Well my wife and i have decided to buy a new bed this year. What beds have served some of you well. We were thinking of a tempurpedic style, but not sure yet.

Anything firm seems to help me. I have had tempurpedic and sleep number. Tempurpedic helped more but my wife likes a soft bed. A feather bed topper even causes me pain. I have to have it fairly firm and a pillow between the legs if I roll over onto my side.

I like to have a pillow under my knees if I sleep on my back!

Ok, this is my perfect bed.

1st layer: A good firm mattress
2nd layer: 2" memory foam topper
3rd layer: 1.5" egg crate regular foam topper
4th layer: A puffy mattress cover
5th layer: very soft sheet

(The bed in our guest room is the same as the my own bed, and people LOVE our guest bed!)

Plus which, if you get night sweats, you can just replace the foam layer every so often for cheap.

Pillow:

I have 2, and switch off during the nights I'm uncomfortable

1. thin puffy regular pillow
2. memory foam pillow with that extra little bump for neck support.

Good luck!

bed: fairly firm, but with just a bit of softness on top. so firm but a little soft.

head: thin feather pillow that supports the neck without pushing it is absolutely essential!

lay on my back, pillows under knees/legs.

laying on either side, kills my SI joint.

1st layer: good firm mattress
2nd layer: me
3rd layer: marilyn Monroe and you're good to go

I have a sleep number bed and I like it. Used to love it but over the last year or so, my couch is more comfortable. The reason I like the sllep number is because my husband and I have totally differnt numbers. However when I am in a flair, I like to be able to change my bed to something a little more comfortable. Usually softer when I am flaired. Firmer when I am not. I have a memory foam pillow that I stole from my husband a few months ago. Again, I like it but the arm of my couch is nicer to me most of the time. I think I would like my bed more if I didnt have to climb 17 stairs to get to it. Thats why I like the couch in the livingroom down stairs. =)

It's tricky for us ASers (as if you didn't know!) we need firm support but a soft touch for our joints, bones, tendons etc.

I've suffered with too soft a mattress pretty well forever giving me extra back ache every morning. Now we've bought something too firm! Arrrgh. Next we plan to put a mattress pad on top of the firm one - which I'm hopefull will work out to be pretty well ideal. Firm - with padding.

• Life isn't always about holding good cards, but sometimes about playing a poor hand well.

That's what I have - a firm mattress with both a thin softer one on top plus a feather bed on top of that which molds itself to my shape and suppports me where I need it. For that to work it's important to shake it up regularly otherwise it can bunch up and feel hard.

I was doing that but learned in one of my RA books why that isn't a good idea - I'll try and find it this evening. It's alright for short periods I think. I'll look for the reason and post it in this thread.