We bought a Prana mattress a little over year ago. The first six months or so were wonderful! We felt like we were sleeping on soft, fluffy clouds. My husband and I slept like babies on our new mattress. We were so excited about finally being able to sleep comfortably. Then, about 7 or 8 months ago, we noticed big craters forming where we lay. We are both of average height and weight (both under 5'7" and under 160 pounds), so we knew it wasn't because we were too heavy. These round-crater type impressions seemed permanent, and this is when our back problems started. We now wake up almost daily complaining about back aches and pains. The $2500 we spent on the mattress was certainly wasted. If you're thinking about buying a Prana--think again. Definitely not worth the money. We've had cheaper mattresses over the years that were more comfortable. Now, just a year later, we are thinking of buying another cheaper mattress to escape our Prana nightmare. My husband says he is afraid to go to sleep. If you want to spend $2500+ on a mattress, do more research and talk to people who've had a particular brand of mattress for years. Don't rely on just a 5-minute "test" at the store and the sales rep's pitch. We did, and now we're stuck with a horribly uncomfortable and expensive mattress.

I need a firm mattress that won't get depressions in it for a good 10 years... I know that regular mattresses have springs. There's so many kinds... the spring ones the more the better? Then there's wrapped springs, horsehair beds, feather beds, memory foam, pillow topped mattresses, air coils... sooooooo many! I am so confused by every product and service these days. I remember back in the 70s (and older obviously) where you had a choice of Bell telephone and that was it! No cable packages to choose from and only three TV channels basically! It was so much better then. You didn't have to spend 20% of your life discussing and researching what to buy! I don't know what to do about a bed. I gotta get that, pick a headboard and a washer/dryer in the next two months and I'm just exhausted. Then I'll need the sheets which is another story. No mattress is the same depth and no sheet is made right and I want a very tight fitting sheet that won't come off at the corners. I detest wrinkles when sleeping; I am bothered by everything! LOL I'm going out this weekend to measure washers and dryers and I'll be trying on mattresses in the places I go that have both... I'm going to need a LOT of luck.

I hope I can help since I spent over 1 year researching mattresses. Never buy any pillowtop because basically it's memory foam on top and will break down and form lumps in the top. If you want a good mattress buy one and add on a latex topper for softness. There is company called Shifman, which has been around for ages, and you can still flip it over. Most mattresses don't allow you to turn them over anymore. Sterns and Foster makes decent mattresses. Basically they change names to prevent you from comparison shopping. I bought a organic latex mattress from Savvy Rest. They are located in Va. but have stores where you can try them out. You order according to your configuration. It's not the normal type of mattress but basically you design your layers and you can have a configuration that is good for your needs. The latex layers lie inside a well made zip top cover. Is it ideal? Not really all that I dreamed of. We had our last mattress for 32 years and we were used to a firm mattress. Initially, my back was still sore cause it's a matter of getting your muscles used to something different. Latex (natural) lasts forever and isn't hot to sleep on. The organic part was a plus, but not necessarily a necessity. Some of the Sealy brands are not natural latex and some stores sell latex mattresses that aren't fully latex, but an inch or two on top and they call it latex. I learned alot from this site http://blog.pennlive.com/mattress/2008/09/index.html Some people swear by memory foam. It's really a matter of personal taste but difficult because it's takes awhile before you really know if it's comfortable and by then you can't return it.

Susan, oh speaking of having your bed plugged into electricity, that reminds me of something else that happened. The adjustable foundation plugs into the wall and we had a very bad electrical storm here several months ago that hit close to our house and came in and fried some of our electricial/electronic things. It caused the "massage" (i.e., vibrate) funtion of the adjustable bed to go on. We couldn't get it to go off with the remote, so we unplugged it. The bed then (completley unplugged from the wall) continued to vibrate softly for about an hour, on its own. Leggett & Platt (the manufacturer) told me this was powered by the two 9-volt batteries in the bed, that serve some purpose I don't remember. But can you imagine being sound asleep and all of a sudden thunder, then vibration? And though manufacturer said electricity could not have come into the bed, I have my doubts. We did get it fixed since it's kind of handy for watching TV, but don't like to sleep with it plugged in!