Tuesday, December 26, 2017

Athletic Tape for Temporary relief of hernias during exercise?

I found that I can wear a weight lifting belt but it isn't always practical unless I'm actually lifting weights or skiing because I have to be careful of things that wrap all the way around my torso that stay too tight for too long. For example, I find that I have to put a clip on my seat belt so it doesn't make me pass out while driving so it isn't too tight and restrict my circulation. So, my daughter found another temporary solution that doesn't entirely wrap around you.

So, Now I'm using Athletic Tape from CVS Health (CVS is a drug store chain in California). So now I have Electric Blue Elastic for complete range of motion- 20 perforated Elastic STrips 16.4 Ft (5 m) pre cut. Though they are built to be used as a Y shape I use them straight over a hernia near my belly button so I don't tear our any more when I'm walking strenuously or exercising. For me, as long as I don't wear them too long this works fine for me. I create basically a cross over my hernia. I suppose you could use as many of these strips as you please but I find two works best for me.

So, if you have a hernia and because of your age (over 65) it isn't practical to get an operation (because of lawsuits against Screen manufacturers when the screens move into organs etc. and because if you break your surgery often you will die if you fall down after after your hernia surgery, you might be able to benefit from these Athletic tapes to prevent further tearing of your hernias while exercising.

So, I thought I might share it with you as an option you might like to try.

These tapes have a glue on them that seems to hold pretty well. But be very careful when you remove them especially if you have a lot of body hair. For me I'm not completely hairy like some guys are. So, this is less of a problem but you don't want to just Rip it off like you do with a bandaid because you might rip your skin off some too. So, the way I do it is to pull it slowly back off my skin so I don't damage my skin. So, it holds pretty good and I have even taken a shower after applying the tape without the tape coming off. Just be very careful when you remove it not to injure your skin. And don't leave them on for more than 2 to 4 hours at a time if you have external intestines (outside your stomach muscles) from your hernia  because food needs to still move through your intestines most of the time or you could eventually die.

So, this is just one more way to stay in shape with a presently inoperable hernia or one that you might decide to operate on at some point in the future but not now.

Refinement:

When you take out the strips if you stretch them before you are going to use them they will snap and get all tangled up and then you are going to have to entangle them. So, what do you do to prevent this problem?

One way is to stick one end to your arm where there is no hair likely the inside of your forearm or your jeans or pants. This way you don't have to spend time untangling sticky stuff.

So, once you take one end off the white surface you immediately stick it to something. I suppose you could place one end immediately on your skin before you take it completely off the white surface it is attached to with stickum and then after you get all of it off the white paper it is stuck to you could refine this method over time to keep all the ends from exploding from stretchiness together into something resembling a ball or mess.

So, once you develop a method that works for you you can either do a cross (one y strip vertical and one y strip horizontal) (or however many strips you want to put on.).

Next in order for this to be useful stretch the tape (after securely attaching one end to your skin near your hernia, then with another hand push in your hernia so when you stretch the tape over your hernia and the rest of your skin, you take it to maximum stretch for maximum support of your hernia while you exercise. Do this for each y strip you apply to the region of your hernia with the center of the overall of each tape over your hernia.

This gives your hernia maximum support without having to be something that completely surrounds your body that might reduce your circulation in ways not useful to you.

However, I personally wouldn't wear these strips over your hernia more than two to four hours during and after exercise. My first day I wore these strips about 12 hours and I didn't feel right after having my hernia pressed in that long. So, do what works for you and observe the results to see if all this is useful to you or not.

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