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All I can see online are lots of one sided testimonials how great it is. That makes me suspicious. DO you think that it helps?
I agree with DocPod. I see many who have tried Oscon and it does not appear to be any better than taking a placebo.
If you take 100 kids with Severs and do nothing. A week later a certain % are going to be better regardless of doing nothing.
If you take another 100 kids with Severs and give them Oscon. A week later a certain % are going to be better. Its probably the same % as doing nothing. However, those who got better are going to say it was the Oscon and give testimonials and anecdotes for it working .... when the kid was probably going to get better anyway!
What is needed is to take 200 kids with Severs. Randomize half to Oscon and half to a placebo and see how many get better in each group. The company promoting Oscon should have done this already and it has been around for more than enough time for them to have done something like this to back up the claims being made for it.
I would be reasonable confident is predicting that the % getting better in the Oscon group and the placebo groups with be the same.
If anyone claims that it works in a testimonial or anecdote, they have NO way of knowing if it was really the Oscon or it was just the natural history of the Sever's disease getting better. That is why testimonials and anecdotes are so useless and blinded clinical trials are needed to see if it actually really does work.
I had never heard of it so had to use Google. It is certainly not used routinely by any clinicians that I am aware of. It is just a dietary supplement of Vit E and selenium and i can not see it being any use unless you are deficient in them. There is certainly no evidence for it.
Suggest you read these:
Oscon Supplements for Severs Disease
Discussion on Oscon and Severs
They do not seem that impressed with it and the claims that are made for it. If it was any good I am sure I would have probably heard of it and many people would be using it.
My sons Severs Disease was actually cured with 30 days of Oscon. We had been told by 2 different foot docs that he would never play sports and would probably have a career at a desk as an adult. Nope...this stuff completely cured it and he has never had another pain in his heel. It was amazing for him. We had tried many other treatments with zero success. I 100% recommend it.
Yes it does. My daughter was a gymnast for 10 years, competing internationally. From the age of 7 to 13 she had bouts of severs. It was like watching a little old lady walking into school and training was a nightmare. Word-of-mouth at the gym came back to us to use Oscon, We had tried everything else, physio, exercises, icing, just everything. After 10 days of Oscon she was 70% improved, a few months later we got private insoles made and the other 30% improved. We carried on using Oscon on and off throughout her growing years and it worked. I am absolutely a witness to it, and have advised people to use it and they have told me they had the same results. Unless you’ve been through it, And had to resort to it then I don’t think you know. I have no shares in the company and no interest in whether they make money, what I do know is that my daughter was ‘fixed’ taking it! Thanks, jo
Interesting thread and comments
I agree that Oscon probably does not help Sever’s disease.
Anecdotes and testimonials are not evidence that anything works or helps.
If Oscon appears to help then it probably does so as it’s a placebo or because the Sever’s was about to come right anyway. The natural history of Sever’s is to get better, even if you do nothing.
I have not seen a single patient that was helped with Oscon (and that is plenty of anecdotes and testimonials that it doesn’t work).
I see a lot of Sever’s that are really painful one week and a lot better the following week and nothing was done. That is probably why so many think it helped when it didn’t. That is why so many ineffective treatments get recommended, when they never really made a difference.
What is needed is a proper controlled trial and which half get Oscon and half get placebo to really see if it has any effect that is better than the natural history or placebo. Sadly the company that is promoting this has had the product on the market for many years and has not put up the money for an independent blinded controlled trial.
For those posting above, how do you even know that it was the Oscon that helped and not the condition just getting better on its own? … I will answer for you: You don’t know. – that is why the randomised blinded placebo controlled trial is the standard in medicine so we do know if a treatment for anything is better than a placebo or doing nothing.
Regards
Michael Stefans