Dear staff of John Ryan by Design,
greetings from Finland!
Thank you for your amazing website, it has been a great pleasure reading your advises and I've recommended my English friend in need of a new mattress to visit your page also.
I'm having a terrible and acute Vi-Spring crisis here now and I wonder could you give me any advice for it. It seems that the sales personnel in the Finnish shop from which I bought my Vi-Spring doesn't have almost any experience of English mattresses -Finnish spring mattresses are quite different, less plush and in general quite primitive so somewhat like IKEA-mattresses. They also sell lots of latex and Tempur stuff nowadays, but after some sweaty experiences.. it's not my cup of tea.
Couple of months ago I received my purchase -a Herald Superb mattress + Prestige Divan size 130 cm x 200 cm in soft tension. I'm 36 years old female, my dimensions are 62 kg of weight and 166 cm of height (if I calculated right, according to the UK measurement system 9,76 st and 5,4 ft). Well, now I've got severe back pains mainly due to an accident where I got a rupture in my lower spine (luckily the damage is not permanent, but the recovery seems to be slow) but also because the Vi-Spring mattress feels too soft to assure a steady surface for my spine. I purchased the Vi-Spring before the accident.
During the shopping process at the shop while testing the soft tension it felt excellent to me, even a bit "immaterial" due to the plushness that I'm not so familiar with being a first time buyer for a very very very expensive bed. Just that the test bed was really narrow, maybe just 80-90 cm, so just one side of a bigger mattress for two persons with different weights. I feel now that I sink like Titanic to my wide Vi-Spring and my waist area is not supported at all. My shoulders are not terribly wide nor my hips, so my body shape is almost like a "sausage" with some kind of a curve inwards around the waist area. I have high hypermobility throughout my body, so let's just say that I'm like a raw and reckless sausage! Maybe due to this hypermobility my body would require more support, who knows... do you? (This was my question number 0,5)
My question number one is, while having a wide "single" mattress of this size (I really like the extravagant size after spent an entire childhood in 80 cm wide bed) should I boldly go direclty for the firm tension instead of the medium if Vi-Spring agrees to the change? So would it feel more like medium-firm instead of firm because of the width? I recently spent 6 weeks abroad and slept there with a plush-top mattress which was far more firm than my Vi-Spring -and my back liked it. But it's so impossible to compare these models and the plush-top mattress was so sweaty that I really want to stick with the Vi-Spring.
My question number two is, would it make a significant difference if I upgraded the Herald Superb to the Regal or Regent? I mean if I would go for the firm enough tension and at the same time wishing to increase the soft feel of the upholstery. Herald feels oddly "hard" from the surface, I chose 100% cotton as a cover when buying it to ensure the breath-ability and long resistance since viscose isn't so durable if I've understood right. I'm not rich so that's why these things are really important to me, I hope that my Vi-Spring will last really long.
If you can bear it, just a tiny little question number two and a half: Would it be a wiser choice to stick with the Herald Superb model (so the tension change would presumably be free) of a more firm tension and buy a topper for the extra plushness?
Prior to my Vi-Spring purchase I once read a user experience somewhere of a woman who warned people about the difference of the Vi-Spring's spring tension feel in wider mattresses, I couldn't locate that writing anymore but I remember she wrote that during years she had bought several Vi-Spring "single mattress" of a wider size and she stated that they all felt too soft for her in medium tension which was calculated according to her body measurements. In my head one of her sentences stuck, it was more or less this: "I just wish I had been courageous enough to change to the firm because the SMF of the Vi-Spring company are in general less firm than other marks."
Many many thanks if you can answer to my questions! And fear not, of course I understand that it's impossible for a far distance to state any "carved in stone" advises, just that anything helps coming from a specialist of English mattresses!
With all the best wishes,
Maria