BEFORE (October 27, 2013):

Alright, so as I write this I’m one week out from the NYC marathon and I’ve had a bit of lingering hip and foot pain that has flared up recently. In the past I’ve had problems with my outer hips (often the piriformis, I accept the fact they can be weak), but the pain had gone away recently, which I attributed to the Insanity DVDs we had been doing (Thanks Shaun T!). This time I think it might be IT band related. The pain on the top of my foot began a week ago after my 23km run with Chris last weekend, and after eight days of stretching, ice and ibuprofen, it’s still kicking around. After some encouragement from some friends on Twitter, I figured KT Tape wouldn’t cause any further injury, and thus decided to try a $20 experiment. I picked up a box from my local drugstore and taping commenced shortly after.

So, using my expert self-injury diagnosis techniques, I followed the KT Tape instructions for “Top of Foot” and “IT Band Hip“. Top of foot pain seemed sort of the obvious one for how to treat. Coming up with the IT band hip one took a quick youtube search. I implicated my lovely finance as my expert taper for this experiment.

Apparently the different tape colours mean absolutely nothing. So I picked purple to match the shirt I am planning on wearing in NYC and it’s also one of the colours we selected for our upcoming wedding!

What have I learned so far? Well, from the photos, I probably need to repaint my toenails. Perhaps I shall give myself a pre-NYC marathon pedicure.

AFTER:

24 HOURS LATER:

So, perhaps I have un-sticky skin. Or perhaps we messed up with the stretch and then release part, but one of the ends of the tape on my ankle came off within like 20 minutes. Seriously. We unstuck it from itself (it folded over on another sticky part), and re-stuck it down. 24 hours later, it was still holding strong (probably thanks to a sock that I kept on). Some of the strips on my hip were also coming loose on the ends (but nothing disastrous). However, I hadn’t felt any significant improvement at this point.

ONE WEEK LATER (November 7, 2013):

So after the 24 hour period had passed my hip started getting really itchy. (Side note – How long are you supposed to leave this tape on for?!?!?) I didn’t last much longer past this point, before I had to take it off my hip (due to the sheer itchiness factor). For my hip, I gave up on this part of the experiment and ended up going to the chiropractor for active release on the Thursday before the marathon. I decided I would probably have greater benefit from painting my toenails, than from re-taping.

So, I ended up not running with the tape. Partially I was worried by how irritated the skin on my hip had been by it, and since I took it off during the week I didn’t get a chance to really run with it at all during training. At first I wondered if the scratches on my skin were from my fingernails, and trying to scratch the itchy spots, but I don’t think that was the case, as there are marks under where the tape was, in areas where my fingers couldn’t possibly have reached. I’ve never had any reaction to any form of medical tape before and had no issues with the tape on my foot causing a similar reaction.

Seriously, in the week since I’ve taken the tape off, some parts have even scabbed over. It’s horrible. Originally I thought “KT tape wouldn’t cause further injury”, which I suppose is true in the sense that it didn’t hurt my foot and it didn’t drastically cause further injury to my hip. However, I’m not sure I would recommend it based on the itchyness/scraped up hip factor alone, however since we have over half a roll of tape left, I might try it again. Or maybe Chris will test it out (if next season one of us develops an injury and we actually don’t forget that we have it hidden away).

Overall KT Tape Experiment = Probably not very successful for myself, but if it apparently works for other people (placebo effect?), so it might be worth trying if you have a mild injury! For any serious injuries, though always seek professional help.