For the first year or two of medical school, I lived on a horse breeding ranch. The breeder/owner did a lot of her own veterinary work (I think one must in such a business) and there was a type of tape that she had for use on the horses’ legs. The tape was stretchy, so was good for compression, but it only stuck to itself, not to the hair and flesh under it. That saved the horses from having a bunch of hair ripped out when removing the bandage. She called it Vetwrap, and as far as I could tell it wasn’t available for use on humans. That changed during my residency training, and self-adhering wrap is widely available and used in many settings. It is sometimes called a cohesive bandage or Coban (a 3M trade name).
You might have had it applied after a blood draw or on any bandaged skin where a full wrap that doesn’t stick to the skin is useful. It comes off without pulling hair, stretching skin, stinging, or damaging a still-healing wound. I’ve used it for everything from protecting against blisters when paddling a kayak to stabilizing a knee injury to controlling live-threatening bleeding in a trauma patient.
We did a little traveling this weekend, and I discovered that I was down to my last roll. It has become something that I always take along, and I was a little nervous traveling without it. I have ordered more.
Out of habit, I still call it “horse tape.”
—2p