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81 Karma

Review on ๐Ÿฉน KT Tape Swelling Relief Patch - Recovery Tape by Dee Parson

Revainrating 4 out of 5

Good for soft tissue injuries on SOME parts of the body, but not a universal patch.

At first I had a lot of doubts about these patches. On the other hand, I felt the same way with kinesiotape and I now know that properly applied kinesiotape can really help - even for those of us who only have pain from "loose joints". In any case, I have chronic pain in my spine, sacroiliac joints and hip. Part of the pain is associated with the joints, part with soft tissues (bursa, fascia, muscle inflammation, etc.). Sometimes I get redness and/or swelling with pain in my thighs and buttocks. I take chronic pain relievers as well as medication for an autoimmune disease (which affects my joints), but I still have flare-ups from time to time. So I decided to try these patches and see if they would help with a flare up that was causing swelling and pain. I ended up testing the patches on the buttocks, thigh (around the trochanteric bursa), upper quadriceps, and lower thigh (outer edge - along the iliotibial ligament). They worked VERY well on the glutes, hamstrings, and quads areas. Reduction of pain and point tenderness at the patch application site by 50-60% 2/3 of the day. They worked well on the lower leg border/ilio-tibial band area. Reducing pain and point pain by 30-40% after applying the patch. In my experience, I have benefited more from aggressively applying CT tape to this area for pain relief than a swelling patch. They didn't help at all around the sacroiliac joint or either side of my spine. The pain decreased by 20% or less. I was surprised by this fact - I know for sure that most of my back pain where I used the swelling patch is soft tissue related (muscle/fascial inflammation) and the patches still haven't gone away. not really do much good. I may have to use 2 patches on the same spot to get relief there (?). The instructions in the pack show how to stagger two patches in the same place for "extra" relief. I didn't have enough patches on hand to try this, partly because the patches didn't stick to my back at all. Conversely, I had no problem gluing them in the butt/thigh/thigh area. As for the SI section, I wasn't too surprised that the patches were useless. Yes, I know the pain is due to inflammation (I even get swelling in that area when the joint pain gets really bad), but there's a lot of bone in that area too. The ligaments in this area are very deep. I can understand why the patch didn't work here. I also tested 1 patch on my arm after accidentally tripping over it and ended up with a very bad looking bruise + goose egg on my shoulder. The plaster didn't do much for the pain, but it seemed to help with the swelling. After 3 days on the patch the discoloration wasn't as bad as I expected and the swelling had gone down noticeably.

Pros
  • Good product for the price
Cons
  • flimsy