I have LOTS of recent experience with back pain and mattress-buying, and here’s what I found –
I had lower back pain most mornings for about a year. This may have been because I’m a long distance runner and love to run hilly areas, which can cause major backaches, but also I think our too-soft bed was causing some of it. Anyway, two things fixed it –
First, I went to a fantastic massage therapist who is a real pro at both sports injuries and just general knowledge about how the body works, and he told me that an incredible percentage of his clients have lower back pain, but after he gets them doing the following exercise, it goes away. The exercise is called the “superman” and here’s how you do it: While laying on your stomach on the floor with your head slightly raised, you slowly lift one arm at the same time as lifting the opposite leg. Lift only about 6-12 inches. You then lower both your arm and opposite leg and repeat on the other side. I do about 30 of these each morning, and it has made a world of difference. It’s extremely easy and you feel like it’s doing nothing, but the exercise really isolates the exact muscle group that causes lower back pain, strengthens it and eventually gets rid of the pain. For me, it only took a couple weeks of doing this. I had been doing a lot of other core work, but none of it worked like this exercise. jp, I realize this isn’t where your pain is, and I’m sorry it seems that yours may be a more complicated medical issue.
Even after the exercises got rid of the pain, we still realized we needed a new bed. I launched into major research mode and read Consumer Reports (they just did an article about how to buy a bed), looked all over the internet, talked w/friends, doctors, etc, etc. Here’s what I learned –
It is really important to go in to several bedding stores and lay on as many mattresses as you can. Nothing can replace the importance of trying and feeling what is best for you. Don’t plan to buy until you’ve spent a considerable time doing this. Price has nothing to do with your future satisfaction so don’t assume you’re going to have to buy a sleep number bed, tempurpedic or any other specific type. What works for someone else might be terrible for you. Also, there’s no correlation between price and satisfaction on this.
You need to spend at least 15 mins on each mattress that you’re considering…5 mins on stomach, 5 mins on back, 5 mins on side. Don’t feel weird doing this – this is a huge purchase, not just financially but more importantly, your choice will determine your sleep satisfaction and restfulness (or lack thereof).
Beds have incredible mark-up so you really need to bargain with the store, and not just a little, but A LOT. For example, after going to numerous sleep stores and doing what I’ve suggested above, we ended up at Sleep Train focused on buying a Simmons Beautyrest Black Viola model (it’s so recent that I remember the name). I think this model retailed for close to $4000. We ended up talking with the salesguy for a long time about it, and then my hubby and I went into our “good cop, bad cop” mode. Unfortunately, I always have to play bad cop. After the sales guy came down a few hundred dollars and threw in no sales tax, my hubby said, “let’s just buy it, we’ve been looking forever and we just need it”. I said, “yes, I want it, too, but I’m just not going to spend over $2000 on a bed.” Blah, blah, blah…this went on for some time. The guy tried to show us other beds for $2000, but my hubby and I insisted this was the only one we wanted. We then said that we were going to have to shop around a little more (which obviously we really didn’t want to do), unless the sales guy would be willing to accept $2000 right now, with tax and delivery included. He went over to his desk, called his manager, spent a lot of time working the numbers, but we ended up getting the deal, which shows just how much mark-up there is in these things. Who knows, maybe we didn’t even get the best deal we could’ve gotten, but the point is that there is at least 100% mark-up on these expensive beds.
The funny thing is that when the guy who delivered our bed was putting it in our bedroom, my husband made a comment about the mark-ups on beds, and the delivery guy told us that he gets a huge discount with the company, and he actually ordered a pricier model than ours and paid $400 with his company discount…so, maybe that’s what the bed actually costs the manufacturer. If so, we still clearly overpaid by buying the $4000 model for $2000. Anyway, it’s ridiculous! Also, with the housing slowdown, the bedding industry has been enormously impacted, and there are more deals to be had than ever.
Last point – make sure you go to a store that has a good return policy. Sleep Train lets you return the mattress for a credit towards another one within 60 days as long as you’ve used one of those whole mattress covers and there isn’t a single mark on it. We love ours and have no intention of getting another one, but it’s nice to know we have that option. I think Mattress Discounters and others have the same policy. Maybe it’s even the law, I don’t know.
A good night’s sleep is SO important, yet buying a mattress is such a ridiculously expensive and frustrating experience. You need fortitude, patience and persistence – good luck!!
