Here is another testimonial of another customer getting sick from a new mattress:
I purchased a mattress from a major bedding manufacturer two months ago in the fall of 2008. It was a wonderfully comfortable, plush top. I loved the comfort of it. However, the first night I was so sick from the off gassing that I woke up in the middle of night horribly nauseated, coughing up a lot of material out of my lungs. This happened the second night, too. After that, the chemical odor didn’t go away, but it became less and it was only really noticeable if I put my head under the covers and inhaled. I decided not to do that because the old gassing was so unpleasant, but I thought I’d just get used to it and eventually it would go away. It didn’t go away completely, however. Six weeks later, I woke up in the night to find my bare feet burning and itching. So I got up about 2 a.m., rinsed them off with cold water and put some socks on and went back to bed. The next night, the bottoms of my feet, my back and the back of my head started to burn and itch. So I got up, showered off and went back to bed. The third night into the sixth week, my whole body started burning and itching. I showered and then thought, let’s just do an experiment here. So I got a plastic drop cloth doubled it and put it over the bed all the way to the floor. It completely covered the bedding. I then put a sleeping bag on top and slept on the bed. Lo and behold, all the itching and burning stopped. At this point, I had no doubt it was my new mattress and possibly the box brings as well. The plastic drop cloth worked for another seven days. On the eighth day, the burning and itching started up again. I realized the off gassing was either coming through the plastic somehow or currents in the air from my forced air gas furnace. At that point, I called the bedding store and asked for my money back. I told them they would have to remove the offending mattress and box springs as soon as possible as it was making me sick. They stated if I got a prescription from my doctor saying I was allergic to the flame retardants, which are at a greater concentration since bedding manufacturers have had to comply with a new July 2007 flame retardant regulations, they would take the matches back. I found out the new regulation is 16 CFR part 1633 and no consumer ever voted on it. I also found out that these toxic fire retardants are cumulative and supposedly are not something you can flush out of your body once you absorb them. Not comforting. I did, however, try to sweat out the toxins with Epsom salt baths that seemed to help. I went to my doctor who said he has been seeing incidents of allergic responses to newer mattresses with increased flame retardants in them. He readily gave me the prescription saying I am alergic to flame retardants and the foams. To the bedding store’s credited, I got my money back and the betting was removed and my symptoms have disappeared completely.
So, some people like to claim that I’m using alarmism. No, I’m actually spreading to you what people are telling me. I’m spreading to the actual facts. I’m not using alarmism or scare tactics to sell mattresses. I am really, truly trying to prevent people from sleeping in toxic fire retardant chemicals.