Mattress shopping with a bad back

The world is now filled with an insane variety of things you can sleep on. I ended up with a Purple 3 mattress, but holy cow -- what a ride!

A while ago I moved all my stuff into storage except my 10+-year-old mattress. One marriage, one Great Pyrenees and who knows how many people who briefly tried to 'relate' to me later, that mattress had run its useful service life. As I re-emerge from #vanlife it has become time to purchase a new mattress.

I bought my first mattress in 1994. It was cheap. I gave it to my parents for a guest bed when I moved from Los Angeles in 1999. My parents still keep it in one of their guest bedrooms. I know this because I have slept on it an awful lot in the last few months, and my body hates me for it.

I move around a lot when I sleep and there is conjecture that this is because I am uncomfortable. I try to sleep on my back as it is 'the best' for my lower back problems, and I got problems. I invariably move from my back to sleeping on my right side, where I have damaged my shoulder from my last bed being too firm. After a while, I involuntarily roll to my left side where I was damaging my shoulder but now am on a bed far too soft for that. As the Beach Boys sang, I get around.

I was recently staying at a hotel in the Marriott chain while visiting New Orleans for around a week. Read the rest