Neovita still hauling them in...

to Ms. Kitty's, that is. It's interesting to me that--almost three years after I wrote a post stating frankly that I had wasted almost $700 on Neovita inserts for my plantar fasciitis and felt it was, if not a downright rip-off, at least not right for me--searches for "neovita" are still a primary reason for people to arrive at the ole Saloon and Road Show.

My suspicions about the medical marketing field and its blatant use of rosy advertising to hawk wares of every kind to gullible and hurting people have been underscored in a big way over the past few years, as marketing of drugs, appliances, feel-good curealls, that sort of thing, have dominated the media ads. They are cleverly done in such a way as to convince us that we have a problem and it can only be cured by the purchase of a pill, a machine, a shoe insert, a pad, a deodorant, a toothpaste or some other device or medication.

In addition, it raises our fears about health matters. Do I need a cholesterol pill? Do I need a blood pressure pill? Do I need $700 of nonrefundable shoe inserts? Or do I need to eat right, get some exercise, stretch my plantar fasciia before I step down with my full weight on my hurting foot?

What cured my plantar fasciitis was when I learned from a friend that his doc had taught him a simple stretching exercise to gently stretch out tendons that had tautened up during the night, rather than tearing them by standing full-weight on his feet. I did this exercise every morning before I even walked out of the bedroom to feed the cats and within a couple of weeks had no pain at all. Then all I had to do was decide what to do with the Neovita inserts, because I had cured myself.

At that point I had used the Neovita stuff for a year, adhering faithfully to the instructions of the pimply staff person (where did he get his podiatric expertise? I have no idea but I believed him because I felt desperate). And I was in as much pain, sometimes even more, as I had been initially. What's the definition of insanity? When you keep doing the same thing over and over even when it doesn't work?

Yet, despite how clear I was about my own experience and not denying that Neovita might be great for somebody else, I periodically get hysterical all-caps responses to my critique, saying how wrong I am (huh?), that Neovita has saved lives (huh?), that $700 is a small price to pay for being painfree (okay, I can see that), and that I shouldn't criticize this wonderful business. Some of these hysterical responses I publish and others are just too awful so they get deep-sixed.

Anyhow, if you're a Neovita fan and are reading this, please don't take it personally. If you're getting good results, that is wonderful. But don't tell me I didn't do it right, don't tell me I didn't try it long enough (a year isn't long enough?), don't tell me how wonderful the product is. Get your own blog and rave on about Neovita. You'll get tons of readers who are looking for information. Share your own experience but don't knock others' experience, okay?

I still have the inserts in a drawer somewhere. I could go to a Neovita store somewhere and exchange them, but for what? Yep, just another set of inserts. So really, I did waste $700, money I will never see again, for inserts that have languished in my sock drawer for three years now. And there is no recompense from Neovita---you can't get your money back. Oooh, now I'm getting mad all over again. Better quit.

And that's the last word on that subject.