from foam mattress reviews. Did your previous foam top feel okay to you?
posted by adiabatic at 9:48 AM on February 26, 2018

I'm a side sleeper and I also sleep really hot. I thoroughly searched all those mattress comparison websites ahead of buying a new mattress last year, and I ended up buying a Saatva. It's got foam on top and springs on the bottom, so you get the support benefits of the foam and the springs let air circulate underneath your body a little better. I like mine; I got the medium firm one but I wish I could have also test-driven the soft one.
posted by clavicle at 10:39 AM on February 26, 2018

We have a 10+ year old Tempur Pedic foam mattress and it really helps with the pressure points on my hips and shoulders when I sleep on my side. But, in the summer it *is* hot. We bought a wool mattress cover (this thick one!) that really helps with the heat retention. We just ended up keeping it on the bed in the winter, too.
posted by jillithd at 10:50 AM on February 26, 2018

Sidesleeper / bellysleeper here. I feel for you, these kind of questions always produce such a confusing variety of responses.

Let me say a word on behalf of a different kind of foam: latex.

I have a firm latex mattress with a cushy pillow-topped mattress cover, and I absolutely love it. It doesn't suck you in or hold heat like memory foam. Plus it's super durable. Mine came with a 20-year guarantee, and a decade in, there is NO, I repeat, NO BUTT DIVOT. They're not cheap, but so worth it when you realize you won't have to buy a new one every decade or so.

I also use one of those U-shaped body pillows. Having something between my knees makes all the difference for happy side-sleeping.
posted by ottereroticist at 11:36 AM on February 26, 2018 [1 favorite]

10 years on^*, I'm still a huge fan of my latex mattress from Sleep EZ. Unlike memory foam, which always makes me overheat, the latex stays cool -- and it's held up flawlessly.
posted by piro at 1:29 PM on February 26, 2018 [1 favorite]

Side sleeper, ached on a firm sprung mattress so changed to a Casper memory foam one and absolutely love it
posted by fatfrank at 4:47 AM on February 27, 2018

I got one of those online memory foam mattresses (mine is a Casper, but other brands to check out include Leesa, Tuft & Needle, and Purple). Have had it for 2 years now. I am an exclusive side sleeper and find it extremely comfortable. No pressure point pain on shoulders or hips. For me, anyway, it really does nail the balance between support and softness.

It doesn’t sleep hot at all. That was my biggest worry about it. On my old mattress, I’d had a memory foam topper that slept incredibly hot, like I’d wake up covered in sweat. But the Casper mattress doesn’t trap heat like that at all. And I live in Texas in an apartment with not-great air conditioning.
posted by snowmentality at 6:10 AM on February 27, 2018 [1 favorite]

I have some gnarly rotator cuff pain from working manual labor jobs and my 15-year-old spring mattress was killer on it... until I invested $70 (for a full/double) into a Lucid foam mattress topper. I sprung for the 3-inch model for budget reasons, but I have seen rave reviews about the 6 and 8-inch ones. My pain was gone in my shoulders and I have gravitated from being a side sleeper to settling into a back sleeper. Conforms well to my body shape, I don't notice appreciable lumpiness in the topper, and though I sleep hot the heat retention only gets sweaty when someone adjusts the thermostat after I have retired to bed.

I recently swapped out bedding styles to a setup from IKEA (another budgetary move) and their firm (more like a plank of concrete) Mordegal foam mattresses were murder on my shoulder until I bought another Lucid foam topper. Solves the pain overnight. Hope this helps!
posted by missh at 10:16 AM on February 28, 2018