Hi guys

Does anyone here double bind? I usually double bind with a underworks 983 trip top and then a 997 over the top and that gets pretty flat and I feel comfortable with that.

But I was just wondering, is it actually safe to double bind like that? I've had no problems but I was wondering if anyone else has.

Pre surgery, I used to double bind with an Underworks double front and a tritop in order to create a V-shaped body. Worst decision of my life, apart from binding with tape. I was incredibly restricted in terms of movement and breathing, and actually fractured my ribs at one point. It's not safe to bind, period, but double binding increases the risk of injury/suffocation/heat stroke/etc.

And fracturing your ribs is agonizing. I wouldn't ever want to repeat the experience.

I wear an all in one mens "sculpting" thingy...like a leotard with compression  and then a binder over that.

I feel restricted and my breathing definitely suffers, I suffer from chest infections constantly, I think because it's so compressed and I can only take shallow breaths all the germys and dust just get stuck in my lungs >.>

My shoulders, back, ribs and neck also hurt pretty much always.

But *shrug* the cost of not passing is too high for any of that to bother me too much

I used to double bind, but it made it look twice as weird. I just use 1 binder.

I personally wear a compression shirt under my binder so technically I am double binding.  It works the best for me especially in the summer when I get hot and the compression shirt absorbs the sweat.

You can break a rib or get some kinds of lung ailments. Read the sticky.

--Jay J

The compression shirt is probably not really double binding. I think those are just normal shirts that people wear.

--Jay J

Try a compression shirt. I am borrowing my friends and it's great.

I would say if you have difficulty with moving or breathing at all to be worried. Normally, side effects don't kick in for after a few hours or so. So if you do end up having issues, look into compression shirts. They hug you under your normal shirt and are unnoticeable health wise.

My doctor said as long as I can get a deep breath in then I should be okay ... she also advised me to only wear it for six hours a day -- she knows I wear it all the time I am in public so she is just trying to be a good doc. 

Compression shirts, even with a binder only really work for small chested guys. I know this from experience.

I did it for a few months before top surgery and didn't have any problems. But I only used binders for about ten months total (counting the post-surgical truss), and for some of that time, I wasn't binding for very long at all.

Also, I wasn't using one of those heavy-duty spandex-from-hell masher smasher binders. I used Cotton Concealers and either layered one binder over the other or doubled up the same binder, since they are long.

I had a regime of triple binding - Underworks 997, with a tri top over the top, and then the 997 folded back over top. I did this for 4 months, 6 days a week. I used to get cute from the binder edges so used to put plasters on the rubbed areas. I often felt sick and short of breath but as someone has mentioned already, the physical pain didn't outweigh the mental pain of not doing it. I had surgery 3 months ago and the extreme binding didn't seem tO have had an impact.

Anyway my point is that I did it, nothing bad happened, and it really helped my confidence despite the pain... Just to offer my 2c.