Research suggests that Kinesio tape may help relieve painfor people with chronic musculoskeletal pain,” Dr. King notes, “though it’s not any more effective than other treatments.” Wearing kinesiology tape to bed may provide short-term relief from pain and may help you get a good night’s sleep. However, it is important to note that wearing kinesiology tape to bed should only be used as an occasional treatment option and should not be relied on as a sole source of relief. What are the side effects of KT tape? Cheatham SW. Roller Massage: A Descriptive Survey of Allied Health Professionals. J Sport Rehabil. 2019;28(6):640-649. doi:10.1123/jsr.2017-0366 [ PubMed] [ Google Scholar]

Your therapist can let you know how much stretch to use in the treatment area. To get a 75 percent stretch, extend the tape as far as it will go and then release it about a quarter of its length. Some physical therapists think the tape changes the information your sensory nervous system is sending about pain and compression in your body.Mostafavifar M, Wertz J, Borchers J. A systematic review of the effectiveness of kinesio taping for musculoskeletal injury. Phys Sportsmed. 2012;40(4):33-40. doi:10.3810/psm.2012.11.1986 [ PubMed] [ Google Scholar]

For increasing circulation post injury/surgery, several studies suggest KT may increase local microcirculation 53–55 and skin temperature, 53–55 while decreasing tissue edema. 56 Other researchers, however, did not find any significant changes in local microcirculation after KT was applied. 57 Respondents also use KT to enhance myofascial mobility, which has some evidence in the literature for causing deformation of the different skin and myofascial layers locally 58,59 and distally 59 which supports the mechanical effects of the tape. For the short term, it can help with some joints that might be painful, for a couple of hours or maybe for a day,” Dr. King says. May help with chronic pain There are few treatments for arthritis in the knee that don’t involve reconstructive knee replacement surgeries. Most of these treatments are woefully inadequate, as there’s simply nothing to be done without rebuilding the knee somehow. There’s only so much that anti-inflammatory medications can do to reduce the pain caused by your knee joint grinding against itself, after all! Yet after the development of KT Tape, new ways to treat knee arthritis using this specialized elastic athletic tape have emerged, with many of them showing some serious results when it comes to pain reduction.But how do you actually apply KT Tape to the knee? You can’t simply wrap it around the joint blindly and hope for the best. No, KT Tape has to be positioned with precision to ensure it’s supporting the right parts of your knee joint and stretched to the right elasticity before application so that it doesn’t provide too much or too little compression. To do otherwise means that all that athletic tape you just applied is either not doing the job or even possibly making things worse by pulling your knee joint further out of alignment, and the last thing you want is to make a knee problem worse because you didn’t know what you were doing! Guney Deniz H, Kinikli G, Onal S , et al. THU0727-HPR Comparison of kinesio tape application and manual lymphatic drainage on lower extremity oedema and functions after total knee arthroplasty. Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases 2018;77:1791. 10.1136/annrheumdis-2018-eular.3360 Hadamus A, Grabowicz M, Wąsowski P, Mosiołek A, Boguszewski D, Białoszewski D. Assessmen

Some researchers call proprioception our “sixth sense” — it’s just a fancy term for being aware of where your body is and how it’s moving. Cunha AB, Lima-Alvarez CD, Rocha ACP, Tudella E. Effects of elastic therapeutic taping on motor function in children with motor impairments: A systematic review. Disabil Rehabil. 2018;40(14):1609-1617. doi:10.1080/09638288.2017.1304581 [ PubMed] [ Google Scholar] A 2015 study showed that trigger point pain was reduced and flexibility increased for people when kinesiology tape and manual pressure were used together. Chao YW, et al. (2016). Kinesio taping and manual pressure release: Short-term effects in subjects with myofasical trigger point.Individual research per condition is limited, Malek explains, but “KT tape with exercise has been shown to help treat plantar fasciitis,” a condition characterized by stabbing pain in the heel. One small study with 32 participants showed that when kinesiology tape was applied over the knee, it increased the space in the knee joint. One study found that KT tape helped reduce pain in people with osteoarthritis, while research is mixed on whether KT tape can help relieve the pain of shoulder tendinitis. And there’s no conclusive scientific evidence that Kinesio tape can reduce disability in people withchronic pain. No proven long-term benefits Activate the adhesive: Depending on the brand or type of tape, there may be specific instructions for activating the adhesive. In general, you'll need to rub the tape with your hands or apply light heat (such as with a hairdryer) to activate the adhesive before applying it to the skin. Went a little too hard? With the right guidance, KT tape can help you find some temporary relief by easing the intensity of your pain — but the keyword here is “temporary.”