Susan's Place Transgender Resources

Since the warm weather is here and can't really wear baggy sweaters and Hoodies  to hide my chest anymore, (lucky to have a large A/small B size chest);and I absolutely hate the constricting  feel of binders, I  decided to try out open binding.  I bought some $3 sports tape and tried it out and it works really well for my chest size  but doesn't hold up when I get sweaty (as expected, since it only cost $3)

My question is about KT tape.  Before I  spend the money, I want to know if it will hold up in the sweatiest of conditions and possibly work for swimming?

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I never used KT tape to bind but I have used it for sports injuries. There's a much better brand of Kinesiology tape available on eBay that has a much stickier adhesive and is much cheaper. it comes from Korea but I can't remember the brand name.

In general some hints for applying it and getting it to stick is to clean your skin with alcohol first, put it in when you are the least sweaty. You also need to rub it vigorously to generate heat after you apply it because it helps the glue adhere better to your skin. Also the longer you let it sit before moving it, the better it will stick. I used it mostly on my elbow/shoulder and I would put it on Saturday night so it had time to sit before I had practice on Monday. I was able to have it stay on all week with no issues. I also swam with it on, but only after it had been on at least 2 days.

With binding I'm not sure of you would be able to leave it on for that long. In order to get the compression you are going to want good adhesive but if you're pulling that tape off every night you are going to give your skin an awfully rough time. I would try an Under Armour compression shirt or something like that to give your skin a break every once in a while.

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Quote from: green27 on April 15, 2017, 07:41:52 PM
I never used KT tape to bind but I have used it for sports injuries. There's a much better brand of Kinesiology tape available on eBay that has a much stickier adhesive and is much cheaper. it comes from Korea but I can't remember the brand name.

In general some hints for applying it and getting it to stick is to clean your skin with alcohol first, put it in when you are the least sweaty. You also need to rub it vigorously to generate heat after you apply it because it helps the glue adhere better to your skin. Also the longer you let it sit before moving it, the better it will stick. I used it mostly on my elbow/shoulder and I would put it on Saturday night so it had time to sit before I had practice on Monday. I was able to have it stay on all week with no issues. I also swam with it on, but only after it had been on at least 2 days.

With binding I'm not sure of you would be able to leave it on for that long. In order to get the compression you are going to want good adhesive but if you're pulling that tape off every night you are going to give your skin an awfully rough time. I would try an Under Armour compression shirt or something like that to give your skin a break every once in a while.

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I will give your tips a try.  I bought a compression shirt from underworks but it doesn't hide my chest enough.  Maybe I need to go down a size since I've lost 15 pounds since buying it.

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I'm not sure how safe it was but I used to wear an XS Under Armour compression shirt when I was really wearing a size medium T-Shirt. Champion also makes compression shirts like that and you can get them cheap at walmart.

It's not as restrictive as a binder but if your chest is smaller it might work for you.

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Quote from: green27 on April 15, 2017, 07:51:29 PM
I'm not sure how safe it was but I used to wear an XS Under Armour compression shirt when I was really wearing a size medium T-Shirt. Champion also makes compression shirts like that and you can get them cheap at walmart.

It's not as restrictive as a binder but if your chest is smaller it might work for you.

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I will definitely look into other compression. Shirts.  Thanks.

Quote from: lil_red on April 15, 2017, 07:48:42 PM
I will give your tips a try.  I bought a compression shirt from underworks but it doesn't hide my chest enough.  Maybe I need to go down a size since I've lost 15 pounds since buying it.

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Never used it for binding but I used it religiously for some injuries while I was in the police academy a few years ago. We were running daily and I had bad ankles/hips. KT holds up really well as long as you follow the directions when applying it (apply to clean dry skin, stretch the tape and then lay it down with 50-75% stretch, rub the tape to get it to stay). I could usually get mine to stay for 5 days in a row with sweat and shower exposure. Cost wise, it is going to be much more expensive than binding if you're doing it for more than a month, but if you can afford it and it's more comfortable, why not?