Best Mattresses for Degenerative Disc Disease

Amerisleep AS2 Overview

Among the best mattresses for degenerative disc disease on the market today, the medium-firm AS2 by Amerisleep offers tons of support and pressure relief to keep you lifted onto the sleep surface and contour to the curve of your spine for optimal spinal alignment. Best of all, this mattress is made of Amerisleep’s fantastic plant-based memory foam.

“The medium-firmness of the AS2 mattress, as well as the five zones of targeted support, make this mattress my top choice for my patients suffering from DDD,” noted Dr. Jordan Burns. “This mattress provides the proper support to keep the spine in alignment for all different sleeping styles.”

All Amerisleep mattresses come with a 100-night sleep trial and a 20-year warranty.

If you have back pain but side sleep, you may find yourself in a bit of a pinch because you need a firmer mattress to deal with your back pain and a softer mattress for side sleeping. The good news is there are mattresses out there that can offer you the right mix of support and pressure relief for both your sleep position and your back pain, and the Zoma Boost is one of them.

Zoma mattresses come with a 100-night sleep trial period and a 10-year warranty.

Vaya Mattress Overview

If you are worried that a quality hybrid mattress is just out of reach of your budget, check out the Vaya Hybrid. This hybrid mattress keeps quality high and costs low by offering a simple yet comfortable design.

Helix Dawn Luxe Overview

If you want a luxurious feel as well as fantastic pain relief, check out the Helix Dawn Luxe. This firm mattress offers lots of luxurious features as well as enhanced back support to keep you free from pain and well-rested. Best of all, you get a luxury feel without the luxury price tag!

Nolah Evolution 15 Overview

For hot sleepers who have back pain, finding a mattress that can offer both cooling and lumbar support can feel like a hassle. The good news is the Nolah Evolution 15 offers plenty of both.

Nolah mattresses ship free and come with a 120-night trial period and a lifetime warranty. For extra savings, you can remove the trial period at checkout.

Saatva Solaire Overview

If you want a mattress that can change its firmness at the touch of a button, say hello to the Saatva Solaire. This mattress offers 50 precise firmness settings that can adjust based on your pain level, support needs, and even your mood! All you have to do is press a button.

Bear Elite Hybrid Overview

If you have allergies and back pain at the same time, check out the Bear Elite Hybrid. This mattress offers lots of lumbar support and creates a hostile environment for most common allergens at the same time.

You have 120 nights to try out the Bear Elite Hybrid, along with a lifetime warranty.

Brooklyn Bedding Spartan Overview

Those who want tons of contouring and support all at once should check out the Spartan by Brooklyn Bedding. This hybrid mattress pulls out all the stops to ensure you get the best hybrid support.

Layla Hybrid Overview

Those who want options when it comes to firmness should check out the Layla Hybrid. This flippable mattress is a firm and a soft bed all in one!

How to Choose the Best Mattress for Degenerative Disc Disease

Of course, when you’re choosing a mattress to help with your back pain, you should focus on that issue. However, you cannot ignore other factors when you are considering mattresses.

If you only focus on your back pain without considering anything else, you could cause yourself other problems even if you solve the back pain itself. This is why you want to get a mattress that’s perfect for all your sleep needs.

What is Degenerative Disc Disease?

Everyone has rubbery cushions between the bones of their spine. When these rubbery cushions, or discs, start to wear away, you develop degenerative disc disease ¹ Verified Source Johns Hopkins Medicine University focused on medical research that produces thoroughly reviewed health articles. See the source . Most adults over 40 will experience some amount of disc degeneration over time ² Verified Source Cleveland Clinic Ranked #2 hospital by U.S. News & World Report and one of the largest academic medical centers in America. The Cleveland Clinic serves patients from all over the world. See the source .

This can be so mild that you don’t experience any symptoms at all or so severe that you experience debilitating pain and weakness or even a herniated disc ³ Verified Source Medline Plus Online resource offered by the National Library of Medicine and part of the National Institutes of Health. See the source .

Symptoms of degenerative disc disease ⁴ Verified Source Medline Plus Online resource offered by the National Library of Medicine and part of the National Institutes of Health. See the source can include back pain, numbness and tingling in the arms and legs, and pain that radiates down your hip or leg and gets worse when you are sitting or bending. There are some medical treatments that can help ease the symptoms of degenerative disc disease, but there is no cure.

Taking pressure off the spine is one of the best ways to help ease the symptoms of this illness. This means getting a fantastic mattress and possibly even an adjustable bed can be one of the best ways to take care of yourself when you have this condition. Many of the most comfortable mattresses on the market work well with adjustable beds, after all, to further improve comfort.

How Can My Bed Help Ease My Symptoms?

Your bed can ease your symptoms by helping to keep your spine properly aligned. This takes the pressure off the discs and the nerves inside your spinal column. Your mattress itself will do the bulk of this work.

When you lie down on your new mattress, it should mold itself to the shape of your back, following the curve of your spine to ensure it stays properly aligned. With one of the best mattresses, the spine should always be in a horizontal line while you sleep to maintain optimal pressure relief for your back.

The mattress isn’t the only part of your bed that can help ease your back pain. An adjustable bed can also go a long way toward easing your degenerative disc symptoms. Sleeping on an adjustable bed allows you to get into positions that put less pressure on your spine than lying flat. Lying flat is actually a lot harder on your back than sitting up.

The best position for sleeping when you have back pain is the zero gravity position. In this position, you place your legs and your head above your heart. This aligns your spine and takes pressure off of your vertebral column.

While you can achieve this position without an adjustable bed, an adjustable bed for back pain is much easier and more efficient than piling up a bunch of pillows. And with modern day adjustable beds, you don’t even have to pay all that much more than you would for a regular bed frame.

Gone are the days when hospital beds that cost thousands of dollars were your only option. Nowadays there are highly affordable and advanced adjustable beds for seniors and others with degenerative disc disease.

Ideal Mattress Materials for Degenerative Disc Disease

The best mattress materials for degenerative disc disease are the ones that can offer contoured support. Mattress types that can lift you onto the sleep surface and take the shape of your spine offer the best support to relieve your back pain. Some materials are better than others when it comes to contoured support.

Memory Foam

Memory foam mattresses can be a wonderful option for degenerative disc disease sufferers. This special type of flexible polyurethane foam contours to your body in a way that no other material can. Memory foam is extremely flexible. It can mold itself to your body by altering its shape to fit yours. This can help keep your spine aligned without sacrificing pressure relief.

Memory foam is potentially the best solution for degenerative disc disease sufferers who sleep on their sides. Sleeping on your side causes you to need a softer mattress with lots of pressure relief, while back pain typically means you need a firmer mattress for extra support.

This can leave side sleepers in a difficult conundrum because they need the lift of a firmer mattress and the pressure relief of a softer one. Memory foam’s contouring ability can help solve this problem because firmer memory foam mattresses can still offer side sleepers plenty of contouring and lift at the same time. Memory foam is often essential in the best mattresses for pressure points.

The people who need to watch out for memory foam are hot sleepers and active sleepers. Memory foam mattresses tend to retain more heat than other mattress types. This can mean hot sleepers may have a hard time sleeping on traditional memory foam, though gel memory foam can help with this issue.

The issue gel memory foam cannot help with is memory foam’s slow response time. Memory foam tends to bounce back slower than any other mattress material. This can leave active sleepers feeling annoyed as they have to wait for body impressions to clear. This means if you like to toss and turn, a pure memory foam mattress might not be for you.

SEE ALSO: Memory Foam Mattress Buying Guide

Latex Foam

Natural latex is the perfect alternative to memory foam for certain types of sleepers. For hot sleepers, the natural breathability of latex mattresses can help keep the sleep surface cool.

For active sleepers, latex’s natural responsiveness offers much more bounce than memory foam ever can. This means hot sleepers and active sleepers who want an all-foam mattress can consider buoyant and springy natural latex foam.

Natural latex foam can be one of the best solutions for degenerative disc back pain because latex offers tons of buoyant support. Those who need additional contouring, such as side sleepers, should consider Talalay latex.

Talalay is the lighter and more flexible version of latex foam. Those who need extra support should consider Dunlop latex, which is the more buoyant and denser version.

Another wonderful thing about latex is its eco-friendliness. Latex is a natural material, meaning it does not produce as much toxic waste in the manufacturing process as memory foam.

Latex is also recyclable and biodegradable, meaning it will not sit around a landfill for a thousand years after you throw your mattress out. Best of all, the fact that latex is a natural material makes it more durable than any other mattress type. Expect your latex mattress to last for decades.

The main thing that degenerative disc sufferers have to worry about is latex’s tendency to retain its shape. Natural latex is not as flexible as memory foam and gets its buoyancy and bounciness from its desire to maintain its own shade. This means that for all the benefits of a latex mattress, it is not as contouring as memory foam. Many sleepers will not notice the difference, but side sleepers with back pain problems might.

SEE ALSO: Latex Mattress Buying Guide

Hybrid

Hybrid mattresses might just be the single best solution for every kind of sleeper who suffers from degenerative disc disease. Hybrids combine a support core of pocketed coils with a comfort layer of either memory foam or latex foam. There may also be other foam transition layers in a hybrid mattress.

This combination of coils and foams offers the best of both spring and foam mattresses all at once. This is not just because hybrid mattresses have foam but also because they feature pocketed coils. Pocketed coils are individually wrapped in a foam or fabric casing. This gives them multiple advantages over open coils and base foams alike.

The fact that they’re individually wrapped means that pocketed coils can move independently of one another. This makes them the most flexible support layer option available. Pocketed coils aren’t just the best at adapting to your shape. They also offer tons of support. They isolate motion. And they bounce back underneath you for fantastic responsiveness.

Pocketed coils also circulate air much better than base foam. This keeps cooling air circulating underneath your comfort layer. If you add latex foam or gel memory foam on top of this, you can get the coolest sleep surface available.

Just be aware that hybrid mattresses are not as durable as all-foam construction because the coils inside them lose tension and break down. If you combine this decreased durability with the fact that hybrid mattresses are almost as expensive as latex ones, on average, you get the most expensive mattress type overall. This can be prohibitive for some shoppers, although it is possible to find quality budget hybrid mattresses.

SEE ALSO: Hybrid Mattress Buying Guide

Innerspring

Innerspring mattresses are the worst mattress type for back pain sufferers, including people with degenerative disc disease. These mattresses have internal support cores made of open coils. Unlike pocketed coils, open coils are not encased and are wired together with steel cables. This creates a network of coils supporting the mattress.

There are many problems that can stem from having networked coils. Potentially the biggest problem for degenerative disc sufferers is the fact that open coils do not contour very well. They tend to sag under your heavier parts instead of taking on your shape. This can leave you with spinal misalignment and actually exacerbate your symptoms rather than alleviate them.

The other main problem with innerspring mattresses is that their open coils make them incompatible with adjustable beds. All other major mattress types are compatible with adjustable bases because they can flex with the bed when it moves. Innerspring mattresses are too stiff and rigid to do this, thanks to their coil systems.

They will float over the adjustable bed and can even break when it moves from the flat position. This can be a huge problem for degenerative disc sufferers because many of them use adjustable bases to help ease their symptoms.

Another major problem with open coils is their lack of durability. Open coils are even less durable than pocketed ones. Where pocketed coils will last up to two decades, you can expect most innerspring mattresses to fail within 10 years.

This means that you will be replacing these mattresses more often than any other mattress type. For all of these reasons, we suggest hybrid mattresses for those who want coil support cores.

SEE ALSO: Innerspring Mattress Buying Guide

Ideal Mattress Firmness for Degenerative Disc Disease

When it comes to back pain, common sense might seem to dictate that the softer the mattress, the more pain-relieving it is. However, this is not the case. Typically, the best mattress firmness for those who suffer from back pain is a medium-firm mattress. This firmness level offers the right balance of support and contouring to align the spine and keep the body lifted on top of the bed.

Even so, there are other factors you need to consider when choosing a mattress firmness besides your back pain. You’ll also want to keep your sleeping position in mind and, depending on your weight, possibly your body type as well.

Sleep Position

Your sleep position is the main factor that decides how firm a mattress you need. Your sleep position dictates how your body contacts the bed, where your pressure points are, and how much support and pressure relief you need. This means you should decide your firmness baseline based on your sleep position, and only go up and down from there based on your body weight.

Back Sleepers

Degenerative disc sufferers who sleep on their backs will have the easiest time picking a mattress firmness because back sleepers typically need the firmness level that is coincidentally the best for back pain: medium-firm (6 of 10).

When you sleep on your back, you need a mattress for back sleeping that can follow the curve of your spine while still preventing you from sinking into the sleep surface. Medium-firm mattresses offer the best balance of lift and cradling to offer contoured support to back sleepers.

Combo Sleepers

Combination sleepers do not have a strong preference for any single sleep position. They may adopt any position at any point during the night. This means they need a mattress for combination sleeping that can offer plenty of versatility to support them when they’re on their backs and stomachs and cushion them when they’re on their sides.

Medium mattresses (5 of 10) typically offer the most versatility because they offer an even balance of pressure relief and support. This makes them the ideal firmness for most combination sleepers.

Side Sleepers

Side sleepers normally need softer mattresses because they need the most pressure relief. This can make finding a mattress particularly difficult for side sleepers with back pain. Generally speaking, if you sleep on your side and have back pain, you want to go as firm as possible in a mattress for side sleeping without sacrificing the pressure relief your joints need.

Medium-soft mattresses (4 of 10) are often best for side sleepers, though side sleepers with back pain may want to go up to a medium if their joints can handle it.

Stomach Sleepers

Stomach sleepers typically need the firmest mattresses (7 of 10). This is because sleeping on your stomach allows your pelvis to sink into the bed. This overarches the spine and can lead to back pain. Sleeping on a firm mattress can help counter the sinkage and prevent back pain.

However, while you can choose the best mattress for stomach sleeping if that’s what you find comfy, sleeping on your stomach is the most unhealthy position for your spine. So if you suffer from degenerative disc disease, you might want to consider trying to train yourself to sleep on your side or your back.

Body Type

If you fall inside the mattress industry’s definition of the average human weight range (130 to 230 pounds), feel free to skip ahead because your body type does not impact your firmness needs. On the other hand, if you fall outside this weight range, you may need to take that into consideration when choosing a mattress firmness.

Petite Sleepers

Those who weigh less than 130 pounds are considered petite sleepers. Petite sleepers often have trouble getting sufficient contouring and cradling out of their mattresses. One way to solve this problem is to go down a firmness level from the one that corresponds to the sleep position. This ensures a mattress for lightweight sleepers offers plenty of needed cushion.

For instance, a petite stomach sleeper might want to go down from a firm mattress to a medium-firm one to get sufficient contouring.

Plus-Size Sleepers

Plus-size sleepers weigh more than 230 pounds. If this describes you, you may need to do the opposite of a petite sleeper and go up a firmness level from the one that matches your sleep position. This is because heavier sleepers tend to get insufficient support from their mattresses.

Going up a firmness level can help solve this problem by offering you the same amount of support that an average-weight sleeper would get from a mattress that matched their sleep position. Many mattresses for heavy people offer reinforced support as an extra precaution.

FAQs

Can an adjustable bed help my degenerative disc disease?

An adjustable bed can be a wonderful option for all sorts of back pain, including pain caused by degenerative disc disease. Adjustable bases help you sleep in positions that put less stress on your body than lying flat. This can help ease all sorts of pain, even beyond back pain.

Potentially the best sleep position for degenerative disc disease is the zero gravity position. In the zero gravity post, you adjust your bed so that your head and legs are lifted above your heart. When set up on an adjustable bed for back pain, this puts your spine in a more naturally aligned position and takes the pressure off of your back and joints. This can tremendously help back pain.

While you can achieve the zero gravity position by piling up pillows on your bed, adjustable beds allow you to get into this position without a lot of effort. This can be hugely helpful for people who have mobility issues that prevent them from adjusting pillows. It can also help people whose mobility problems prevent them from getting in and out of bed.

What is the best firmness if I have degenerative disc disease?

The best firmness level for just about all back pain sufferers is medium-firm (6 of 10). Medium-firm mattresses offer a balance of support and pressure relief that slightly favors support. This is the best option to keep your spine aligned and help prevent back pain.

Keep in mind, however, that your back pain is not the only factor that impacts your firmness needs. Your sleep position and body type also have an impact on how firm your ideal mattress should be. For example, side sleepers with back pain will likely experience joint pain if they get a medium-firm mattress because the mattress will not offer enough pressure relief.

This means you will need to take your weight and especially your sleep position into account when selecting a mattress firmness. If you fail to do so, your back pain relief could come at the expense of other problems.

Should I get a mattress topper for my degenerative disc disease?

Mattress toppers can sometimes help with degenerative disc problems, but only if your mattress is too firm. Mattress firmness comes from its support core and not the layers on top. This means if your mattress is too soft for you, the best thing you can do is replace it.

However, if your mattress is overly firm and causing you back pain or exacerbating your degenerative disc symptoms, a mattress topper for back pain can help by adding contouring that can keep your spine better aligned.

Which mattress material is best for degenerative disc disease?

There are several mattress materials that can be a great fit for degenerative disc disease, but the best ones are latex foam and hybrids. Latex mattresses and hybrid mattresses both offer buoyant support and tons of contouring to ensure your spine is ideally aligned to relieve the most pain.

Degenerative disc disease sufferers who want tons of durability and eco-friendliness should check out latex. This natural material will last far longer than any other mattress type and produces much less toxic waste to manufacture. It’s also recyclable and biodegradable to boot.

Hybrid mattresses offer a bit more bounce and a little more affordability than latex. But they are not as durable and not as eco-friendly. However, pocketed coils are the most contouring of all support core materials, which means they offer the most customizable support. This can be hugely helpful to those who suffer from back pain of all types.

How much should I pay for a mattress for degenerative disc disease?

How much you pay for a mattress depends on a lot of different factors. But since there are not really any mattresses that are specifically designed for degenerative disc disease, the fact that you’re buying it for that should not have any impact on its price.

This means you can expect to pay on average anywhere from a few hundred to several thousand dollars for a mattress. Memory foam mattresses are typically the most affordable, while latex mattresses have the highest upfront cost of any mattress type.

Don’t let this fool you into thinking that latex is the most expensive material. Hybrid mattresses may cost less than latex up front, but since you are going to be replacing them more often, you will be paying the most for a hybrid mattress over the course of its lifetime.

Bottom Line

Degenerative disc disease can disrupt your whole life, but choosing the right mattress can help put you back on track. Just remember that you shouldn’t focus only on your back pain when choosing a mattress’s firmness and material. You’ll also need to consider other factors, like your sleep position and sleep temperature, when selecting the perfect mattress for you.