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I am currently researching some alternative treatment regimes for VP's, and come across a post on this site some time ago outlining 'Marigold Therapy' as a treatment. I cannot find any evidence of this being used in Aust, and i was wondering if:
a)anyone has used this therapy
or
b)if anyone has done some research on its use
It is obviously looking at RCT's, and therefore the more 'alternative' approaches tend not to appear. But is certainly opened my eyes to the lack of evidence to support cryotherapy as the first line treatment.
I have used Marigold Therapy for the past 20 years and find that it can be a useful adjunct in the VP armatorium. It is painless and gets results where more conventional treatments have failed. It is especially useful where the foot cannot be kept dry or for treating children.
Here in the UK there is only one company that provides this product. I am not aware of any outside the UK. Perhaps if you contact this company they can point you in the right direction of research that has been carried out?
I have accessed the Cochrane systematic review and what I have found does not look at many treatments apart from acids, cryotherapy and Duck tape.
Am I missing something and, if so, can you point me in the right direction for all this evidence.
I tend to work on the evidence of my own eyes and, having compared this treatment with a considerable range of others, I find it compares more favourably than many.
I have accessed the Cochrane systematic review and what I have found does not look at many treatments apart from acids, cryotherapy and Duck tape. Am I missing something and, if so, can you point me in the right direction for all this evidence.
To be included in the review, studies had to be randomised controlled trials (RCTs), the highest form of evidence for assessing the efficacy of interventions. If there were any RCTs on Marigold therapy, they would have also been included.
There have been no published RCT s on the use of Marigold therapy or many of the other 'alternative' therapies.
Until someone from the Homeopathic world completes AND publishes studies I will refuse to believe or use any of these therapies. In todays world we cannot afford to be seen to be using 'quack' remedies, we need to be using evidence based medicine. In the UK we have NICE which refuses to sanction the use of therapeutic treatments for cancer etc without good evidence, yet we find Podiatrists using treatment modalities without any evidence. The NHS will not allow this to happen any longer within its realms.
With regard to private practice, what happens if the patients sues? and you have been using a treatment without any good evidence base that it works? Creek and Paddle spring to mind!!
The few times that I have actually pinned down (well known and experienced ) homeopathic practitioners and asked about the evidence, they have hummed and hawed quoted anecdotal evidence and eventually admitted that they have no RCTs or even straightforward comparative studies to show.
How can you perform a randomised control trial when treating wart. You either get rid of the bloody thing or you don't. You cannot muck around with this virus.
Marygold therapy can work very well on a wide range of skin conditions, VP's included. I use it along with other herbal and complementary therapies and have done so for many years. If the symptomology can be treated effectively, by painlessly reducing the size and discomfort of the lesion(s) until they are no more, then this is no bad thing. I like to consider matters from the individual physiological and psychological perspective and patients seek me out because of this holistic approach. Recently, a lady came to see me complaining of a painful VP. She had received painful acid and cryo treatment to a VP previously, years before. The lesion had resolved but she complained that the course of treatment was far worse than the VP itself!! She found the treatment agony and psychologically traumatic.
I was, therefore, legally and ethically bound to adopt a painless approach, as I simply lacked her informed consent to do otherwise. The lesion is still there after three visits to me, but is considerably smaller and most importantly for her, completely painless. She is now treating it at home and is a very happy bunny.
Any methods that increase the patients sense of well being should not be automatically excluded because there may be a perceived lack of research. Otherwise the only 'healers' may turn out to be the ones with vast amounts of corporate or government money backing them up. Trying to help this patient to overcome pain was all she contracted me to do, nothing more or less. I submit that there may be others that lean towards her veiwpoint.
How can you perform a randomised control trial when treating wart. You either get rid of the bloody thing or you don't. You cannot muck around with this virus.
Don Scott
Easy. The whole Cochrane document refered to above was a systematic review of randomised control trials on warts!
Recently, a lady came to see me complaining of a painful VP. She had received painful acid and cryo treatment to a VP previously, years before. The lesion had resolved but she complained that the course of treatment was far worse than the VP itself!! She found the treatment agony and psychologically traumatic.
I was, therefore, legally and ethically bound to adopt a painless approach, as I simply lacked her informed consent to do otherwise. The lesion is still there after three visits to me, but is considerably smaller and most importantly for her, completely painless.
How do you not know that the resolution was about to happen naturally and has nothing to do with the treatment given? Thats the purpose of an randomised controlled trial to see if the intervention is any better than a placebo. Given the bad name that marigold therapy has got from the trial on its use for bunions, I would ethically stay away from it unless its efficacy is shown, especially given the good evidence we have for other methods of VP treatment (see the Cochrane Review).
I have glanced Cochrane which says inter alia more research indicated. How can one be absolutely sure any wart is not going through remission if it's being treated in or outside a trial. With or without a chemical? Anyway, Da Vinci, have you any cast iron suggestions of how to take the patients pain away without causing more? I certainly haven't .All this patient wanted was gentle complementary treatment and for it to stop hurting and that happened with or without my treatment. The important thing to remember is that this patient now trusts podiatry. This trust had been prevoiously shattered years ago by having conventional treatment by another podiatrist by having painful treatment even though she believed that it had cured the wart.
If we listen to patients they all have there own perceptions which are fundimental to their psyche. It is diffficult to test for the efficacity of belief randomly or otherwise, but no doupt someone will hit on a idea!
Marigold therapy for VP's
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