I fell down and ended up with a 1/4" chunk of gravel in my knee. After digging the gravel out, I called my doctor to see if I needed to see him for any specialized treatment (such as checking for more gravel, or a more thorough cleansing than I was able to do). He said he would've done the same thing I already did, and to cover it to prevent infection, and then he told me what signs to look for (for serious infection). Things like fever, being impossible to walk, green drainage. I never got any of those symptoms, but the sore just wasn't healing properly.Then I bought several boxes of these bandages -the shipping on several boxes was the same as with one box, and now I have more for emergencies. After I started using these, the sore where I had dug out the gravel finally started healing, and the clear drainage lessened with each day. After just a day, the hole in my knee is about half its original size (1/8" vs. the original 1/4"), and there is very little drainage building up.
I'm sure by now you're asking yourself, "Okay, if she liked it so much, why did she mark it down a star?" I marked it down a star because the inadequate directions caused me to waste one bandage. Normally, that wouldn't be a big deal, but these bandages cost me more than $1.50 for each one! What the directions should have said was that between the two protective backing papers that cover the colloidal pad, there is another piece of very stiff paper that also needs to be removed. I didn't notice the stiffness until after I had applied the bandage, and of course, since I didn't remove that extra piece of paper, the colloidal pad couldn't work its miracle. I called the company to see whether the paper was supposed to be removed. To the company's credit, the person who talked to me was their president. She said they hadn't updated the instructions yet because they had just barely changed the bandages to include the extra piece of paper (presumably to keep the colloidal pad moist). I was impressed that the president of the company actually answers questions about the products she develops herself. I wasn't so impressed that she didn't offer to at least refund enough of my purchase price to pay for that one bandage (because her company started selling the updated product without putting an updated instruction sheet in the box).
Will I buy the product again? Yes. Will I recommend it? Only if the buyer already knows that the extra piece of paper needs to be removed (which, if you've read this far into my review, you already know).
Oh, one more thing... You may notice that you can buy these bandages in an 8-pack or a 10-pack. The price for both is the same, but the product description doesn't say why (at least not on Amazon). So I went to the Marketplace sellers direct website (drugstore.com). I learned that the 8-pack has colloidal pads on the bandages, and the 10-pack bandages have gauze pads. Neither type of pad is better than the other, but they each have applications at which they excel. For instance, the gauge bandage is better at absorbing excess drainage. I used the bandages with gauze pads for the first week after my injury. Then when my drainage from my wound had slowed down to the point that it was no longer causing my entire knew to swell up, I switched to the colloidal pads.
