Rest of the Sleep Disorders Forum Posting

Posted by Honest Expert on January 16, 2001 at 20:53:41:

In Reply to: Thanks & More Questions posted by Ruby on January 16, 2001 at 20:52:07:

Dear Ruby,

I'm afraid you and I need to have a talk. Would you take a moment and sit over here where no one can overhear us? Thank you.

Ruby, of all the things you will ever buy, there is nothing you will use as much as your bed. Of all the things you own, only your refrigerator will likely be used more ... but that won't be used by you most of the time: It will just sit there running. Your mattress is incredibly important! You *must* give it the attention that something so important needs. How you sleep at night and how you feel durng the day maybe directly related to this decision.

I know it can be a ego-stressing thing to do, but you *have* to go try mattresses to see what they feel like. Take a friend and have some laughs. Any competant salesperson will have dealt with just such embarrassment many times and will help put you at ease. Mattress shopping -- once you get passed that first shock -- can be a lot of fun! Wear loose, relaxed, comfortable (and modest) clothes and a minimum of jewelry. Either wear shoes that you can slip on and off easily, or simply don't worry about getting your feet up on the bed: They expect it. But DON'T try laying on the bed with your feet hanging over ... unless that is how you sleep!

Mail-order mattress shopping is even less reliable than buying mail-order shoes (and many of us know how miserable an experience THAT can be!)

OK, back to your note:

What you are describing as having slept on (or NOT slept on!) in the hospital is commonly known as an "egg-crate" pad. The bumpiness (convolution) is there to allow for more air circulation ... which is supposed to keep you COOLER! I understand that your experience was just the opposite! ((As a side note: Bed-Sores are primarily caused by pressure on the "down" side restricting the bloodflow to an area, combimed with the heat that is trapped in that area. The result is a sore that is something like Gangrene and can have 4 levels of severity. The "egg-crate" is partly designed to reduce the pressure on a given spot, while allowing more heat to escape. For this purpose they work fairly well.))

When I speak of open-cell and closed-cell foams, I am speaking of the actual construction of the billions of tiny bubbles that make up the foam itself. Closed-cell foams are like billions of balloons all squeezed together to form the foam, except there is virtually no air between the balloons. Heat tends to get trapped, because there are very few routes for the warm air to escape: Heat escapes when you move away from the area.

Open-cell foams, on the other hand, are sort of like 3/4 balloons! They are not sealed. There tend to be millions of tiny air passages in and around the balloonlets. These passages create channels where warm air can escape, even if you don't move away from the spot where you are laying, but only move a little. A sponge like you might wash dishes with is an open-celled foam: Note how easily it picks up water. A closed-cell foam will pick up much less water.

(More than you wanted to know, I'm sure!)

The bad news about the mattress you have had for about 6 months is: It is probably not a very good mattress. Unfortuantely, some foams are like Yugos and some foams are like Rolls Royces. As much as I'd like to tell you different, you probably did not get much more than a "Chevy" foam for about $350 ... and maybe not that, depending on the seller. But I DO lack one important piece of information: What size mattress do you have?

When you replaced your mattress, did you replace your Box Spring too? Just like mattresses, Box springs can begin to sag, too. If you put a new mattress over an old Box Spring, the sag that you are seeing may be the mattress following the contour created by the Box Spring rather than a breakdown of the mattress. This is fairly common.

If you can, try putting the mattress on the floor to see if the dip is still there. If it is, there may be something wrong with the mattress ... but not necessarily.

One of the changes that has occurred in recent years is to make mattresses so that they shape to fit the body of the person sleeping on them (Like the insoles of your shoes adapt to the shape of your foot). This has been found to make mattresses more comfortable to a person who sleeps on it all the time. I cannot say if this is a property of the mattress you own, but if it is an all foam construction, it is very unlikely.

One of the other things that can give the look of a dip is the way we sleep. We tend to spend all of our time in roughly one place, which means that that spot gets mushed and compressed while the surriounding areas hardly ever do. The areas where you have not slept are not "broken in" yet because those areas have not flexed and compressed like the sleeping area. Again, it is a bit like shoes: If you buy two pairs at one time, but only wear one fairly often, the second will not look or feel the same for a while. You may find that it will all even out over time. (If you have kids or grandkids, one thing you can do is let them get up and walk around on these less-worn areas to help you even them out. It'll help you out and they'll love the rare chance to walk on the bed! This works well for the hump that can form between two sleepers, too, on the newer mattress constructions.)

Unfortuantely for you, the selection of all foam mattresses today is not what it used to be. Today, the rule of thumb is: Foam mattresses are either the cheapest mattress that a store sells, strictly for the price shopper ... or are very high-tech foams like the "memory foam" or Stearns and Foster Infinilux, which are almost invariably more expensive, whether or not used with innersprings. There are very few "medium quality" foam mattresses. (With a proviso that there are many many brands of mattresses out there that I am not familiar with).

I'm sorry Ruby, but there really is no substitute for shopping around. You almost have to forget what you know from the past -- including pricing -- and find a bed that you LOVE. Once you find a mattress you love, THEN play competitors against each other to give you the best deal! Mattress construction bears a striking resemblance to the mattresses they built a hundred years ago, but he materials have changed dramatically.

Good luck and feel free to ask me as many and any questions you like.

Follow Ups:

• Still More Ruby 20:54 1/16/01 (1)
  • Re: Still More Honest Expert 20:56 1/16/01 (0)

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