What kind of configuration would you suggest?

Talk To The Experts
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Hi all,
We bought an all latex mattress almost five years ago from a TM that has never really worked well for us from the start. It would be really great if we could use one or two of the layers we have (as re-configurability/not throwing out an entire mattress every few years was a huge selling point of this kind of mattress), but we might just have to start from scratch.

I spent a lot of time researching this overwhelming topic before we purchased back in 2019, and we did go see and “test” the mattresses in person, as the showroom/factory is relatively local to us. I really don’t have the energy to do it all again (especially since I’m currently sleeping terribly), so would love some expert advice. Sell me your mattress, please?!

My husband is 44, 6’ 3", 185 pounds, pretty evenly distributed, side and back sleeper. But he’s also pretty robust and un-fussy and seems to sleep okay just about anywhere. I am 42, 5’5", 145, mildly concentrated in the middle (like, torso, not necessarily booty/thighs) and have never been a great sleeper. I mostly sleep on my side these days, but slept on my stomach quite a bit until age 30, and my back quite a bit when our previous (memory foam) mattress was at its prime. I have a genetic connective tissue disorder called Hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, which means I have weak and fragile tissue (of all kinds). So I’m very sensitive to pressure points, but also my bones/joints are not held together the way everyone else’s are, so my muscles are constantly working overtime to try to stabilize joints that should be stabilized by connective tissue, so support is important too.

When we switched to latex, we were coming from a memory foam mattress for the previous 8 years. Before that, we had cheap/crappy innerspring pillowtops, so the memory foam was a massive improvement. The pressure relief and motion isolation did wonders for my sleep. But the memory foam had worn to the point that it was just way too quick-sandy. Changing positions took sooo much effort that it would wake me up every time. It was also just sleeping way too hot. We purchased it living in Cleveland and now live in Los Angeles. (We still live in LA, but have moved to a new place with much better climate control/it just doesn’t bake the way our old place did.) Latex seemed to promise the motion isolation and pressure relief of memory foam, minus the quicksand and overheating (and off-gassing).

Latex did solve the sweaty quicksand problem, but this mattress configuration has never delivered on motion isolation or pressure relief. It’s 1 x 3" layer of soft Talalay over 3 x 3" medium Dunlop, inside the classic cotton wool quilted encasement. I’m waking up with lower back pain (not enough support, I think), am rotating like a rotisserie all night long from pressure points on my hips and shoulders (not enough conforming of the comfort layers), and frequently wake (throughout the night) with numb arms/hands. It also feels like sleeping on a block of Jello with a hump in the middle. I can feel every movement/jiggle and the foam where we each sleep compressed quite quickly.

Coming from memory foam, I thought we might like a 9-10" mattress with a separate soft topper in a stretchy cover, but was counseled against it. I very much regret not following my instinct and taking that advice. I’m 99% sure we want/need a topper layer in a stretchy cover, or some kind of encasement with a much stretchier top. Beyond that, I am stumped. I do understand the difference between Talalay and Dunlop, but not sure I know what difference Talalay would make in the support layers vs. Dunlop. We were trying to get away from synthetic foams, but I’m beginning to think I just might require memory foam (but I hate sleeping hot, soo…), or that polyfoam support layers might fit our budget needs/better, as we weren’t planning on buying another mattress again so soon. (Our much cheaper memory foam mattress lasted longer.) We have a Cal King in one encasement, with the foam split, but both sides are the same. I think we’d repeat that because a Cal King sized piece of latex is unbelievably heavy and unwieldy, and it allows us to adjust just one side or the other going forward, if necessary.

If anyone would like to sell me a mattress, please do! We’re looking for a new vendor since the previous one seems to have no interest in helping us find the right mattress.

Many thanks in advance.

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Hi babycarrots.

Sorry to hear your current mattress is aggravating your EDS.

Has this been an issue since you first started sleeping on the mattress, or have the pressure points developed over time?

Talalay is frequently compared to angel food cake, where Dunlop is more often compared to pound cake. As someone who also lives with EDS, I agree that finding a happy medium is a job and a half! I find talalay to be comfortable to lay on (for me) but impossible for my hips if I’m just sitting on the bed.

Dunlop is going to be a little “sturdier” which may prove beneficial to jiggly joints.

Are you feeling like you’re sinking too far into the mattress you’ve currently got? Or just floating on the top and not getting pressure relief?

NikkiTMU

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Hi Nikki and
Thanks so much for your response.

Many (if not most) mattresses are Talalay on top with Dunlop underneath (as mine is) because 1) Dunlop is cheaper, and 2) It firms up more as it compresses, so is supposedly better suited for support layers. A while ago, I was reading a long thread where someone was sharing the details of their entire mattress “journey”, from deconstructing one that wasn’t working for them, through many iterations over quite some time trying to find the right configuration. I landed on that post because at one point he commented on another post something like it took him too long or he learned the hard way that having Talalay or Dunlop in the base/support layers does make a difference (for him, at least) and he preferred Talalay. So I clicked on over to his mattress journey post… and never finished reading it to get to the Talalay vs Dunlop base layers portion. :roll_eyes: I have to find it again and finish it. So that’s what was on my mind when I said that.

(Then there is Sleep on Latex who say they use an “enhanced” Dunlop process, and there is “slow response” and “fast response” talalay… I haven’t gotten in to this kind of nitty-gritty yet.)

This has been an issue since day one, but got worse quickly and over time as the foam compressed into two trenches on either side of the bed. The encasement is just way too firm and doesn’t allow for any feel of the foam or gentle conforming. Our memory foam mattress was not only memory foam, but had a a very soft, stretchy cover that really allowed the feel of the memory foam to come through. I’ve ordered a knit cotton topper cover. When that arrives, I’m going to remove the top of our encasement and put the top (soft Talalay) layer in it.

Kind of both. The top (encasement) is too firm and doesn’t allow for any conforming/pressure relief. But the support layers are too soft (or the foam too compressed), so it feels like a hammock. So I’m not exactly “sinking” in too far, but more like “slumping” in, where my hips are too low and my lower back aches.

I happened to order a coir-latex bed rug at the end of last year that I was originally planning to use under the mattress, but as I got in to mattress research, I began seeing it used in many “natural” mattresses now. So I think we’re going to experiment with adding that in the stack somewhere to hopefully firm it up, and then the top of the encasement removed and top layer in a stretchy cover to hopefully get some conforming and pressure relief. Might be a stop-gap improvement.

I think I need a much more complicated mattress configuration than four three-inch blocks of latex. I hope it doesn’t come down to needing zoning, but it might. I suspect I’d like much thinner and progressive comfort layers, like one or two inches of very soft over an inch or two of memory foam over an inch or two of soft, etc. (And of course definitely need a firmer support layer, at the very least to provide a much more rigid base to everything above it.)

I think this is going to be quite a process. We really wanted to get away from synthetic foams (I also have MCAS and am very sensitive to smells and off-gassing), but latex has gotten very expensive, and I’m not sure it’s worth the expense for three inches of firm latex all the way on the bottom of a 12 inch stack. Anyway…

Hope you are feeling well. EDS is so widely varying between different people, and then within each person on a day-to-day or month-to-month basis. You never know what you’re gonna get!

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