anterior shin splints and taping

Question
Hi.

My question focuses on anterior shin splints and the effectiveness of taping both the legs and the arches.

I am 5ft10 and weigh around 100kgs and for the last 5 years or so I have struggled with shin splints.  I play soccer, muay thai, cricket.  When I first started having the pain associated with splints people on my sports teams told me to run through it - the splints turned into stress fractures to both tibias.  

I took about a year off and then tried to get back into things - the original pain came back pretty quickly and through a bit of research it turns out I overpronate quite heavily.  I use Brooks Dyad 6s as my main shoe but I am wondering the effectiveness of taping the arch and the point of pain.

I use KT Kinesiology tape and that works well to aches after exercise but want to know what I can do to prevent those aches in the first place.

Does point of pain taping work?  Does taping which lifts the arch of my foot work?  I have looked at point-of-pain and low-dye taping but hear mixed responses about the effectiveness of each.  There also seems to be more than one way to tape each issue I have.

Therefore my questions are:

1. Does taping generally work?
2. What are the best taping methods for overpronation and anterior shin splints?

Answer
I'm sorry to hear about all your pain Cameron.  Shin splints can be extremely frustrating.  I'll briefly answer your questions, but I have better advice.  1) Yes it works to decrease pain, but it doesn't fix anything. 2) Get on youtube for videos if you want to tape those areas.

My advice I think you should use is to change your running form.  You can tape, do ankle exercises, ice, take ibuprofen, put in orthotics, change shoes, etc, etc to try to fix it, but you'll always have some problems with it.  The only difference will be the degree of your pain.  Changing your running form will be the longest lasting, most effective, and easiest way to fix your problem though.  

Switch to a forefoot or midfoot strike.  Watch the youtube video The Barefoot Running Professor to learn how to do this.  They demonstrate it without shoes, but I use this foot strike with shoes.  The benefit of this foot strike is the way that it transmits forces through the body.  The cause of your shin splints is incorrect transmission of forces.  Muscles are pulling on bones in ways that they shouldn't which is causing pain.  Start slow because your muscles will be working differently than they have been. Don't do more than a half mile your first time and slowly build up from there.  The difference between this running form and the heel strike running form you've been using is that the soreness that develops from a midfoot strike decreases as you get stronger. The pain from a heel strike gets worse and worse until you have a stress fracture preventing you from running anymore!  I know you can attest to this.  Please let me know if you need more direction on this.  This will be the cure for you.