Tempur Pressure-relieving mattress

...all the adverts for the Tempur mattress - you can hardly open a Sunday paper without being bombarded by them and it seemed like the solution to my problem - a bed that would mould itself to my body and support me whilst I slept.

The material from which the mattress is made was developed in the early 1970's by NASA in an attempt to relieve the G-forces that the astronauts would experience during lift-off. Tempur describe it as "open-celled, ...
...to warn you that the Tempur web-site is not strong on plain English) this means that the warmth of your body softens the area on which it rests. This then becomes pliable and moulds itself to your body contours, and supports you, allowing the spine and all the other joints to rest in their natural positions. The cooler areas remain rigid and your body weight is spread over the surface of the mattress. Stress on muscles and nerves (your own, and anyone ... more

"The Back", I'll say "isn't good". Not "my back", you'll notice, but "The Back". I've disowned it - it's no longer mine. My back has gone away on a very long holiday, but I'm sure it will return one day and this foul usurper will be evicted.

About eight years ago I'd reached the point where I'd sleep for about an hour and a half, and then the pain would wake me up. There was no way that I could get comfortable, and I'd end up prowling the house until I was ready to drop from exhaustion. This is not a good way to live your life.

I'm sure you'll have seen all the adverts for the Tempur mattress - you can hardly open a Sunday paper without being bombarded by them and it seemed like the solution to my problem - a bed that would mould itself to my body and support me whilst I slept.

The material from which the mattress is made was developed in the early 1970's by NASA in an attempt to relieve the G-forces that the astronauts would experience during lift-off. Tempur describe it as "open-celled, breathable material that's temperature-sensitive, viscoelastic and able to distribute pressure or body weight over the entire surface area". In plain English (and I have to warn you that the Tempur web-site is not strong on plain English) this means that the warmth of your body softens the area on which it rests. This then becomes pliable and moulds itself to your body contours, and supports you, allowing the spine and all the other joints to rest in their natural positions. The cooler areas remain rigid and your body weight is spread over the surface of the mattress. Stress on muscles and nerves (your own, and anyone trying to sleep in the same bed) is reduced. For the elderly or bedridden this can help to prevent (or in severe cases, heal) bedsores. Brilliant isn't it?

The mattress seemed like a wonderful idea, but two additional points persuaded me to go ahead. The first was that I could have it for ninety days with a promise that if it wasn't suitable Tempur would buy it back at the price I paid, less some minor charges. The other factor was that I could buy it free of VAT because I had a recognised medical condition. Unfortunately the legislation which allowed this is not now in force. You can buy a mattress or a mattress overlay pad. We opted for the mattress as none of our bedding would have fitted over the combined mattress and pad, and the bed was already quite high - adding another floor, so to speak, would have made it uncomfortably so. The cost was about £750 when we took advantage of the VAT exemption. The equivalent mattress would cost about £1100 (including VAT) if bought direct from Tempur in December 2005.

Mattresses are available in all the standard sizes, and can also be custom made. I didn't see it on the website, but I remember when I placed my order being told that the ninety-day trial period didn't extend to the custom-made mattresses. There's a 15-year limited warranty which covers faults in manufacture.

I ordered the mattress at the beginning of a warm spring. No, it's OK, I'm not getting into reminiscences about the weather - but that fact was important, although I didn't realise it at the time. The mattress was delivered by a carrier - and by that I mean one man on his own driving a large van. The mattress was in a large box, and there was no way that he could get the package into the house on his own. I had to help, which isn't the best thing to do when you've got a bad back. His brief was only to get it into the house - not to get it up the stairs and into the bedroom. That had to wait until my husband came home. The driver told me that he got rather annoyed about the deliveries which his firm undertook for Tempur, as he didn't feel that people were made sufficiently aware of the limited nature of the delivery.

Getting the mattress up the stairs was the usual farce, but eventually we got the mattress onto our bed base, and the bed made. For the first time for months I was looking forward to going to bed!

My first reaction when I got into bed was that it was COLD. Not just the usual getting-into-bed cold, but a real chill. The second reaction was that there was a strange smell. This is usual, and does go after a few days. The chill when you first get into bed does not, although you do feel warm quite quickly once you're actually in bed. You can't use an electric blanket or a heating pad on the mattress, but it was a warm evening, and I quickly settled down to the best night's sleep that I'd had in a long time.

The mattress itself is covered in a towelling zip-off cover, which has been anti-mite and anti-allergy treated. The cover will wash, but getting the cover off the mattress and back onto it afterwards is not an easy task. Yes, it was me that spilt the cup of coffee. The mattress itself is not washable. One advantage that this mattress has over more normal mattresses is that you don't have to turn or flip it.

At the end of the three months' trial period I was more than happy to keep the mattress, which was as well, because we hadn't been able to retain the cardboard box that it came in, and you needed this to return the mattress or you had to buy another from Tempur. I wonder how many people actually have the space to store a cardboard box 6 feet 3 inches, by 4 feet six inches by 9 inches. We also didn't have anywhere to store the original mattress that had been on the bed, and this is something that you might need to consider if you're buying the mattress on the basis of the trial period, which has now been reduced to sixty days. We came to the conclusion that we would have had to put the old mattress into the cardboard box and pay for it to be put into store if we were considering returning the Tempur mattress.

Come the autumn (chilly) and the winter (cold) I began to realise that I had a problem. When The Back is cold it plays up and the only way to ease this is to give it some heat. In winter I habitually sleep with a hot water bottle clasped to The Back, but you can't do this with the Tempur mattress, as it affects the moulding of the mattress to the body, so I was left with the choice of having a cold back which hurt, or an unsupported back, which hurt even more, and I must admit that there have been cold nights when I've opted for the spare bedroom and a hot water bottle. For most of the year the Tempur works very well for me, but when my proper back returns from its holiday I think I'll revert to a normal mattress.

If you're interested, have a look at the website (http://www.tempur.co.uk/page2732.asp) where you can order an information pack - you'll find the request form under "Contact us". You can download a price list from the site (Adobe Acrobat Reader required) but if you are considering a purchase you will almost certainly be able to get a better deal than buying from the manufacturer.  

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