Tempur-Tantrum

5 comments to Tempur-Tantrum

• rlquinn1980

  November 14, 2011 at 11:49 pm

  Just anecdotes and testimonials, huh? How about mine:

  My husband bought one for us to help with his back, which it did, at first. After about eighteen months, the foam and had gotten soft, and my husband woke up with worse back trouble, as he could now feel the platform underneath the mattress by the morning! Apparently—he did this research, not I—the softening of the cells is the one thing NOT covered on the warranty. We weren’t the only ones running into this, though I have no idea how common a problem it may be or what factors are feeding into it. In our case it may have been the weather: we live in a very humid and warm area of the country.

  Our Tempurpedic was very comfortable, but we’ve found suitable replacements which are much cheaper to exchange should we need to. I’m open to looking at other mattresses, but I don’t think I could justify that price again.

  Well, maybe I could if they showed me their studies.

• vrulg

  November 15, 2011 at 12:33 am

  I’d suggest an alternate method of investigation would be to see if there are any studies that show the qualities a mattress must have in general to promote a good night’s sleep(as opposed to looking at specific brands). My understanding is that this subject isn’t exactly clear, it being more of a “whatever works for you” situation. If my understanding is correct, then it seems very unlikely that a study that showed mattress brand X provides a better sleep would exist/be a good study.

• Mr Shark

  November 15, 2011 at 2:33 am

  Being a swede I did a quick search to find out more about Lillhagen hospital, and found this on Swedish wikipedia http://goo.gl/0olC4 (the google translate seems quite good http://goo.gl/m34sT ). In short it seem to be specialised in Forensic psychiatry but having some sports medicine and research facilities. They have a tiny homepage here: http://goo.gl/VjbEH and is a part of Sahlgrenska sjukhuset whos research have this http://goo.gl/3KVju homepage.

  A quick search revealed two sleep related articles that might contain something:

  Björkelund C, Bondyr-Carlsson D, Lapidus L, Lissner L, Mansson J, Skoog I, Bengtsson C. Sleep Disturbances in Midlife Unrelated to 32-Year Diabetes Incidence: The prospective Population Study of Women in Gothenburg. Diabetes Care 2005;28:2739-44.

  Skoog I, Steen B, Persson G, Nilsson L, Aevarsson O, Larsson L, Östling S. A 15-year longitudinal cross-sectional population study on sleep in the elderly. Facts and research in gerontology 1993;7:137-146.

  There were some more references but they seems more unlikely.

• hankwinner

  November 15, 2011 at 3:17 am

  Being from Sweden I decided to try to find some sort of direct information on the Lillhagen study but to no avail. I did however manage to find a bit of indirect information.

  Torbjön Åkerström, a professor of behavioral physiology in the department for clinical neuroscience at Karolinska institutet, did outright dismiss the study at Lillhagen saying it was a “study” that did not make it into the medical litterature. According to the study, conducted at a mental hospital (?), you only turn about 17-20 times a night in a tempur bed compared to 80 times in a “regular” bed.

  I do wonder, what is it that makes less turning in bed an automatic ticket to better sleep? I don’t see this absolute connection.

• madadder

  November 15, 2011 at 9:22 am

  I work in a university library. Part of my job is to help students find this kind of research, and I like to think that I’m rather adept at finding obscure references. I looked for about a half-hour, and all I could find that referred to Tempur-Pedic at all in the thousands of journals that I have access to were Economics studies.

  I didn’t, unfortunately find the studies that were mentioned, but I did find an article in Technovation:

  Urethanes Technology (December 2001/January 2002) published an article based on wide industry expert input entitled: “Viscoelastic foam mattresses: marketing hype or molecular miracle?”. UT concludes that “the claims for the materials are not just marketing hype … it had benefits as well as a story … in health features”. previous Tempur-Pedic branded previous TEMPUR® foam material and other viscoelastic knock-offs, continually adjust and mold to the weight, shape, and temperature of your body over time, dramatically minimizing pressure points. Hence, visco reduces tossing and turning, significantly improves circulation, and noticeably reduces stiffness, pain, and discomfort associated with erratic sleep.

  [...]

  Viscoelastic foam technology was originally developed by NASA in the 1970s to help relieve the intense liftoff pressures on astronauts, and for crash protection for airplane pilots and passengers. Visco foam was inducted into the US Space Foundation Space Technology Hall of Fame, and has been used in commercial products such as orthopedic support cushions, operating-table pads, ear plugs, football helmets, and furniture cushions including orchestral chairs. NASA formally certified previous termTempurnext term-Pedic’s bedding foam material as official “Space Technology”, and granted exclusive use of their logo to them. According to NASA, visco is non-flammable, non-toxic, and inexpensive ( [NASA, 1998] and [46] ).

  (I hope I wrote that tag right )

  Hope this helps.