Best Mattress for Ankylosing Spondylitis
Last Updated: October, 2024
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Ankylosing Spondylitis is a disease of the bones that commonly affects the spine making it's joints inflame or in severe cases, making it stiff (fuse) causing a hunched (bent) posture. When suffering from Ankylosing Spondylitis, sleeping comfortably throughout the night becomes a challenge due to back pain and posture issues.
Our team went ahead and tested several mattresses to see which one would suit an Ankylosing Spondylitis sufferer. We found seven ideal mattresses and reviewed them below. The best mattress for ankylosing spondylitis is GhostBed 3D Matrix smart bed which has high tech to help you regulate your comfort in the night. Let's look at each mattress and why it'll be good for you.
A Quick Look at 7 Best Mattresses for Ankylosing Spondylitis (AS)
Best Rated
1. GhostBed 3D Matrix - Best Overall
GhostBed is fitted with cutting-edge technology, such as sensors and adjustable air chambers on each side, for each sleeper's personalized comfort. Its pressure-relieving patented gel polymer layer automatically adjusts to conform to your body.
2. Amerisleep As3 Mattress
Of all the firmness options in the Amerisleep line, the AS3 is the middle firm mattress. Thanks to its Bio-Pur comfort and HiVE transition layer, its firmness offers excellent support and balanced relief of pressure.
With its 700-pocketed tiny foam mattresses, SleepOvation offers unparalleled pressure relief to side sleepers. Moreover, it provides excellent cushioning and cradling support, ideal for an AS patient.
4. MOLECULE Hybrid Mattress
MOLECULE Mattress features MOLECULARFLO within its comfort layers, making it more breathable than typical memory foam. The MOLECULARFLO Foam is also zoned to keep your spine aligned properly and provide targeted support.
5. Nolah Signature 12 Mattress
Nolah Signature is designed with the proprietary Nolah AirFoam™, which bears an excellent cooling effect. Also, the Nolah AirFoam™ is more bouncy than typical memory foam, making it super responsive.
This Puffy Mattress has a high-density polyfoam and gel foam which offers an outstanding balance of support and relieves pressure. Its spectacular features help relieve chronic pain on painful pressure points.
7. Zoma Hybrid
The mattress' cool and restorative foams promote quick pain relief. Its Triangulex™ foam layer offers zoned support, increasing relief of pressure on the shoulders, head, and leg areas.
Pros
Cons
GhostBed 3D Matrix is a smart bed with all the bells and whistles to help boost an Ankylosing Spondylitis patient's sleep quality. Among 3D's selling points is the cooling technology stemming from its gel memory foam, cooling cover, and 3D matrix polymer layer.
The cover is woven with cool-to-the-touch Ghost Ice Fabric, offering instant cooling relief to hot sleepers. For boosted cooling, its second layer is fitted with 3D Matrix Polymer that absorbs and distributes body heat across the mattress surface.
The 3D Matrix has adjustable firmness, allowing you to optimize its firmness automatically for excellent relief of pressure. Moreover, it can adjust itself to conform to your sleeping positions, promoting proper spinal alignment and ensuring you get optimal support. Though ideal for back sleepers with back pain, it's an excellent option for side sleepers with chronic pain in the hips and shoulders. This is thanks to its auto pressure relief setting, which also makes this bed a viable pick for sleepers on the hunt for the best mattress for hip replacement patients.
Like most adjustable beds, the 3D Matrix is compatible with standard adjustable bed frames, foundations, slats, and box springs. Overall the smart bed's futuristic features, in conjunction with an adjustable bedframe, guarantee an AS sufferer an exceptional sleep experience.
Pros
Cons
In Amerisleep's line, the As3 Memory Foam Mattress is the best-selling model. Plus, it's considered universally comfortable and offers excellent value for your money.
Considered the best cooling mattress in Amerisleep's catalog by most sleepers, it has an excellently designed cool-to-the-touch polyester cover and a 2-inch transition layer. The cover features spandex and Celliant in its construction. While the Celliant component offers cooling relief—by transforming body heat into infrared—the spandex is stretchy to adjust to the body's shape.
The AS3's transition layer is a bit stiffer and more responsive than the comfort layer. Within this layer are the HiVE technology and the Bio-Pur foam, which allows free air travel, shielding you from night sweats. More importantly, the HiVE Layer is excellently zoned to support different body parts. The zoning also promotes excellent spinal alignment and relieves overall body pain especially back pain.
Like most memory foam mattresses, As3 bears a firmness scale of 6.5/10, ideal for an average-weight sleeper with Ankylosing Spondylitis. With this firmness level, it's considered a medium firm mattress. Its plush soft top layer allows enough sinkage to cradle the body while providing balanced cushioning support—thanks to its support and transition foam layer.
Pros
Cons
SleepOvation features cutting-edge technology best for a sleeper seeking a properly cooling pressure reliving, medium firm option.
At its comfort layer, this hybrid mattress features 700 tiny mattresses which relieve pressure on painful target pressure points. Regardless of your preferred sleeping position (except stomach sleeping if you have Ankylosing Spondylitis), the mattress provides individualized comfort and support while excellently adapting to your body shape.
Covering the entire mattress is the cool-to-the-touch, removable, machine-washable cover. The cover is thin, offering a hot sleeper with amazing cooling relief. Also, the tiny mattresses feature "Cushion Pocket" technology to boost the overall breathability of the entire mattress.
SleepOvation is a good option for sleepers seeking a firmer mattress. With a mattress firmness of 6.5/10, SleepOvation's construction is formulated to promote healthy spinal alignment, back pain, and joint pain relief. Like innerspring mattresses, SleepOvation offers a great comfort and support balance ideal for a sleeper with Ankylosing Spondylitis.
Pros
Cons
MOLECULE Hybrid is an exceptionally comfortable mattress with top-notch breathability and pressure-relieving capabilities. These and other features are ideal for an Ankylosing Spondylitis patient and athletes with an active lifestyle.
MOLECULE hybrid mattresses tend to sag at the edge during occasional sitting or just lying. However, this MOLECULE mattress' comfort layer and the sturdy support core add some solid reinforcement to its edges. Overall, its strong edge support is sufficient enough to prevent you from rolling off the bed or sliding when sleeping or just sitting.
MOLECULE's firmness level is on the medium firm side, with a scale of 6.0/10. So, as a plush soft mattress, it is excellently pressure-relieving, leaving your body pain free when you wake up rejuvenated. Additionally, the mattress' coil system and the support layers make it firmer to provide maximum support around the lumbar region.
Due to its exceptional motion isolation, you don't have to worry about sleep disturbances due to tosses and turns from a co-sleeper or a sleep partner. This is thanks to its top slow-moving memory foam layer in conjunction with the coil system, ensuring minimal motion transfer.
Pros
Cons
Most all-foam mattresses are known to trap and retain heat, which may cause some sleep discomfort. However, such is not the case with Nolah Signature since its memory foam layers are designed with temperature-neutral viscoelastic materials. It also has heat-dissipating microscopic air pockets, which help improve overall heat dissipation.
Firmness is a subjective feel factor, and unlike most memory foam mattresses, Nolah Signature has two firmness levels. On its soft side, most sleepers consider it a medium soft option, while its firmer side makes it a medium firm mattress. Since body weight, to some extent, determines comfort preference, the softer side is ideal for lightweight sleepers, while the firmer side is fit for heavyweight sleepers.
Spinal alignment and pressure relief are two metrics Nolah Signature excels at. Both sides of the mattress allow sufficient sinkage for maximum pressure relief, especially for those who sleep on their side. The relief primarily stems from its thick AirFoam layer cushioning the hips and the shoulders. To maintain a healthy spinal alignment on this mattress, common sleep positions to adapt are back and side sleeping.
Pros
Cons
Puffy is a carefully tested mattress, and the customer reviews suggest it's among the top-rated mattresses better suited for side sleepers.
Unlike traditional memory foam, the puffy mattress's Climate Comfort™ Foam expands and contracts to maintain a neutral temperature. For instance, if the environmental temperature is cold, it contracts and expands when it's hot. Such Foam variability makes Puffy the right mattress for Ankylosing Spondylitis patients seeking Maximum pressure relief.
Puffy is a suitable option for sleepers looking for an extra firm mattress. The mattress bears a firmness scale of 7.0/10, which is firmer than the industry standard of 6.5/10. With this level of mattress firmness, it delivers an unparalleled conforming and cushioning ability for pressure relief for average and heavyweight sleepers.
The Puffy Mattress bears an excellent responsive level, almost similar to that of latex mattresses. Its responsiveness produces bounciness keeping you from sinking too deep into the material. Since there's efficient ease of movement on the surface, you shouldn't have difficulties switching to a different sleeping position.
7. Zoma Hybrid
Pros
Cons
Though ideal for athletes, Zoma Hybrid is a spectacular option for Ankylosing Spondylitis sleepers seeking a restorative, cooler sleep.
The mattress is designed with a breathable mesh fabric cover consisting of a 3% spandex and 97% polyester material blend. The cover, combined with a perforated gel foam layer and pocketed coils, enhances the mattress's overall breathability.
Compared to average hybrid mattresses, Zoma Hybrid is firmer, with a scale of 6.5/10. Its soft top foam layer is fast responding, excellently pressure relieving, and simultaneously responsive.
The mattress is zoned to feel softer or firmer, depending on the sleeping position. Zoma Hybrid feels relatively firmer for a back sleeper but with a balanced comfort ideal for an AS patient. Its 2-inch polyfoam layer and 7-inch pocketed coil support core limit excessive sinkage into the mattress, boosting ease of movement on the sleep surface.
More Details on Ankylosing Spondylitis
Ankylosing Spondylitis, which is a type of arthritis, does not only affect the spinal code. It can also affect other joints and ligaments like in the feet, hands, shoulders and knees. Our joints and ligaments make these parts flexible enough to move. When you suffer from severe Ankylosing Spondylitis, these body parts become stiff and affect your mobility.
How to choose the right mattress for Ankylosing Spondylitis
Since as a Ankylosing Spondylitis sufferer you experience stiffness in a specific body part - and sometimes pain too - then you'll need a mattress with certain features to enhance sleep comfort.
Firmness Level
The right mattress firmness will depend on several factors. One major factor is the severity of your condition. Is your body part only swollen or has it already become stiff? If it's swollen, you may need a medium plush mattress to ease the pressure exerted to the body part. If the part is stiff, then you'll need to get a medium firm bed so it relieves more pressure on the body part.
The other factor is body weight. Anyone below 230 lbs should consider a mattress with medium firm feel. Above that number, the mattress options to go for are luxury firm or extra firm options. If you're lightweight below 150lbs, try out a medium soft. A good choice would be a mattress with different firmness options, or adjustable firmness technology, so you can switch when or if the condition escalates or heals.
Sleeping Positions
The best sleep position for Ankylosing Spondylitis sufferers is side sleeping. However, depending on the affected body part, you may need to make use of pillows to help relieve more pressure. For example, using pillows between your knees, a thin pillow under your thoracic region or under your legs. Side sleeping helps with spinal alignment, unlike back sleeping which can make you wake up with massive pain on your back or joint pain. Avoid stomach sleeping at all costs. In case you're a strict stomach sleeper, sleep on your side using a body pillow or stack up pillows around you to prevent accidental position change. When purchasing your new mattress, make sure that it supports side sleeping and relieves pressure for your body weight.
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Cooling Properties
You can't improve your sleep quality if your mattress heats up and makes you sweat at night. Whether you're suffering from Ankylosing Spondylitis or not, every hot sleeper requires a mattress with cooling properties. A memory foam mattress will be too hot for you unless you get one with gel beads or special technology that enhances breathability. Other options include a latex mattress and mattresses with pocketed coils. Cooling will additionally relax your nerves helping reduce migraines and other aches you may have. You'll wake up feeling energetic and prevent fatigue the following day.
Edge Support
It's easy to get into home accidents like falling or tripping on something when suffering from Ankylosing Spondylitis. That said, a mattress with good edge support is a necessity. When sitting on the edge of your mattress to support yourself as you dress up, you don't want to fall and hurt your affected area even more. Also, when sleeping with a partner, you may find yourself on the edge of the bed. If you're using a poorly made mattress, you may roll over onto the floor and hurt yourself.
Conclusion
A good mattress will not heal your Ankylosing Spondylitis condition. However, it will help improve your sleep quality. It will also prevent you from escalating the condition by relieving pressure points. One last tip is to ensure that the mattress you purchase can handle your weight and that of your partner. Our product choices offer features that will help you sleep better.