Post by l5injury on Dec 21, 2014 20:12:59 GMT -8
I suffered a very severe L5 burst fracture back in October after falling 25 feet. I was taken to a level 1 trauma center & the docs decided it was too risky at the time to operate. So they put me in a TLSO brace, which i have to wear for at least 6 months, and then they'll go from there. I wear it 24/7. I was told i now have severe spinal stenosis & ultimately will have to have surgery, but it could be after 6 months, a year, 2 years, who knows... I shattered both heels at the same time, so i've been in a wheelchair, too, and they said until i'm fully mobile it's hard to predict what sort of pain severity i'll have and that sort of thing. Because i own a 3-story townhome, I had to move to another state to live with my parents until I'm able to walk & drive.
i never had bed discomfort in the hospital or in a hotel I stayed in for a few days after leaving rehab while we packed for my move. And then we got to my parents house, and they put me in their bed, a Tempur-Pedic. I woke up in very intense pain the two nights i tried it, just excruciating. I may as well have had a 600-lb. man standing on my spine, it was that bad. So then I tried another bed on their main floor, a somewhat firm standard mattress. It was pretty awful, too. I then tried sleeping on plywood -- no luck there. Since the hotel was OK, we looked on the hotel chain's website, since some of them list the mattress they use, and fortunately this hotel did. So then we bought a Sealy/Serta(?) single-sided pillow-top and it's been fine. I do prop myself up at an angle with a wedge pillow.
so i started physical therapy to walk with crutches two weeks ago & at this point i can also do stairs. So we drove to my house this past weekend. Beyond the huge thrill of actually stepping foot in my house for the first time since early October, I looked forward to a night in my own bed. Unfortunately, that mattress, which always had been super-comfortable, was pretty bad. It's a 13-year old Serta double-sided pillow-top. My goal is to move back home by Feb 1st. And I'm thinking i'll probably need a new mattress. I'll try it again in two weeks when I have an ortho appt. down there.
the one we bought the company doesn't make in a king, which is what i want. I'd appreciate any advice, thoughts, & insight on mattresses, especially long-term experiences -- a month, 6 months out, a year. I honestly think i lucked out on the one we just bought, given the limited amount of time i could lie on it in the store. I don't want to get something that I think is OK for now, but 6 months later is going to be brutal, just based on how the healing & recovery process, including any surgeries, goes.
apologies for the rambling post, but i just wanted to give the backstory so it's a bit more clear what i'm dealing with. Literally until i got to my parents' house, the thought of mattress choice didn't even cross my mind. It wasn't on my radar at all. I just assumed any bed would be OK, so it was a real shock for me to find out how critical that is now.
thanks!
