What’s Up, Tiger Leg?

Here is my leg this morning, right after the visit to the PT.

That is, in case people don’t recognize it, Kinesio Tape.

Here’s another view.

Now, I know what you’re thinking . . . what in tarnation is that, and how do I get to looking that cool?

Whoa there, young feller. Let Uncle Disperser give you a very important piece of information.

Kinesio Tape was developed by a chiropractor after 30 years of chiropractic research (with an amazing lack of anything in the way of scientific explanation as to its claimed efficacy, and a correspondingly amazing lack of anything proving it does what it says it does), and was most notably used in the last Olympics, mostly by athletes paid to wear the conspicuous patches of variously colored tape.

At the time it was sold as a near-magic solution to sore muscles, sprains, and lack of national, if not international, attention.

I looked it up then, and I looked it up again after I got home from the PT taping session. Nothing has changed in the past two years, except now it aids in ‘draining’ fluid from inflamed areas.

You see, I know it does jack for muscles, being, at best, no better than using an ace bandage. However, the PT said he was adding this to my leg to aid the lymphatic system natural drainage system (the fluid that fills up during an injury is typically drained through the lymphatic system, and filtered by the kidneys).

To be extra powerfully efficient, they were going to “fan it”, a technique so powerful that it is seldom used. But, you know, we were addressing major swelling here; we don’t have the time to screw around.

So, fanned it was. By the way, I just show my leg. The tape goes up my shapely left cheek, and into the amazing-looking lower left quadrant of the back (‘been doing weights; sculpted I be).

I was warned I would experience an increase in bathroom visits frequency, and that I should drink plenty of fluid to make up for the fluid loss.

So, perhaps a few comments are in order now.

First, the swelling in both my leg and foot had already drastically reduced from what it was just two days ago before I went to the PT, and is a lot better than it was last week. I have more range of motion, and it’s improving every day, although the injured areas are still very sore to the touch.

Note: The bruising is slow in going, and that is in itself an indication of the amount of damage (or at least internal bleeding) I experienced. My bruising does not usually last long. This is now going on three weeks tomorrow.

I would have liked to have this applied last week, when the swelling was in its prime . . . although, I still don’t think it would have done much more than look purty.

Second, asking me to drink a lot of water would itself cause me to visit the bathroom more often than normal.

Third, as far as I could tell from talking to the PT, the description they offered sounded to me suspiciously like the idea of manual lymphatic drainage . . . a. k. a. – a massage supposedly to aid drainage by “directing” the fluid to the lymphatic nodes.

It has been shown to have no effect.

“Yeah,” you say, “but this looks purty.”

Yes, I will give you that, but that don’t mean it work. It’s always a dead giveaway when something has the chiropractic label on it; it’s like having a hokum seal of approval. Lest I get sued by the fine and upstanding chiropractic community, I stress this is my opinion. They may believe it works, and it certainly works in getting insurance money for its use, but I don’t buy it.

The PTs did manage to hit got a couple of lymphatic locations right (it’s hard to miss all of them), but at least some seems to be derived from the scientific method of following the major contours of the leg. To be honest, if you look at the lymphatic system, the vascular system in general, any similar pattern will have a good chance of ‘looking’ scientifically accurate.

As I said, hokum.

As mentioned, the leg was already mega draining, so all this does, as far as I can tell, is make cool zebra-like patterns on the legs, and little else.

Why agree to it, you ask? Well, I actually like my PTs, and they were very helpful during my two shoulder surgeries and one knee surgery, doing actual physical therapy and stuff. 

Also, they were so intent on the application, so earnest, so dedicated to the task of making purty patterns, that I didn’t have the heart to say “This is bullshit, right?”

Besides, it is purty . . . I hear it makes me look sexy, as well, although in retrospect I should have gotten the pink tape.

Reading material regarding Kinesio Tape:

http://skeptoid.com/blog/2012/08/13/kinesio-tape-the-evidence/
http://archive.randi.org/site/index.php/swift-blog/1791-kinesio-taping-the-latest-sports-fad.html
http://www.jospt.org/doi/abs/10.2519/jospt.2008.2791
http://clinicaltrials.gov/show/NCT02057120
http://www.schoudernetwerk.nl/pdffiles/Kinesiotape.Schouder.JOSPT.Thelen.2008.pdf

That’s it. This post has ended . . . except for the stuff below.

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. . .  my FP ward  . . . chieken shit.