TLDR: I'm looking for recommendations on a mattress protector and sheets that won't negatively impact my mattress's feel while dispersing body heat.
I've been trying to improve my sleep since last year, and I've been trying everything I can think of to actually get some restful sleep. I'm a 150 lb 5' 10" side sleeper that constantly flips over all night. Generally my hips get sore, I flip, sleep for a bit, then flip again. Not sore enough to actually cause lasting pain when I get up in the morning, but enough pressure to briefly wake me up constantly.
I did a lot of research last year, tried laying on a bunch of mattresses, and ultimately bought a Serta iSeries 2.0 3000 Plush. It felt great at the store, less so when I got it home. I took the time to break it in, but my tossing and turning problem persisted. It was a discounted size return that I couldn't return so I tried to make the best of it.
My bedframe was a cheap Zinus frame from Amazon, so I figured maybe the foundation was the problem. I tried the mattress on the floor and that improved the feel. So I bought a used Leggett & Platt Prodigy 2.0 bed frame since I wanted a firmer base and it did improve things, but didn't actually solve the issue.
Since then I've tried all sorts of combinations of head pillows, leg pillows, different sheets, a wool topper, and positions on the adjustable base. I found some things that helped to varying degrees, but nothing that actually fixed the problem.
I'd gotten so desperate that I started looking at getting another new mattress, but found I had similar soreness on most of the mattresses I tried at various showrooms. The only ones that seemed viable were over $3000, and I was reluctant to spend a lot of money on another mattress that may not work.
Having exhausted almost all other options, just to make sure I'd tried everything before I shelled out a bunch of money I tried sleeping directly on the mattress last night. No protector, no fitted sheet, just my pajamas between me and the bed.
And you know what? I wasn't sore at all. I still woke up a few times due to my body heat welling up directly under me, but I think I finally found the cause of my problem.
While I didn't really need to go into all that detail, I figured maybe there's someone else out there struggling with the same problem so it'd be worthwhile to lay it all out.
But with that out of the way, what mattress protectors and sheets do y'all recommend in a situation like this? The mattress is a flat top memory foam, no pillow top, that contours around me so I probably need something that has a lot of flex. If it can help pull heat away from me all the better! I don't really consider myself a hot sleeper, but just the nature of conforming memory foam causes it to trap heat.