Do any of you or have any of you had problems with a new mattress? Latex? I’ve slept on the new mattress now for 4 nights after airing it out for 5 days. I’m definitely going down hill the more I use this mattress.
Last night I woke at 5 am with heart palps for no good reason at all and I am developing these really weird new pains in my arms. I never have arm pain. The pain began the first morning after sleeping on it and is getting worse.
I definitely suffer with chemical sensitivity but never imagined a new bed might be doing me in like this. I’m going to swap the mattress and put in the old one again and see if the symptoms suddenly drop off. I’m literally a zombie today at work.
I really hate the endless hassles this crap causes. I may now have to sell a mattress I forked out a lot of cash on. And then I have no idea what to buy!!! :evil:
Hi,
Tons of people have latex allergies/sensitivities…maybe you should try lambskin…I hear it feels like you’re sleeping with nothing on.
Seriously though, can you get something to cover the mattress? Look into things for allergies…sorry I"m not more help.
Kelley
I have heard of people having latex allergies. But with MAV, it seems like our brain senses any kind of change so who knows if it’s the devil, I mean MAV :evil: or if it’s indeed an allergy.
The palps and arm pain concerns me so hopefully you’ll have that checked out.
Sorry I don’t have any real answers either but I feel for you. Let us know if it’s any different on the old mattress and hopefully you can exchange your new one for one that your sensitive brain likes. :roll:
Like Kelley said, there are full mattress covers for allergy sufferers. I use one, but my mattress isn’t a conventional one, it’s a sleep number bed. But the mattress cover is for dust mite protection, so it doesn’t matter what kind of mattress you have if you have allergies. My allergist said to have zippered covers for my pillows, too (they go under the regular pillow cases).
Hope you’re feeling much better by now after sleeping on your old mattress, Scott. This ordeal sounds awful!!!
I have no idea if it works for latex allergies, but I use one of these full covers on my mattress and all of my pillows for dust mite protection. I have a pretty bad dust mite allergy, so the first thing I do when I get a new mattress is encase it in a dust mite cover. They are a bit pricey, but not much more than $100 I think. You can find them online in a bunch of places.
I think they have pretty small pores since they have to makes sure dust mites can’t get in. I don’t know what size latex molecules are, but I would think at the least it would reduce your latex exposure significantly. Of course, who knows what material the alllergy cover is made out of!
Scott when are you going to realise you’re just a cave man in disguise??
You need to quit your job (to get away from the horrible new monitors and thus avoiding you having to carry around the one you’ve had since 1982).
You need to quit living in raving town Bondi and move back into the wild where there are no such things as chemicals, perfumes, soap, hand lotion, deodorant, shaving gel, shampoo, body wash, laundry detergents, isles in the supermarkets housing all of the above.
You need to biff the mattress and go back to a time when we all slept on a bed of leaves next to a campfire inside a cave. Just dont pick a smelly plant for your bed. :shock:
Your only source of light will be the sun and the moon - no more fluros.
You will only eat what you kill and drink from a clear mountain stream.
You dont have to pay rates or council tax in the wild.
We will each take it in turns to bring a supply of Valium out into the wild whilst we are on our intrepid tramping holidays and to see if you’ve lost the use of your vocab and have resorted to grunting noises.
Man, why didnt I think of all this earlier? Let me know when you’ve packed, I’m coming along for the ride!!!
Scott when are you going to realise you’re just a cave man in disguise??
You need to quit your job (to get away from the horrible new monitors and thus avoiding you having to carry around the one you’ve had since 1982).
You need to quit living in raving town Bondi and move back into the wild where there are no such things as chemicals, perfumes, soap, hand lotion, deodorant, shaving gel, shampoo, body wash, laundry detergents, isles in the supermarkets housing all of the above.
You need to biff the mattress and go back to a time when we all slept on a bed of leaves next to a campfire inside a cave. Just dont pick a smelly plant for your bed. :shock:
Your only source of light will be the sun and the moon - no more fluros.
You will only eat what you kill and drink from a clear mountain stream.
You dont have to pay rates or council tax in the wild.
We will each take it in turns to bring a supply of Valium out into the wild whilst we are on our intrepid tramping holidays and to see if you’ve lost the use of your vocab and have resorted to grunting noises.
Man, why didnt I think of all this earlier? Let me know when you’ve packed, I’m coming along for the ride!!!
:twisted:
— End quote
Brilliant! :lol:
I think you’ve hit on the answer - the MAV commune. We secede from society (except the part that makes Valium).
It’s funny–given how it is artificial light that makes me sick, I was trying to think of jobs I could do that would be devoid of artificial light. I really couldn’t think of many except maybe national park ranger.
At first I was just blaming flourescents. But while they are the worst, even basic incadescents make me sick too. Yet I can stand out in the blindingly bright sun for hours without a single problem. Man my brain is weird!
Your description of my new life sounded perfect Mupp. Can I still have an iPhone to use as I lie on my bed of boulders? Don’t think I can relinquish the phone.
I have developed a significant latex sensitivity since all my dizzy stuff started. Nirvana Safe Haven offers a wide variety of fume/odor control options especially for furniture (couches, mattresses, etc.)
Thanks for that link Sarah. I’m going to be checking this stuff out.
I have been REALLY screwed up lately with some of the worst migrainous non-dizzy symptoms I’ve ever experienced in my life this week. It all goes back to the bed again but this time it’s likely not just the mattress but the new base. Had it delivered nearly 2 weeks ago and left it all in the main living room to off-gas. It gave off some strong smells let me tell you and then it died down to near undetectable levels. I remember the day it arrived and I took it all out of the cardboard I had a mind-numbing headache that afternoon. Last weekend I was away in Melbourne then back Monday and assembled the base. GF was sick and coughing all night so I slept in the living room but did spend half the night on the whole new bed Monday night. On Tuesday I was in bad shape at work. Symptoms:
joint pain
heavy duty myalgia
headache
sore arms
sore lower legs
waking night the night with heart palps
memory problems
fatigue
On Tuesday night I was in the living room again and felt quite OK on Wednesday. Wed night on the new bed and Thursday was a train wreck. Again on the bed Thurs night and Friday at work was horrendous. So here I am on Saturday morning having spent half the night on the new gear and woke in the night thinking I have to get the hell out of this room. So back in the living room from about 5 am. Right now I feel SHOCKING. Blurred vision and eyes half open. It’s full on.
I’m done with that bed base and going to buy a plastic cover for the mattress. Still not totally convinced the mattress is a major factor but could be wrong as I’ve been in a bad way for a while (hence no posting here). Now I have to get 1000 bucks back for that base. I can still smell it at a low level in the bedroom.
Question. Is this migraine of MCS? I fit this description to a tee. Big overlap with migraine.
I feel your pain!
I am absolutely without a doubt chemically sensitive. I was never this way before all this s@#* started. I can NEVER have anything new. I can only tolerate natural cleaners that are unscented. Mine goes far…unscented, dye free, hypoallergenic, the whole nine yards. Even my boyfriend had to change the products he used. Soap, deodorant, shampoo, laundry detergent, cleaner you name it. I can’t tolerate new carpeting, paint, cars etc. It is a royal pain in the a**.
Sarah
It looks like we are living in the same world. What a GD nightmare this is. Nothing new. You’re right … I’d be much better off looking for a second hand bed base that is YEARS old. What happens to you with exposure Sarah? Do you get the stuff I listed?
Sorry you have to deal with this s*%t too. Want to borrow my bio-hazard suit? :lol:
If I could walk around in my own clean air bubble I would!!
I do get some of the symptoms you listed. Typically for me any chemical or fragrance exposure will mean immediate light headedness, increase in dizzy, hard time thinking/recalling. Prolonged exposure will mean headache, body heaviness, fatigue and a general feeling of myself moving in slow motion while everyone else moves at a a regular pace.
I did get an air purifier for my home which has helped. It is an AustinAir Health Mate Plus. It is designed to remove odor and VOC’s for people who are chemically sensitive. It does come with a hefty price tag though. It is about $600… maybe a little more.
Here’s the description:
Just like Austin Air’s flagship air cleaner, the HealthMate Plus HM450 combines medical grade True HEPA filtration with granular carbon to eliminate a wide variety of contaminants, including dust, pollen, dander, odors, chemical vapors and more. However, the granular carbon is also impregnated with potassium iodide which enables the HealthMate Plus to remove additional chemicals such as formaldehyde, ammonia and other volatile organic chemicals (VOC’s). This “SuperBlend” of carbon is the only difference between the HealthMate and the HealthMate Plus. The HealthMate Plus is highly recommended for those who have chemical sensitivities, or anybody looking for additional chemical absorption.
When you were reacting to the mattress, could you actually smell it in the air or was it doing you in simply from lying on it 8 hours a night and being so close to it do you think? I ask because I can’t smell it in the room really unless I stick my nose into it and that new car smell thing is there. When I first unwrapped it it nearly made me choke it was so strong and I aired it out for about 9 days.
But as I sit here now I am not well at all. Took the base out and there’s an improvement but still really in the crapper. Woke with joint and muscle aches, stomach ache and now headache – a different kind they I would normally get previously. Yesterday I started feeling much better towards the end of the day and now it’s all back on again after a night on the chemical pool.
I am sad to say this, but I reacted to mine six months after I brought it home. By that time I really couldn’t smell it, but every time I slept on it I ended up feeling terrible the next day. I ended up selling it on Craigslist for a reasonable price and tried again. This time I finally bought a bed that was on the show room floor (I figure whats the difference between that and a hotel bed) and got it in writing that I could return it within 60 days. They told me that the particular bed I was buying had been out of the packaging and on the floor for over a year. At that time it was fine because it was a double bed and the size was appropriate. I’m looking into buying a larger one now and not many stores have them out on the floor.
I’m sure that’s not what you want to hear…Do you have a return guarantee on the bed? That might be a place to start. By the way, I ran into the same problem with couches/sofas…they all have latex inserts in the cushions : ( Not fun at all.
Sarah
So after about 9 days in another room on another bed and feeling like my old self, we’re back in the old room on the new mattress. This time I am tried one more thing. I put one of these over the entire mattress – another $140 for this.
So I thought I’d post this insane story to almost wrap up the mattress disaster.
The bed cover I bought above reduced the symptoms to some degree but I was still feeling shocking in the mornings and developing all-day headaches that made me feel like road kill. The effect sucked the life out of me hence my lack of participation here over the last 6 weeks. My next move was to buy an “organic” mattress from these people:
The old guy on the phone himself suffers from multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS) and said his mattresses were all made from 100% organic cotton etc, etc and would totally sort me out. So I splash out another 1600 bucks to have it all delivered with new pillows – the works, this on top of the already 2 grand I blew on the other latex mattress and base that stunk of some resin. The organic one arrived and to my surprise, it smelled like a horse had been sleeping on it before I got it. No joke - a real gamey smell like one of those sweaters knit from a sheep that was never washed and not comfortable to lie on either. BUT the kicker was that I only survived 2 nights on it waking with heart palpitations and feeling sicker than ever the next day at work – worse than the latex.
Don’t let anyone tell you that natural or organic is better guys. Learn from this. It’s all 100% bullshit and I fell for it thinking I’d be delivered a mattress with no smell and totally safe on the chem front. Once I complained about it the guy then told me that some people react to organic cotton, and that even he did at first!! Thanks for telling me that initially. I’ll never buy another thing like this again without seeing it first. I sent the whole thing back and took a $500 loss on shipping and restocking fees. Did I mention that MAV is an expensive disease? :twisted: Really ticked off about the financial loss but just glad to have my life back again.
So last week I bought a second hand double mattress and stuck it in the second bedroom where flatmate lives. I took the really good double out of his room, the one I know I’m good on and it’s now set up in our main room. Just 2 nights on it and today is the first day in well over a month that I haven’t needed 1000 mg of pain killer and actually feel like my old self. Just mind boggling how a mattress can be a bloody trigger! I never would have dreamed this 3 months ago that buying a new mattress would be rocket science.
So now I have to sell the latex mattress, still unsure if the second queen-sized base is problematic (all in the living room) and have no idea what queen sized mattress to buy. Absolutely no idea.
If anyone has any bright idea, I’m all ears. In the meantime I’m on safe ground again with the double and back to my old self (I hope).
