Dr. Paul Kinsinger’s mind moves a mile a minute. Who else could read about a home remedy for toenail fungus and come up with something called Piggy Paste?
Or how about this: When a patient said his carpel tunnel syndrome was making it difficult to operate a buffer at an auto body shop because of the equipment’s vibrations, Kinsinger came up with a vibration inhibitor that wowed the engineers at nearby Bradley University. And when another patient came to him with tennis elbow, it led to Connect-Ease—a device that helps elderly or arthritic patients screw garden hoses onto outside faucets.
It isn’t as if he has all the time in the world to come up with these things. Kinsinger’s day job just happens to be as a family practice doctor with his brother in Washington, Ill., 10 miles east of Peoria—a practice in such demand that 250 families are on their waiting list. He is also medical director for Methodist Hospital’s hospice program in Peoria.
Kinsinger, a 1981 LAS alumnus in pre-med biology, received his MD from U of I-Chicago in 1986 and has extensive Illinois connections. His brother, Lee, is an ’84 LAS alum, his wife, Amy, is an ’84 graduate in communications, and his mother-in-law is a ’60 LAS alumna.
Ever since his Illinois days, Kinsinger has been an idea man, looking for not-so-obvious solutions to problems. When he recommended to patients that they try the home remedy of soaking their feet in a white vinegar solution five minutes a day to combat toenail fungus, he found that none of them would do it for much more than six days. It was too laborious.
So Kinsinger started fishing for other solutions. He combined vinegar with a penetrating gel—the kind of gel used to deliver medicine through the skin. The result was Piggy Paste, which can be applied directly to the toenail and held in place with a bandage.
The product is comprised of safe, standard materials, such as vinegar, so the law allows it to be sold over the counter. However, without spending several million dollars on clinical trials, he cannot make any medical claims, such as its effect on toenail fungus. Those trials may eventually happen somewhere down the line, he says, but right now he can make only cosmetic claims, pointing out that Piggy Paste can thin out thick toenails.
The name Piggy Paste was compliments of his pharmacist, who created the first tubes for him. The pharmacist had heard about another entrepreneur’s wild success with the improbably named Butt Paste—a diaper rash product.
For Kinsinger, the brainstorming is perpetual, and he comes up with some of his best ideas while driving to Florida with his family. He generates ideas while he is behind the wheel, and his wife keeps a tally of them in a notebook.
The creativity also spills into the home, where he installed the front end of a 1955 Cadillac in his basement, sticking out of the bar. He also created a massive train set, eight feet wide by 21 feet long, for his two children.
“It is a train set on steroids,” he says. “My wife says she knows we can do this, but why are we? I like to say that I’m not chewing gum, so I can multitask. I’m not manic. I’m OK. I just like thinking about things.”
However, Kinsinger has come to grips with the reality that he cannot pursue every idea or he runs the risk of “being a river three miles wide and two inches deep.” So he has been trying to channel his energy. He promised his wife that he’d see which of his three inventions—Piggy Paste, the vibration inhibitor, and Connect-Ease—would come to fruition first. Then he’d concentrate on that one alone.
Piggy Paste won the horse race, and it has already reached over two dozen stores in Peoria, even leaping into the top 10 products in one Walgreens. More recently, he brought Piggy Paste to market in Indiana and Bloomington, Ill.
Kinsinger says he once took a personality test, which indicated that he probably was more suited to a creative job in marketing or business. But although those jobs may fit his personality, he says he prefers medicine where God can use him most effectively.
As if to underscore the results of the personality test, Kinsinger noticed a floating-magnet paperweight on the desk of the psychologist who had just given him the test.
“Can I have that?” Kinsinger asked. He had just had another idea. That magnet turned out to be the missing link in his vibration inhibitor invention.
The ideas keep coming.
