Re: Mattress Selection

If you have not made your move, I would suggest a Sealy Posturepedic or a Simmons Beautyrest. You want to buy a mattress with the maximum number of coil springs that you can afford. If you have a good firm mattress with a lot of coils, then a “comfort top” or a “pillow top” is sometimes nice.

Costco has a catalog service where you can get a top of the line Sealy delivered right to you. The mattress that Costco has in-store ($399-499) is good but not necessarily the most firm. Some of the best buys in Portland are at Macy’s, believe it or not. I do not, and I repeat do not recommend a “mattress store”, based on the experiences of my patients with aggressive salespeople working on commissions.

I am not particularly impressed by the results my patients have had with a lot of the “gimmick” beds like the adjustable air cushions and remote controls, or even the “memory foam” beds; these also tend to be more expensive. Buy these at your own discretion; some people swear by them! But if you can typically get an excellent queen size with matching box spring for under $1000, and maybe even as low as $600, why spend $2500? And do you really need another remote control? Talk to me first about the memory foam, unless you are about to lay in bed for about a year without moving, while you fly to Alpha Centauri.

Forget about buying an added warranty; my patients have had a very hard time claiming on them. Just get a good mattress. In four years to six years, look to replace it or begin thinking about a new one.

Your bed should have five legs or six legs – one or two directly in the middle of the bed to prevent bowing of the undercarriage of the box spring. You can get this when you buy your new mattress ad box spring…bed frames are typically not too expensive unless they have headboards/footboards, but maybe you can move the headboard/footboard from your old bed. There are also add-on “extra leg kits” to easily convert a 4-legged frame so that it has a middle leg. . You also want to regularly flip and rotate the mattress following the schedule they give you.

Hope this info was helpful. What follows is a couple of pictures of the 5- and six-leg arrangements.

              A five-leg frame.
Bed Frame “Instalift” kit. Six legs, Very nice, very easy.
You can find it here at Froogle or alternatively at Amazon.com
(typically about $49.99! What a bargain, for less back pain!)