Elastoplast 3 in 1 Silverhealing

************ Due to popular demand (or the fact that you're all a wee bit sick and twisted) there's now a photo of my wounded heel at the bottom. You'll look at it and be amazed by my pain tolerance. It's a rubbish photo (bear in mind that I was very pissed, and taking that photo at a bizarre angle was the last thing I did before I collapsed) that looks a lot like my foot's been amputated, but rest assured, the shoes aren't THAT bad. I'll expect ...
...the evidence. ************


Well, it's Sunday, and I'm writing a review so you'd be correct in guessing that there are other things I should be doing. Top of the list in this instance is making my mother a bouquet and wrapping her presents (some socks, a multipack of chewing gum, and a Dime bar. Don't worry: I'll give her the presents after she's fed me, thus ensuring that I can leave before she starts weeping over the catalogue ... more

************ Due to popular demand (or the fact that you're all a wee bit sick and twisted) there's now a photo of my wounded heel at the bottom. You'll look at it and be amazed by my pain tolerance. It's a rubbish photo (bear in mind that I was very pissed, and taking that photo at a bizarre angle was the last thing I did before I collapsed) that looks a lot like my foot's been amputated, but rest assured, the shoes aren't THAT bad. I'll expect you all to be properly sympathetic, now that you've seen the evidence. ************

Well, it's Sunday, and I'm writing a review so you'd be correct in guessing that there are other things I should be doing. Top of the list in this instance is making my mother a bouquet and wrapping her presents (some socks, a multipack of chewing gum, and a Dime bar. Don't worry: I'll give her the presents after she's fed me, thus ensuring that I can leave before she starts weeping over the catalogue of crap that I bought this morning). She was also supposed to be getting a CD that I said I would make her for the car, but she's into the Beautiful South, and I'm not at all sure that I can face downloading that (I was contemplating labelling it 'Beautiful South' but actually putting some Jurassic 5 on there, but she'd never forgive me and I need her for bacon sandwich supplies when I'm hungover).

None of that's related in any way to the product, but in a fairly roundabout manner I'm getting there. The reason my mother's getting what is, essentially, a big pile of utter fecking rubbish this year is that I spent all my money down the pub last night in honour of St Patrick's Day. Slainte! I had a cracking night. Despite this, I seem to be magically hangover-free this morning, which means either a) that my liver's a medical miracle, or b) that I'm still drunk. Option b is by far the more likely, but my spelling seems pretty unaffected (unless Microsoft spell checker works faster than the eye can see, and I doubt that anything produced my Microsoft is capable of that kind of efficiency). However, whilst my spelling and grammatical prowess may remain intact after last night's shenanigans, the same cannot be said of my feet.

I went out last night to a bar in Lisburn (never heard of it? Don't be surprised. It's the city that time, and God, forgot). Normally I don't stray out of Belfast, but my incredibly ginger friend (seriously. She's the most ginger person you've ever seen. Her hair is brighter than the sun. Being friends with her is my lifelong charitable effort to integrate her into the world of normal people) lives there and we figured it'd be slightly less busy than Belfast. I was wearing the prettiest pair of shoes ever created. They're blue kitten heels with a wee bow on the front. All was well whilst in the bar, we drank, we danced, we managed to attract the attentions of the shortest, oldest, most mental man in the bar, I drank some more, I briefly fell asleep in the toilet and then met an old friend whilst doing my make up in there, I drank whiskey through a straw and then we decided to call it a night at 2am. This is where my problems began. It was absolutely fecking freezing and there were no taxis anywhere. We decided to walk to the taxi place, as at least we could be warm there and engage in random chitchat with the spaced out mental that runs the operation. After 5 steps I realised my shoes were pinching a bit. After ten steps I was whimpering with pain. The taxi place was a mile away. My ginger friend thought the way to improve matters would be to start singing Ronan Keating's greatest hits. I pulled her hair and slapped her. Halfway there we met two very pretty boys who wanted to have a conversation about tattoos. Normally, this would have delighted and entertained me. As it was, the conversation went like this:

Him: You've got really cool tattoos.
Me: Uh-huh. My shoes are filling with blood.
Him: Ok then. You take care. Bye now.

We eventually made it into a taxi, and I took a photo of my bloody ankle, toes and shoe and texted it to anyone I thought would care. No one did. I woke up this morning to a bloody trail from the front door to the kitchen to my bed. By following the trail I was able to infer that I'd had half arsed attempt at making cheese on toast and had then abandoned it halfway through, leaving the grill on all night.

My feet were still bleeding this morning (and if that isn't the hallmark of a quality night, I just don't know what is) so I needed plasters. Now, I injure myself all the damn time so I'd be capable of performing minor surgery using only the contents of my first aid kit if necessary. Normally I opt for the glow in the dark ones that have wee planets and spaceships on them, but the chemist had run out of them, so I had to make do with these.

The theory behind them is that silver has properties that stops the wound getting infected, and should also speed up healing. The silver is impregnated on the part of the plaster that's usually white gauze. Currently, I'm sporting five: two on my heel, two on my toes and one on my hand on what I can only assume is a cheese on toast burning-related injury. They work the same way as normal plasters (surely I don't have to explain how plasters work? Oh, for Christ's sake…) you peel off the paper packaging, you stick it to the bit (or bits, in my case) that you've managed to injure. In two to three days you should be all better. Obviously, if you've managed to lop off a digit or two in some kind of hideous gardening accident, the healing process may take considerably longer. If that does happen, you should probably consider a wee trip to casualty. Silver plasters, good though they are, probably won't cut it.

Unlike cheap own brand plasters these don't peel themselves off mere seconds after they're applied, and cope with being immersed in water fairly well also. Although mine have only been on since this morning (I probably should have done that last night, but my co-ordination is not good at the best of times and it took me half an hour just to get the key in the door, so I thought it'd probably be best to leave well alone) they stopped the bleeding immediately. They come in standard sizes to fit most injuries, with the exception of the aforementioned hideous gardening accident. The one on my heel needed two to cover it, but then I was wearing shoes designed by the devil solely for the purpose of making me cry. Once they're on you can pretty much forget about them as they're comfortable and cover the wound sufficiently so that you won't be screaming in agony should you bump it against anything/have to wear shoes ever again.

Obviously, there's a downside to all this effective injury healing fun. They cost more than normal plasters. A box of ten was £1.99 in the chemist, which is loads more expensive than ordinary ones. They do seem to work quite well, though. However, if you're tight and have a bit of a laissez-faire attitude to your health you can always have a go at strapping the wound up with kitchen towel and sellotape. You'll probably get gangrene, though, and don't think you'll get any sympathy from me when you're all green and pus-filled. You were warned.
 

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