If Jann reads this, I’m gonna get an angry phone call, but hey — I paid for it.
My mattress, I mean. A year or so ago, I bought a new bedroom set, a really nice Craftsman set, through Jann’s boyfriend who works at JC Penney. Jann picked out a mattress set for me and shipped it; it’s a biggish box spring and an absolutely enormous mattress, one of those pillow tops that’s about 4 feet thick. Since I got it, it’s been like sleeping way up on a top bunk, it’s so high off the ground that I have a chair next to the bed so that Diego can make two leaps and get up onto it.
I’ve also been having back problems, poor circulation, neck spasms, and headaches when I wake up. It never occurred to me that it could be the mattress, which is very very soft and cushy.
Last week, I tried a little experiment: I turned the mattress upside down and slept on the bottom of it, a much firmer surface, kind of a hard foam. My headaches and stiff neck didn’t go away completely, but my back was much better.
So, I made a drastic decision. This morning, I performed surgery on my mattress.
Whoa, you say — that wasn’t a cheap mattress there! But hey, I say: if I do move away, I’m not hauling a mattress and box spring across country; and no one wants to buy a used mattress. So, I got out the x-acto knife… and cut off the pillow top.
I expected it to be a one piece thing filled with foam, but in fact, it turned out to be a couple of layers. The pillow top itself was just what you’d think: a foam-filled mini-mattress, completely self-contained. But underneath the pillow top was yet another piece of foam, the kind with little “egg cups”. I’d been sleeping on multiple foam layers on top of an already soft mattress.
I’ve left one layer of foam in place and ditched the pillow top; it’s now comfy but firm. If it’s still not firm enough, I can remove the last layer of foam later.
And all without a surgery residency.
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Like you I have back problems and while I would love a soft mattress my back just won’t let me do it.
You might try what I do and that’s to put a sheet of plywood between the boxspring and mattress. It firms everything up nicely.
And if it doesn’t work for you it’s easy to remove.
I was having some problems with my lower neck / upper back area and decited to try one of those memory foam pillows (you know, the ones developed by NASA). I stopped by the Bed Bath and Beyond and found one that I liked, but it was an astounding $80. I had a rough time contimplating $80 for a pillow, but then it dawned on me- on a good night I’m getting 8-10 hours of sleep, that’s a long time. If I was walking around for that amount of time I’d have no problem buying a pair of shoes for the same price.
I suppose it’ because I’m used to paying $80 for a pair of shoes, but only $10 for a pillow. So I took a gamble and bought the thing, and I’m really glad I did. It works out very well for me (I sleep on my back, kinda like a mummy) and I now find myself utterly unable to use any other type of pillow. I’m to the point where I take it with me when I travel.
Anyhoo, my whole point is that a memory foam pillow is a lot like a Forman Grill- everyone laughs at them, until they buy one.