For silly mares who fall down stairs! (Boots Tubigrip Support Bandage)

Member Name: pink_glitter

Product:	Boots Tubigrip Support Bandage
Date:	27/02/09 (503 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: offers some support

Disadvantages: instructions are crap, seemed a bit loose to me

Well OK, I didn't fall down the stairs (it would be pretty impossible, seeing that I live in a ground floor flat), but if I'd said falling over the hoover, it wouldn't have had the same ring to it! Yes, that's right, in my most recent of ridiculous accidents (I'm always having them), I managed to fall over the hoover when running to answer the phone. To add insult to my very literal injury, it turned out it was a phone ringing on the TV, not mine! Anyway, as I fell I managed to sprain my ankle, and although it didn't hurt initially, in the days after, I had a really annoying niggly pain, and my ankle felt really weak. I couldn't get a doctors appointment for two weeks, and it didn't seem serious enough to go to hospital with, so I decided to find some sort of ankle support to use in the meantime.

The Boots Tubigrip support bandage is basically a pull on elasticated bandage which can be used on the wrist, elbow or ankle. It states that this provides support for 'sprains, strains and weak joints.' It comes in different sizes, and the one I bought is size C, which is suitable for 'a medium wrist, medium elbow or small ankle.' I must admit, I didn't really know what constitutes as being small, medium and large, so went off the fact that I usually buy a small size in clothing - but more on the size later...

The back of the pack shows how to cut the bandage if you want to use it as a wrist support, but strangely for your ankle it shows you a diagram, and for your elbow gives written instructions. I'm not really sure why that is - and surely it would be better to have the same layout of instructions for each, as it would make it less confusing. As it was, I have no idea what I was supposed to do with this, because the ankle diagram wasn't clear. It looks as though you're supposed to fold it over at one edge, but I didn't because, I simply didn't understand what to do, so I just did things my own way!

The bandage is made of a soft, elasticated cotton and is an off white colour, which I personally think makes it look a little bit grubby. One thing I was a little surprised about was the length of the bandage. It's a meter long, which obviously is quite big. Although in the (very unclear) diagram it shows the bandage going all the way up the leg, I didn't see this necessary as it was only my ankle affected, therefore I cut a piece of the bandage off, to simply fit over my ankle.

As this is elasticated, you simply pull it on, meaning there is no need for tape or safety pins, something I think would be especially useful if you were using it for your wrist.

I mentioned size earlier, and when I first put this on, I did feel that it wasn't doing anything, because despite buying the smallest size it didn't seem very tight, therefore didn't appear to offer much support. I also had a bit of a problem with it slipping down my foot, again, possibly because it wasn't as tight as it could be. To give you a rough idea, I am a size 8-10, and I wouldn't say I had particularly slim ankles, so I think if you were smaller than me, this could be a problem.

After a while, I did notice that the bandage was in fact offering more support than I had initially thought. In fact I found that my ankle felt a lot more supported and stronger than it initially did, and wearing it did seem to ease the pain somewhat. Even so, I think I might have preferred something that wrapped around my ankle, and I could tighten myself to give the correct amount of pressure, as it still felt a little bit loose.

A few more things to note - the bandage is washable, and although it states that this should be done by hand, I put it in the machine and it came out fine. Also to note, is that it contains latex, so is no good for those with latex allergies.

These bandages cost £3.71 from Boots.

Overall, this was OK, but should I have a similar injury in the future, I think I would probably go for something else. Although this did offer some support to my ankle, the sizing was a really issue, and the instructions for use not clear, which really let the product down.

Summary: Not too bad, but not too good either!