• HEALTH & RECOVERY
    Welcome Guest
    Posting Rules Bluelight Rules Thread Directory 1 Thread Directory 2
    Mindfulness Links Addiction & Mind
    Sober Living Partner Program (SLiPP)
  • H&R Moderators: VerbalTruist

Back pain & flipping your mattress...

Cautious_Optimist

Cautious_Optimist

Greenlighter
Joined
Jan 10, 2014
Messages
39
Location
Near NYC, USA
I've been waking with back pain the past couple days and am convinced its from my bed. I'll try flipping/rotating my mattress but I'm curious if anyone else ever does that and whether they feel it helps. The mattress itself is about 6 years old so I'm not sure it's necessarily time for a new one...
 
You can try doin that and I hope it helps. If you also want to try you can the tempur pedic matress and see if it helps you.

I also have a bad back from sitting long hours in the office so I try to do some back stretching as much and exercise seems to help too.
 
If you've only had a mattress for six months but it wasn't good quality to begin with, it could be time for a new one. I mean, a good quality mattress should last 15 years but if it's not super high quality then maybe not. Maybe it's time for a new mattress?

But flipping your mattress can help. It certainly helped me when I had an older mattress.
 
deltakappamu said:
Is it lower back pain or upper? Can you please describe the pain? Stabbing, burring, aching, throbbing, dull, sharp.. and is it intermittent or constant?
Click to expand...

The pain is in my mid-upper (kind of my pectoral) back, on my R side. It is a dull aching pain that is worst upon waking (it actually wakes me as it worsens as the night goes on) and then lessens as the day goes on...
 
^ If that's where your pain is, I'd consider what pillow you're using before changing your mattress. Upper back problems often have a relationship to the cervical spine.

Look at this image and note where the natural curves in the spine are. If you have a pillow which forces your neck to be more flat, then it will put pressure on the thoracic curve to flatten and cause pain.
 
I have found that spring mattresses in general cause this. I'm not sure about memory-foam or what have you, but spring-based mattresses always seem to bend my body into a slightly hammock-like shape. I eventually got tired of this and went to sleeping on a shikibuton. I sleep on spring mattresses occasionally now, for example when I spend the night at my girlfriend's house, and to be honest, I do enjoy the softness of it for awhile until I start to get the familiar pains that you have described (usually after being in the bed for a few hours...)
 
Thanks all for your replies. Thus far I've flipped and am now trying repositioning my body as I sleep. I can't say its better but its not worse.

Ugh, the human body...
 
I slept on a bed in a rehab...every morning I woke up really sore. I had not had back pain in years. I thought it was just after effects of withdrawal...but I looked at mattress n could see an ovvious indentation. Probably hadn't been flipped in ages...I flipped it and next morning woke feeling much better...

And yes sometimes different pillow height when sleeping away from home causes pain for me as well...

All you can do is try changes and see what works for you ! Good luck...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top