I'm on a fairly firm memory foam mattress, unfortunately. Slowly fixing my sleep posture (long time face down sleeper, this likely screwed me up), but it takes time to condition yourself to accept sleeping differently
This is hugely important. In fact, as I write this I’m lying on a mattress at my dad’s, who I am visiting, knowing my back will hurt tomorrow. It isn’t only about the money, though. The correct firmness for your weight, etc. matter a great deal. Not trivial to pick from a catalogue or even from trying them out for 30sec at the store, though… the one I’m going to be sleeping on tonight might have been more expensive than the one I have at home, but it just wasn’t chosen by me, for my profile.
Having said this: closing in on my 50s, back pain is becoming a recurrent but unwelcome companion (along with its many crappy friends, such as knee aches and poor eyesight)…
You say that like it's the easiest thing in the world. We had a great bed for the last ten years but it is done.
Bought a super expensive extra firm mattress... immediate back pain. Stuck it out for a month, no good. Couldn't return it coz we chose wrong...now I have a stupidly expensive guest bed.
Tried one of the mattress in a box companies who claimed to be one of the firmest available. it was a soggy mess.
Returned. Bought another with a less favourable return policy but half the price...my wife hated it so much that I donated it to the local op shop.
Were on our latest mattress now and my back is absolutely killing me.
It's just impossible to know what will work for you. A quick lay down in the shop isn't going to cut it, but I am sick to death of looking. A real shame the company that made our original super firm mattress went out of business.
This is why I think my next mattress is gonna be one of those sleep number joints. I've got a tempurpedic or however tf it's spelled that was great when I first got it, but after four lumbar surgeries to fix a work injury, not so much
I understand the spirit of this comment but I think it’s pretty clear that the person you’re replying to is simply trying to offer helpful advice in fairly neutral tone.
And it is the correct advice. A mattress doesn’t cost less simply because it’s softer it certainly doesn’t cost more just because it’s firmer. Budget aside, there is definitely a degree of personal choice when choosing a mattress.
Thanks, I’m trying to work on being less rash overall. It’s easy to pick fights with people on the internet over any dumb thing but I feel like it starts to mess with your core personality after a while.
You and the other person you are having a discussion with really make me like this site more. It is nice(and sad that it is nice) to see two people having a civil conversation after being on reddit for like 10ish years.
If you've got a mattress now and it hurts your back then you already bought a mattress with your own money and it wasn't appropriate for you, so you could have spent that money, your own money, not mine, better.
Mattresses should be replaced much more frequently than most people change them... Heck, we'll spend 30k on a car every 5 years to spend 2h a day in it, but we won't spend 1k on a good mattress every 10 years even though we spend 8h+ a day on it... Crazy right?
Don't even need to spend a fortune really, Ikea has fairly good cheap mattresses 🤷
Whatever the amount, we spend a whole lot on cars (or other things) over a mattress' lifespan yet we spend way more time on our mattress than in our car, but we still act like they never need to be replaced.