Since then, that blog has morphed into this (more interesting, I hope!) lifestyle blog, but I was amazed and encouraged to find that the post received more comments than almost anything else I've ever written. I clearly wasn't alone.
So I'm reblogging it here - and giving you an update. The original post went like this.
I Hate My Memory Foam Mattress.
A few weeks ago, we finally bit the bullet and got rid of our much-too-old mattress. replacing it with a brand new 'memory foam' mattress - hyped to the eyeballs, NASA technology and all that.
If you google memory foam in an effort to research your purchase beforehand, you will find lots of positive comments, most of them put there by the manufacturers. In the interests of fairness, I have to report that my husband loves it. He lies very still and he has arthritis. He thinks it is wonderful. I, on the other hand, toss and turn. And I cannot tell you how much I hate, loathe and detest it. It's like sleeping on warm quicksand. It sucks. Literally. It sucks you in. It moulds itself to your body, right enough, but when you move, or try to turn over, difficult on this awful stuff, you find residual lumps and bumps in your new position. It is incredibly hot. And it stinks. In fact this disgusting smell was seemingly why it wasn't used on the space shuttle for which it was originally intended. They tell me the stench fades with time but two weeks on and it's still there. Fly tipping is beginning to seem like an attractive option, but hey, the ghastly thing cost a lot of money. This wasn't a cheap option.
I Hate My Memory Foam Mattress.
A few weeks ago, we finally bit the bullet and got rid of our much-too-old mattress. replacing it with a brand new 'memory foam' mattress - hyped to the eyeballs, NASA technology and all that.
If you google memory foam in an effort to research your purchase beforehand, you will find lots of positive comments, most of them put there by the manufacturers. In the interests of fairness, I have to report that my husband loves it. He lies very still and he has arthritis. He thinks it is wonderful. I, on the other hand, toss and turn. And I cannot tell you how much I hate, loathe and detest it. It's like sleeping on warm quicksand. It sucks. Literally. It sucks you in. It moulds itself to your body, right enough, but when you move, or try to turn over, difficult on this awful stuff, you find residual lumps and bumps in your new position. It is incredibly hot. And it stinks. In fact this disgusting smell was seemingly why it wasn't used on the space shuttle for which it was originally intended. They tell me the stench fades with time but two weeks on and it's still there. Fly tipping is beginning to seem like an attractive option, but hey, the ghastly thing cost a lot of money. This wasn't a cheap option.
If you are considering one of these, try properly before you buy, and I don't mean a three minute test in the shop. You have been warned.
Cue forward some years and - predictably - we no longer have a memory foam mattress. We replaced it with a lovely, deep, sprung mattress that both of us can sleep on or in my case, with chronic insomnia, try to sleep on. But not before I had practically been crippled by the mattress from hell, waking up every morning with painful limbs, too hot, too uncomfortable and too miserable to do much more than complain bitterly.
Cue forward some years and - predictably - we no longer have a memory foam mattress. We replaced it with a lovely, deep, sprung mattress that both of us can sleep on or in my case, with chronic insomnia, try to sleep on. But not before I had practically been crippled by the mattress from hell, waking up every morning with painful limbs, too hot, too uncomfortable and too miserable to do much more than complain bitterly.
For a while, I even took myself off to the spare room to sleep. The only good thing was that the smell dissipated. (Yay!) Everything else about it remained hateful although my husband still loved it, still remembers it with affection. Within a couple of years, its memory had started to go as well, so it had a definite ditch in the middle.
In the intervening years, I gather they have made improvements, all to address the faults that I kept being told didn't exist or were in my imagination: the heat, the fact that you're actually meant to move about in bed, not stay rigidly in one position, however well supported; the way in which about half the population will find them supremely uncomfortable.
When we were buying the new mattress, we passed a couple debating over memory foam.
'I hate it. It'll cripple me,' said the husband.
'I'm sure you'll get used to it,' said his wife, cheerfully.
I caught his eye over the mattress and shook my head. 'Oh, no, you won't!' I whispered
In the intervening years, I gather they have made improvements, all to address the faults that I kept being told didn't exist or were in my imagination: the heat, the fact that you're actually meant to move about in bed, not stay rigidly in one position, however well supported; the way in which about half the population will find them supremely uncomfortable.
When we were buying the new mattress, we passed a couple debating over memory foam.
'I hate it. It'll cripple me,' said the husband.
'I'm sure you'll get used to it,' said his wife, cheerfully.
I caught his eye over the mattress and shook my head. 'Oh, no, you won't!' I whispered
Later next week, and in much the same vein - my search for the perfect pillow! Watch this space.
Comments
Not sure what we'll get but not memory foam, that's for sure