Gel-foam-spring bed update

An amazing 18 months have passed since I last commented on the combination spring, visco elastic memory foam and gel bed that we purchased in April 2009. The main reason for the delay is of course the fact that the blog was set up specifically to offer feedback on the bed in question and not beds in general.

So what do I think of the bed now that it is almost three years old?

Well firstly, my wife still loves it, finds it comfortable and easy to sleep on and never seems to suffer from aches, listlessness or poor sleep quality. It is a bed that works for her (and I suspect it will work for many other people too).

For my part I cannot echo her views and there are a number of reasons why.

To start with I remain convinced that some people find themselves suited to beds with memory foam (and in this case gel too), however I am sure that I am not one of them. I am pretty certain that I would find any bed that uses memory foam difficult to sleep on and therefore my feelings and observations towards this bed are more to the type of construction in general rather than the specific bed and mattress that we bought.

I have found sleeping on the bed increasingly difficult and I have struggled to get more that an hour or two of sleep without waking up. To make matters worse I consistently have back ache when I get up in the morning - and often when I wake up in the night.

So is the bed to blame?

Unfortunately the answer has to be yes. My wife recently had to take some toxic medication and I was forced to sleep in a different room and bed to her for 11 days as a result. I slept on a £99 foam mattress with a firmness rating of 10 and slept well and without any aches or discomfort. Within a week of being back on the gel/foam/spring bed I was sleeping poorly and waking up with discomfort – not good.

Do I think the bed is rubbish?

Actually no. I would buy another Kaymed bed without hesitation. The build quality is superb, but the mix of materials and construction clearly do not suit me as they do my wife.

At the time I liked the idea of a spring and latex foam mattress (also by kaymed) and I wish that we had opted for that one. I think that memory foam is great if you sleep in one position, do not adjust your sleeping posture, and keep pretty still during the course of the night. If on the other hand you do not, then you are in for problems. As many people point out, memory foam DOES deflect permanently and your body shape creates an indentation in the bed (and it never fully recovers from this – whatever the brochures and marketing may say). The result is that, as a predominantly “side sleeper”, if I try to rest on my back, the area where the small of my back rests is not adequately supported because for most of the time my hips occupy that position and, as a result, there is an indentation at that point.

One point that I should add is that, when using the cheap foam mattress I woke up hot (and sometimes sweating) during the night. With the gel I do invariably feel cool (as is the claim), so the gel does the trick in that respect.

So, that is the end of the latest update. The next update may be in 6 months or 18 months, I do not yet know. Anyone with experience of this or any other gel/memory foam beds please feel free to leave a (non spamming) comment.