I've gotta get some advice on buying a mattress.

I've chosen to live very simply over the last few years, with few regrets. One of the regrets I do have is that I wake up every morning with back pain largely because of the cheap foam mattress I sleep on. It's basically like a piece of 6" yellow foam on top of wood slats. I realize that even having that makes me quite wealthy and fortunate by local standards, but living with daily discomfort still stinks.

So I'll be headed back to the US in a little over a year for a furlough and with that move will come a relocation allowance. I'll need to purchase a mattress and won't have an extravagant budget, but I'm realizing increasingly that a decent mattress is a good investment. One more note: I'm 6' 3" (190 cm) and weight about 220 lbs (100 kg or 15.7 stone). I've had problems with every mattress I've ever owned gradually sagging and forming a valley where I sleep (even when I rotate and flip it.) Sometimes that doesn't happen until I've owned it for a year or more, so I'm hoping to not be disappointed again. Rarely happens for my wife's side, or not nearly as badly, so there's definitely a weight where many mattresses just throw in the towel and gives up. I'd like some recommendations on:

1. Mattresses that you've specifically found to be good for dealing with back soreness (for me it's in the lumbar region).

2. Mattresses that have held up well over time for people who are big.

I'm hoping to get some real value and satisfaction out of this mattress, since I'm likely not going to be able to afford another one for quite some time. I realize that a year in advance is a long time to start shopping in advance, but if I can get some kind of idea of what I want, then I can start checking out prices and budgeting appropriately.

Thanks so much!

Well, the exact opposite of that would be a waterbed. Depending on what sort of back pain you have and the cause, the waterbed might help you. My back did hurt in the mornings with a waterbed (not badly, the pain went away very shortly upon getting up) and I slept on one for 20 years, but didn't realize that there was a better alternative until my wife came into my life with her Tempurpedic queen-size mattress on a hospital-style powered adjustable bed frame. However... these mattresses are not inexpensive, running well into multiple thousands of dollars, and they are enormously heavy and awkward (200-300 pounds?) and probably difficult to ship to Belize. There are memory-foam alternatives to the Tempurpedic brand for substantially less money, but I know nothing about them. After sleeping on the Tempurpedic for, lets see now, 2012 minus 2005, that's about seven years now, I would go without shoes before I went without the Tempurpedic.

If there is a way to try out a waterbed, you might see if it might suit your needs.

tanstaafl.

My old mattress had this problem. It was some major brand name and it just eventually sagged in the middle. My wife hated it, so when we moved into our new house, we ditched it and went to Macy's, which has a remarkably large mattress selection. (Plus, if you time it right, they will sometimes have significant sales.)

We ended up dropping something like $4K on a king size Macy's-brand mattress that claims it need not be flipped or rotated. It's "firm", which we both prefer, yet has a layer of memory foam on top so it's not like you're sleeping on a board. Four years in, we're still completely happy with it. My wife, in particular, used to complain of lower back pain with the old mattress and she loves the new one.

For size comparison, I'm 5'11" and 195 pounds, so in the same ballpark as you in terms of the damage I do to a mattress.

Thanks Doug. A Tempurpedic is not off the table. I'll be in the US for at least a year and when I move I'll likely be able to take it with me or put it in storage. So no sagging on the Tempurpedic after at least 7 years now?

Thanks Dan. I'll have to see if I can figure out who Macy's uses for their mattresses. They're likely just a re-brand of a major manufacturer.

A lot of big-name mattress makers have extra "firm" models -- definitely what you should be looking into.

Cheers

The reason I won't buy a foam mattress is the insulation they provide. You wind up cooking in your own reflected body heat.

This is what I'm afraid of, and why I posted my own thread about mattresses a ways back. But what I really need is a way to test one of those mattresses out first. It seems crazy to me to buy a mattress - especially a type I've never slept on before - without trying it for even one night, when you're going to be stuck with it for a third of your day for the next 10-20 years! It's the most absurd shopping experience I can think of!

It really makes me appreciate that racket the hotels have going where they'll sell you a mattress like the one you slept on during your stay. I'm sure you're paying a heck of a markup, but at least you know what it's going to feel like.

I tried calling around to see if any hotels in my area had Tempurpedic or even just foam mattresses, and none of them did (though that didn't surprise me).

I'm just having a really difficult time with this whole "buying the most important furniture in your home without properly testing it out first."

I know this is a weird question, but if you took a ruler to that indentation in your bed (while nobody was on it), how deep would you say the sag is?

Looking at the Tempurpedic website, it looks like they warranty it for 20 years, provided the bed rests on their own foundation and frame. Remember that you HAVE to get a new foundation for a Tempurpedic, and can't use your old box springs. But they'll warranty it for anything over .75" of sag, so maybe that would be appealing to you. I have no idea if this warranty would hold up in Belize, but at least they're standing behind their product.

I would guess my own bed has more than that much sag on my side. I have a little less hight and a little more weight than you, so I'm very concerned about mattress sag as well

Yeah, I'm talking about 2-3 inches of sag, and more when I'm in the bed.

Yikes! That IS pretty bad. I wonder if part of that is because of the wood slats? I remember having those for my bed when I was a kid, and they didn't seem to provide good support...

That depends entirely on the slats, no sag on our slatted bed.

After almost exactly 7 years of daily use, it looks like I have maybe .25" of sag. It's not a big depression in the middle of the mattress, but a slight low spot that runs across the width of the bed about where my hips would rest.

The Tempurpedic has a thick, ventilated mattress cover that, for me at least, alleviates this problem. I've never had a problem with overheating.

tanstaafl.

It's not the slats. They're nearly 1 inch thick tropical hardwood. I can stand on them easily with little or no flex. The problem is that the mattress is just piece of yellow foam. However, I had the same problem with my last two mattresses in the US, which were inner spring mattresses with a box spring and metal frame. They were probably sagging at least 1.5 in" on my side and 3/4" on my wife's side with a hump in the middle. Then after flipping them, they sagged on both sides.

Tell me about it. It's regularly well over 80 degrees at night and no A/C. Sometimes I wake up soaked in my own sweat on wet sheets. ewww. and with 90% humidity, I'm lucky if they dry completely before the next night.

My wife loves the foam covers, but even here in Scotland I end up cooked, so we are trying to find a mattress with foam only on one side, but still the same height all the way across.

No joy so far!

It's been quite hot here the last few days (humidity over 80%) but we haven't had any heat related issues with our ventilated foam mattress, never have.

While I don't have chronic back pain, I do have it occasionally and took that into account when buying my current mattress (which I got like 7 or 8 years ago). I went with the Select Comfort bed. The ability to change the firmness makes all the difference in how my back feels the next morning, sometimes I need firmer support than others.

I'm 6'3" and 205lbs, and the mattress has held up very well. I did spend quite a bit on it (either top of the line or second from when I got it), but I feel that it was well worth it.

My parents have one of those 'sleep number' beds and it does seem quite good. Being basically an air mattress, so it can't sag, but it doesn't feel any different than any other mattress. My dad spends about 20 hours a day on it with no sign of wear. I think it's around 10 years old.

I was in a hotel once with one of those things. I found it uncomfortable at every setting.

I figure mattresses are very personal. There's no such thing as a "best" mattress for everybody.

Can you just use a foam cover and only put it on half?

I believe they are fitted with elastic in the ends.

Not the one we have it's just a pad. I have been thinking about cutting it in half because something my wife does when she gets in the bed causes the pad to be pulled over to her side. Then I end up half on the pad and half off.

+1 for Tempur.

We've had one for 2 years, and I recommend it warmly.
In Rome it can get hot in summer (up to 40 Celsius degrees), but I never had issue with temperature, which supposedly depends on the fact that the memory foam they use is ventilated.

Depending on your weight, they will recommend specific models and related thickness. I weight 75/80 Kg, but I am positive they had different (thicker) models for people of 100Kg and above.

Vaguely related question:

I've always had polyester fiber-filled pillows. After a few years, they get lumpy, but they don't cause me any allergy issues and they provide enough support, no matter whether I'm on my side, back, or front.

I recently stayed at a friend's place, and he had a Tempurpedic foam pillow of some sort (latex?) that was surprisingly comfortable. It had one side thicker than the other, presumably to give you more options for how you want to use it. Poking around, I see a wide diversity of different pillow types out there (memory foam vs. latex, never mind odder things like pillows filled with buckwheat hulls -- basically finer-quality beanbags). Has anybody here investigated the diversity of pillow types? We're ready to get some new pillows.

We got Tempur memory foam pillows as well. They are ergonomically shaped with a thinner section in the middle, and edges of two different thickness, theoretically to best accomodate your head and neck. The idea is that if you sleep on one side you will want the thicker edge under your neck, while if you sleep on your back, you'll want the less thick edge under your neck.

I have to say they work pretty well with me, and I'd recommend those. Also, I'd recommend memory foam over latex (which I had before), as it tends to be significantly more comfortable. Also, still on paper, Tempur memory foam is ventilated (they claim it is made with some sort of "open" nanotubes) and in addition should not cause allergies. That was the case for me, for what it's worth, but I never had allergies in general.
When I made some research (most of it was made by my gf, actually), Tempur seemed to be considered the best in the market. I really don't know enough tech details to support that, but after two years I am quite happy with their products.

Interestingly, we recently bought a memory foam mattress from Ikea for another house, which is what I am using in these days, and albeit the memory foam layer is only 7cm - and of course it costs a fraction of Tempur - it is not bad at all. Definitely not as comfortable as Tempur (one can easily tell the difference), but way better than other mattresses I've tried.

I'm a big fan of feather pillows. (I don't know if you mention allergies because you're allergic to feathers or not.) Amazon has a private label called "Pinzon" that makes good ones for a good price.

Yeah, feather pillows are all kinds of bad news for my allergies.

Tempur is a petroleum product and Latex is a natural product - in case that matters to anyone. Tempur and all similar foam products will off-gas for a while - some people are sensitive to this even after years of use.

I think the heat issue you see a lot of complaints about with Tempur and similar products can be managed through different coverings. Even on a traditional fabric-covered sprung mattresses, different sheets can breath completely differently and affect your comfort level.

My favorite so far has been a memory foam layer on top of a multi-layered latex base. Latex will not break down and lose shape like the cheaper foams used on some "memory foam" products. Even on a real "Tempurpedic" product of say 12", not the entire 12" is made from Tempur.

I needed to update this thread because we finally got a new mattress.

I'll sum up like this: my wife wanted pillowtop, now neither of us is happy.

*sigh*

So now I'm posting this mattress on Craigslist for about $300 less than we bought it about a month ago, and we'll try to figure out what to get. Even my wife, who is always cold, finds herself burning up from the pillowtop spring mattress. We got a very nice one (Stearns and Foster), but it's way to warm for us.

I know that mattresses are subjective, but I would have thought that there would be at least some consensus on what the coolest mattress is, or the coolest combination of mattress/pad/sheets would be.

Does anyone have any new thoughts on this subject? I could really use some help. I haven't had a good night's sleep in weeks...

For what it's worth, my wife and I went to Macy's, years ago, and tried every damn mattress in the store. We settled on a Macy's brand firm mattress. It's got some memory foam on top, but it's not a pillow top. You didn't say whether you got a firm or soft mattress, but that may be part of your problem. If you sink down, then you've got more of your surface area against the mattress, and that means more thermal problems.