Sunday, March 15, 2009

Tea Tree Oil

Tea Tree Oil is an 'alternative' medicine. Its seems to be popular amoung Podiatrists in the UK and some in Australia and NZ, but not used widely in the USA (why is that?). It has been shown to be no better than a placebo for the treatment of onychomycosis, yet so many still use it (why is that?). The EU have expressed safety concerns about it, yet many still use it (why is that?) (see: Tea tree oil faces ban over health fear). See these discussions:
Whats your Gold Standard for onychomycosis?
Is there a place for tea tree oil in foot care?
I just can not understand the rationale of those that use it (...there is always the argument that "I used it and got some good results" -- BUT, according to the evidence, a placebo would have got the same results).

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Sunday, March 01, 2009

Parish & Bell

Parish and Bell are a foot orthotic clinic in the UK that advertise nationally, apparently use high pressure sales and marketing techniques as well as charge what appear to be extortionist prices for foot orthotics. They recently went bust leaving a lot of disgruntled patients and numerous threads on a number of forums. The one on Podiatry Arena is most interesting as Les Bailey from Parish and Bell tried to rationalise what happen by blaming everyone else for their demise and claiming that the criticism were just Podiatrists being jealous. See the Parish and Bell thread and see the reactions from Podiatrists and patients -- judge for yourself.

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