Ep 503: End Your Frustration With Incontinence, Prolapse, Bladder & Vaginal Issues With Shannon Keenan, Arnp & Kara Scanlan, Arnp

Urinary incontinence, bladder, vaginal and pelvic floor issues are common in women of all ages and having children isn’t a prerequisite. Pelvic floor therapy awareness is on the rise but it’s not the only thing you can do to support your bladder, vaginal area and pelvic floor. My podcast guests today are nurse practitioner pals of mine from Tacoma, Washington. Shannon Keenan and Kara Scanlan from Empowered Med Spa are all about helping women thrive at any age. In this episode of The Health Fix Podcast I interview Shannon and Kara on the InMode radio frequency devices they are using to transform bladder, vaginal and pelvic floor health for women of all ages.

Resources From The Show:

• Empowered Med Spa
• InMode Devices and Practitioner Listing

Our Partners

Podcast Transcript

3:27 – Guest’s Backstory

5:44 – Mild to severe incontinence

8:51 – Forma V treatment

10:49 – Transformation story 1

14:30 – Transformation story 2

21:30 – What is a V tone treatment like?

31:40 – What do clients typically feel after a treatment?

38:49 – What other devices or ideas are you looking at to develop to help women?

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[Preview] At menopause 20 years ago, you’re done.

You were just a shriveled up grandma,

you couldn’t be sexual,

if it’s fine if you peed your pants, right?

Like, you know, just put on a diaper

and sit in the corner and be quiet.

And he was treating a patient who was 35

who had just had her second baby

and had gone into her OBGYN post-partum and said,

“I’m losing control of my bladder.”

Like, “What should I do?”

And her OBGYN literally just said,

“Well, that’s what happens when you have babies.”

and offered her no solutions whatsoever.

So she had to go and research her own solutions

and luckily he was able to use these technologies

to treat her symptoms

and she was having great relief as well.

[Intro] Welcome to the HealthFix Podcast

where health junkies get their weekly fix of tips, tools

and techniques to have limitless energy,

sharp minds and fit, physiques or life.

JANNINE: Hey, Health Junkies.

On this episode of the HealthFix Podcast,

I’m going to be talking about blattering continents and continents in general, stress

and continents, vaginal issues, vaginal health.

And to do that, I’m bringing on two of my nurse practitioner pals from Tacoma, Washington,

Shannon Keenan, and Cara Scanlon.

Now they’re going to be helping me out to describe the treatment that I received back

earlier this summer when I was in town and holy cow did it blow me away.

two treatments, no more stress and continents. So pain when I sneeze, things of that nature,

jumping rope, I can do it now without being terrified or having to go to the bathroom

before it, during it, after it. The other biggie, my back does not hurt. I have a herniated disc,

but it was connected somehow. There’s some connection there in terms of the pain to pelvic

floor. So we’re going to talk about that. We’re going to talk about what devices they use to help

me out. These are radio frequency devices by a company called in mode. We’re going to

talk about something called the form of V. We’re going to talk about the V tone. We’re

going to talk about amorphous. So you’re going to hear these words. What they are are

devices that really can help change your quality of life. So if you are running to the bathroom

and sometimes having accidents, maybe you have to map out where every bathroom is every time you go.

out or maybe you’re not going out because you’re afraid of what’s going to happen with the bladder

and you’re sick and tired of wearing pads, diapers, depends, etc. all those things.

Not cool. Well, I want you to know you do not have to live like this. There are solutions.

There are ways to help you. And so let’s introduce you to Shana Keenan and Cara Scanlon.

Hey, health junkies. I have a fun podcast for you today because I have some local ladies from

to coma on and I love bringing on my folks from Tacoma, especially in this case because

we’re going to be talking about incontinence and things of that nature where a lot of women

don’t necessarily want to talk about the things that are happening, but there are solutions

and we need to know about it. So Shannon, Keenan and Cara Scanlan, welcome to the health

fix podcast. 

GUEST: Thank you so much for having us. 

JANNINE: Well, ladies, you are the team that is empowered

med spa and of course with any podcast I always like to start off with how do you

to meet and and how did you two decide that you need to save us ladies from our

aging issues what what was the impetus give us this backstory on the two of you

GUEST: Well I was going through my master’s program to become an earth practitioner

and in my particular program they were to find our own precept mentor’s and so

So I was blowing up Kara’s facility and she graciously responded to one of my facts and

or email and or handwritten letters, agreed to meet with me, graciously took me on as a

student, and then I joke and I say that I just attached myself to her from parents’

fourth.

So, Shannon and I have maintained our friendship since, and when she came across this technology

that we’re going to be talking about.

She reached out to me because I have specialized

in women’s health for 18 years and said,

you have to see this technology.

She invited me to a conference in Portland

and I was just amazed.

I was immediately excited that we had some answers

to some of these problems that women have over our lifetime

that we maybe just don’t want to have surgery.

You know, so it’s exciting.

JANNINE: Yeah, yeah, you know, I think the biggest thing that

Women look at in terms of getting older. I mean, we’ve seen right society shows us like well

There’s the diapers right we see the commercials right the depends start showing up and I was telling Shannon the other day

I like saw

advertisement for depends in a local dollar general because I live in the middle of nowhere and that’s the only story

We have and there was a man who looked ripped and like fit with depends on and I’m like

What are we marketing to here?

What is going on?

And now of course with all the fancy underwear and stuff like that, that we can have highly

absorbent under them.

Like, yeah, that’s nice, but I don’t want to roll that way.

That’s not my jam.

So let’s, let’s jump in and talk a little bit about the different devices that you have.

And I’m going to kind of leave it up to you guys in terms of going through like if someone

is having, let’s say, minimal to moderate types of incontinence issues.

What would we use first? What kind of technology are we thinking about?

And then we’ll go into kind of the more prolapse, more severe situations for folks so that we can

kind of get a baseline from here.

GUEST: So I’ll take the lead on that one just because I myself,

prior to treatment, health had mild symptoms.

And so, you know, I think just owning a uterus and time and gravity will lead many of us to

these conditions later in life. We can public floor, just again, gravity, aging,

law for the elasticity, collagen, and the tissues.

You don’t just see it on the outside. We’re also experiencing it internally.

So for me, a great initial treatment plan would be the V-TOM,

which is the electoral muscular stimulation.

So think of it as like a 10 unit.

We’re creating muscle contractions,

repeated it’s a 30 minute session.

And I think you get somewhere near 300,000 pulses

in that time period, the key was we can’t ever do.

And so we do a series of six of those,

strengthen up the pelvic floor.

I also did one more PS8 session.

and we’ll speak a little bit more to that in a moment

as to what that does for the tissues inside.

After my first V-tone session, my one 30 minute session,

I have not peed, lost my urine with sneezing or coughing

since, not once.

After my first session, I did have a little bit of stress

incontinence when I was playing tug of work with my dog,

but after the second session, that also went away.

So pretty mild symptoms, phenomenal relief,

completed my series of six, I did my one more

of this treatment and I will do another one,

but I’ll forget we’ll speak to that a little bit later.

Phenomenal relief in terms of urinary stress

and continents, virgin continents.

And then also as you and I discussed previously too,

my low back pain is gone.

So I’ve had chronic low back pain for,

well, since February of ’23,

when I decided to go and train for a run a half marathon

without training.

And so not advised.

And then my relief has been profound since then.

JANNINE: Nice.

Yeah, you know, I kind of found the same type of results

from using the V-tone and the form of V-treatment

that you had.

I mean, I only had one technical round,

I mean, two days apart and we quick snuck it into

a quick, quick slash inside two of the V-tone

in one of the form of V and like, yeah, I have not had any sneezing

in contents and I have not had any pain while running.

And it was crazy because I remember during the session,

I was telling you, like, I feel like you’re like,

loosening this little like tension up in my right,

like upper part of my uterus or something or pelvic floor

or something. It was in there deep. I couldn’t tell.

But yeah, I’m still running, still feeling good.

And of course I’m planning to come back,

but I was like, oh my God, I have to tell people about this.

So all right, that’s a little bit on the V tone.

Now tell us a little bit more about

the more extensive treatment for folks

that have a little bit more moderate to severe situations.

GUEST: Sure, so we’ll start with Forma.

Yeah, Forma V is a radio frequency treatment

that’s used to stimulate collagen production.

So we’re trying to improve the elasticity

of the vaginal wall, the bladder,

And also, as you had mentioned, it helps kind of release the fascia.

And in conjunction with the V-tone, what we find is just significant improvement in pelvic floor function.

The form also has the advantage of being able to simulate collagen production externally on the vulva and the labia.

And the advantage to that other than cosmetic is really when we talk about women who are really active

over time are more sensitive parts of our vagina are exposed because our labia lose elasticity and fullness.

And so what I found, especially in my patients who love to run or if they don’t feel chafed after they exercise because those labia

are plump and protecting those more sensitive tissues.

JANNINE: That’s important.

That’s important.

Something to think about that,

like I’ve not personally experienced,

but I know that people do talk about it.

And of course, being in the realm where I am,

we’re working with different creams and things, right?

To help with vaginal lubrication and things of that nature.

I find it that the creams are great,

but they can only go so far.

And that’s where this technology to me is like,

oh my gosh, this is so impressive.

So I’d love to hear from either.

One of you guys can tag team, however you want to go about it.

But I’d love to hear some stories of other clients

in terms of what they were experiencing

and how the different technology has really helped

to change them in terms of their health,

their experiences, different things.

I love stories, we love stories here.

So if you guys have some good ones,

I’d love to hear kind of what your favorite stories are.

GUEST:  Well, I think you know my favorite is,

I’m have an 83 year old patient that I’ve been treating.

she’s had stress, mixed incontinence,

overactive bladder for probably a couple of decades now,

had a couple of babies, one naturally, one by Cesarion

has always had a weakened pelvic floor.

Pretty much has been using consumables, pads, diapers,

et cetera, since the second child

because of her incontinence.

She came to me and she told me she wears her watch at night

and she was clocking about 260 steps per night

getting up to void in her bathroom is only maybe 15, 20 feet away from her bedroom.

So which is pretty profound getting up I think probably close to 8 to 10 times a night to

to void.

After probably the second week, so one more CSV session, two V tone sessions, she told

me that she was down to 60 steps per night in terms of her overactive bladder.

Now that her treatment is complete, she was able to go on a cruise where she did not wear

a pad the whole time.

She was only up a couple times at night to void and her quality of life is significant.

I mean, just profound.

Profoundly improved.

She doesn’t have to pee before she leaves the house.

She doesn’t have to pee as soon as she gets to wherever she may be going.

She and her husband are looking to buy an RV and they feel confident now that they can

actually travel without pulling over at every rest stop to allow her to use the restroom.

JANNINE: Oh my goodness. That’s huge. That’s huge. I mean, and especially for so long because being 83 and

then after her second child, my guess was 40 years more than that. 

GUEST: Really honestly. Yeah.

Yeah. And you think too, I’ve had her, she’s been my patient for several years, I’ve had her

in pelvic floor therapy in conjunction, I mean, prior to almost two years prior. So

she’s done three or four months since a couple times a year, which is obviously very helpful for

her as well. And I’ve encouraged her to actually continue with PT therapy or pelvic floor therapy

because of the now she has that muscle memory. She can connect which muscle she’s actually

supposed to be contracting as opposed to just thinking of starting and stopping your stream

of your end, she’s actually getting full of public floor movement and contraction.

JANNINE: Wow. I mean, I know for sure, like, I was like, wow, I have never felt these parts of my public

floor before when you had the veto and I was like, oh, wow, what’s this? You know, and it’s cool

because I don’t think many of us can connect exactly what we’re supposed to feel down below,

you know, even, I mean, with PT, public floor PT, you can definitely get a sense, but like,

actually having something contract with that amount of, you know, and folks are listening,

it’s not, it’s not super strong and, and, you know, Shannon and, and Cara will, will help you

directly how strong of a impulse. But like, I actually was able to turn it up after a while after

I got used to, except first I was like, okay, this is weird. This is different. And then as we

turned it up, I was like, wow, that’s kind of cool. Now I know exactly that feeling. And I’ve

actually used that now to be able to connect in while running,

connect in while doing some other physical fitness stuff that I had

had some issues with before. So fascinating there.

GUEST: And that’s what she said too. She said, I can, she’s like, I’ve

never experienced this sensation of contracting those muscles. She

loved it. She absolutely loved it.

JANNINE: No doubt. I’ve no doubt. I’m definitely hooked. So Cara, tell us

a little bit about a story that that you have about some of some

pretty good transformation.

GUEST: So I’m thinking of a 72 year old clan of mine who complained about just not being

rested all the time and it turns out on further discussion that she was also getting up five

to six times a night to empty her bladder. She also had some incontinence like she had to know

know where the bathrooms were at all times.

She had had episodes where she was looking

for a bathroom at a place and lost control of her urine

to the point where she always packed another pair of underwear

and pants with her at all times.

She wore a pad, but she said, you know,

one of the biggest things that bothered her most

was that she had to use so much time and energy

to map out bathrooms, to plan her life

around going to the bathroom.

And that just wears on you, plus her sleep was terrible.

So when she came in for her first treatment,

she actually couldn’t even finish the 15-minute forma

session without going to the bathroom two times.

This is how bad her incontinence was.

And now, after her three forma and six tone sessions,

She says that she gets up maybe one time a night

and she’s sleeping through the night quite often.

She doesn’t worry about mapping out bathrooms

because she knows that she, when her bladder wants

to relax, that she can tense up her pelvic floor

how we’re supposed to so that we can hold in our urine.

And mainly she’s just so happy about the amount of energy

she has because she’s not happy to map her whole life

around her in continents.

JANNINE: Oh gosh, yeah.

I mean, it becomes a full-time job really to research.

Like, okay, if I’m gonna go out.

So then of course it has people not leaving their homes.

And this is what I see too for a lot of my older clients.

Now, you guys have given examples of older clients.

A lot of folks are going, well, I’m not that old.

Is this gonna help me?

And of course I’m 46.

And I think a lot of people will be thinking,

well, could I use this as a preventative type of thing?

if I have some mild symptoms and nothing major.

GUEST: Absolutely, and that’s where I kind of start to gauge too.

Where can we start to get the word out?

And they suppose part of mama is in these patients

who need rehabilitation if they’ve had an injury

or an accident because something like the V-tone,

a series of V-tone could be found in prevention.

And that’s how I’m going to anticipate using it

for the rest of my life is I am now cured, if you will.

Like I’m going to continue to do intermittent sessions

in addition to other modalities,

I’m a fan of a hormone replacement,

needed for vaginal dryness or you’re requiring UTIs.

But I absolutely look at it as a prevention modality

if we can absolutely do that.

There’s so many things that we are better off

as preventing rather than treating down the road.

JANNINE: Yeah, yeah.

Cara, what’s your take?

What have you seen and kind of things you–

GUEST: So, yeah, I mean, I think it’s interesting

Because and Shannon and I often use the examples

of older women because as we age,

we’re not able to produce as much collagen

and the symptoms do tend to be worse.

And if we’re seeing great improvement in this age of women,

then these younger women are definitely going to respond better

when they can still produce large amounts of collagen

and their pelvic floor integrity,

their musculature is stronger and just more receptive to treatment.

When I was in training, I was training with a urogynecologist in Newport, California,

and he was treating a patient who was 35 who had just had her second baby and had gone

into her OBGYN post-partum and said, “I’m losing control of my bladder.

What should I do?”

And her OBGYN literally just said, “Well, that’s what happens when you have babies.”

offered her no solutions whatsoever.

So she had to go and research her own solutions

and luckily he was able to use these technologies

to treat her symptoms and she was having great relief as well.

JANNINE: Oh my gosh.

Yeah, I mean, unfortunately that is common.

I’ve heard all the spectrum of like suck it up.

That’s the way it is.

And you know, it’s like, gosh, I don’t want to live with that.

I don’t want anyone else to either.

Now we’ve talked about urinary incontinence.

One of the other things is fecal incontinence.

Have you guys had any cases where that’s improved

with using this technology as it does impact the public floor?

GUEST: I have not.

I have someone on my radar with whom

it experiences both urinary and fecal incontinence

and it’s a matter of financing for her,

which she’s working on, but I’m very eager to,

she’s got lots of comorbidities, autoimmune stuff,

but she’s always had concerns about fecal incontinence

And, you know, she ebbs and flows through the planet.

She’s on my radar.

She knows about the technology.

So I will keep you posted.

We get the opportunity to treat her specifically.

JANNINE: Sounds good.

GUEST: Yeah, and same here.

I mean, I think what we’ve focused on is, you know,

the technology was developed for incontinence,

for vaginal health.

And so a lot of the clients we’re seeing

are attracted because of that.

And so I do know that they are doing ongoing studies

about fecal incontinence and other things that just have not been released yet.

But as I mentioned, the Eurovanna College is a new port California.

He is part of these studies.

And so we will start seeing more data as those studies are evaluated and concluded.

JANNINE: Awesome. Awesome. Yeah, I think it’s one of those things where nobody wants to talk about it in

the office a lot of times. It’s like pulling teeth to get the information out of my patients,

but it does seem that we are having a lot more of that going on here too as we’re getting older and

you know obviously I’m getting older my practice is getting older so I see that quite quite often.

Now so with now I’d love to kind of go into the technology a little bit more in terms of what

someone would expect when they come into a visit because I think you know we imagine all kinds of

things right as to like what in the world are they doing and you know I talked about the little wand

before on social media and a couple patients were like, what kind of wand is this thing? You know,

in the V-tone in terms of being kind of like a little tear drop kind of device. And so I would

love for you guys to kind of go into like what would a procedure look like you, one of you could

prescribe describe the V-town, maybe the form of the, I don’t know, Ella, you guys do it, you’re the

experts. 

GUEST: Okay, so the V-tone as you as you described is a tear-dropped shape,

device it’s inserted into the vagina, it stimulates muscle contraction. It’s

as you mentioned, it’s an interesting feeling, especially when you’ve never

really felt your pelvic floor contract or had been your mind tied to those muscles. But

women should not expect discomfort at all, and it’s important for them to also know with this

technology that we instruct them on how to increase their own public floor stimulation as

as they increase the power that is to the device and they are absolutely in charge of that because

we can’t feel what they’re feeling right. I have some women that you know it dials from

one to fifty and I have some women that get to twelve and they feel like wow this is

really intense and I think I’m going to hang out here. And then the the 72 year old patient that I

mentioned earlier on her third session was like how far off does this go? And she was the first one

to discover it went to 50. So but you know it’s important for women to know that they are in control

of that so that they can be in charge of their own body in that sensation and you know push it

as far as they feel comfortable. 

JANNINE: Sure sure I know I didn’t feel like one side of my pelvis during

the first session for like quite a bit of it, I cannot feel the right side, which is the side

that I have a discrimination on that is technically a surgical case, but I refuse surgery. And now

that I’m seeing that this is working for me, I’m like, well, why would I get surgery now?

But I did notice that, yeah, I didn’t feel it. I don’t think I could go past 12. I don’t know

what that says about me, but I think it’s just it is what it is. We keep it where we can handle it.

Now, what about the form of V because that felt like I was having a warm like, like a hot

stone massage to my vaginal tissue. And for those of you who are like, what? I would not want

heat there. I’m like, guys, it actually felt relaxing. So I’m going to let you take away with

that, Shannon and kind of give us the rundown on what’s happening. 

GUEST: Sure. So it is a wand. I would

say absolutely. I apologize. I didn’t bring any up here to demonstrate, but it’s probably

slightly whiter than the, with the my finger.

It’s very narrow.

The tip does spread out a little bit more

because it has that bipolar radio frequency

at the tip of the wand.

We use a little lubrication, either ultrasound gel

or some water-based lubricant to insert the wand.

There are measurements.

So we know basically we will get to,

if you have a cervix, we will get to the cervix

cold back and not insert beyond that.

If you don’t have a cervix, we, you know,

maybe I doubt totally, but maybe hit the vaginal wall

and say, “Think, pull back.”

Once that, we’ve got the safe measurements down.

We’re literally just using that wand

and then around the vaginal wall on the tissue, heating up.

In mode is the manufacturer of this device,

and it has been repeatedly said that in mode

is the absolute master of temperature feedback,

milliseconds of feedback.

So we have an indication on our screen

that we are heating you to the desired temperature

with the appropriate amount of energy

so that we are not overheating the tissue.

But the point is to look at enough heat,

hot stone, if you will, to the tissue

that we’re creating an inflammatory response.

JANNINE: Unfortunately, we were having a little bit

of technological issues with the audio in this podcast.

So I’m gonna jump in and talk about what Shannon was saying

about the Forma V.

So the Forma V is a radio frequency device.

It’s a wand.

It’s about an inch in diameter.

It’s then it’s inserted vaginally,

which may sound kind of scary,

but honestly you can barely feel it.

It almost feels like someone’s giving you

an internal massage.

Now while that might sound kind of creepy,

the truth is I felt the heat.

I felt the device sliding on the vaginal wall

and it felt like someone was releasing the tissue.

Much like myofascial kind of slow spreading massage,

it felt like that.

In fact, at one point, I felt something in my right upper vaginal area release,

which is crazy because I’m not going to get a massage really in that area.

And so having a device that can get in there,

get some heat in the area and help you is incredible.

And so literally Shannon wanted folks to know that when you have the device in,

if you, if it’s too warm, you know,

she can always control that.

If it feels, if something feels off,

it’s triggering something for you,

she can always stop the treatment.

It’s not like you’re, once you’re in, you’re committed.

You can definitely take a little breaks,

but it is common, according to Shannon,

that you can feel releases, and many clients

will talk about feeling a release much like I did.

In fact, during the actual session, I was like,

“Whoa, whoa, I can feel something.”

And so we had a really good laugh about that,

but the truth is, is that these things,

How else are we going to have that, right?

A lot of times I have patients coming in my practice

they’re talking about pelvic floor pain.

They’re talking about pain with sex

and they’re like, I don’t know what to do.

Nothing seems to relieve it.

Well, this could be your answer.

‘Cause I’ll be honest, I tried pelvic floor therapy,

I tried different things in it.

Nothing seems to get that one little spot.

Shannon got it with the form of V.

So something I really want you guys to be thinking about here,

you know, we have the capacity to fully take care of our bodies.

Huge, huge. So with the one, she can also work not only on the internal vaginal wall and the

vaginal tissue, she can work around the urethral meatus, which is the opening where you urinate.

She can also work on your labia majora, the bigger lips and the labia minora, the little lips,

because sometimes those will prolapse, meaning though they will drop down, especially after you’ve

had multiple children.

And this is one way to help tighten things up.

Because what the form of V is doing

is that with the heat and the radio frequency,

it’s creating a little bit of an inflammatory response.

It’s triggering you to make more collagen,

and also to bring more blood flow to the area.

So much like the treatments that we have on our face,

right, microneedling, all of the different radio frequency

treatments you could do on your face.

Same thing applies to your vaginal tissue.

It’s the same skin.

I don’t know why we have this disconnect.

But here we are, helping to really spread the word

that there are options for you.

There are options for you.

Cara says it really well later on the podcast.

So I’m not gonna just tease you a little bit.

She says it really well about women now.

We don’t wanna be sitting around.

We wanna be doing things.

We wanna be sexual.

We wanna feel good.

these kind of devices can help you with that.

And I can’t tell you how good I feel now being able to run

and not have pain.

Incredible.

I’ve worked on my feet, I’ve worked on my knees,

I’ve worked on my hips, I’ve worked on my low back.

Go figure.

It was this one little thing in that pelvic floor.

So now even if there’s tenderness,

even if there’s scar tissue in the vaginal wall,

in the vaginal area,

Shannon can work with that with the form of E.

So this is something to really think about.

prolapse also can be helped with this too.

And so really it’s about a 15 to 20 minute treatment

and she’s definitely gonna be listening to you.

You know, and of course I don’t imagine

that everyone’s gonna be able to go to Tacoma Washington.

There are other folks trained out there

will make sure that you can see where folks may be

in your area.

But the point is is you’re in control of these treatments.

15 to 20 minutes, repeat them at a minimum of three times.

I’ve already done two and I can tell you I feel amazing.

I am going to do some more, no doubt.

And I’m going to do them as a preventative.

Kind of like every year, just repeat to help

keep my tissue healthy.

Much like I would work on my skin.

I’m gonna work on my vaginal skin too.

All right.

Now after the treatment, I did feel like something was done.

You feel it for like one to three days.

She said that’s absolutely common.

And it’s also common to, you know,

just feel maybe even a little itching.

As the body’s working to heal the area,

Carol will talk about that a little bit later

with the Morpheus treatment.

Now, also there’s downtime.

Yeah, you might feel it for one to three days.

There’s also like best to lay off a sex

for at least two days just to let the area heal.

Which I think that’s fair enough

after you’ve spent the money to help heal up something,

why not let it rest a little bit?

And then it can be much better

because as Shenan mentions the orgasms

and things of that nature are even better

once you’ve used this device for a little while.

So something to also think about.

All right, let’s get back into the podcast.

Afterwards, I did feel like it kind of felt

like I had had sex, right?

‘Cause there was a lot of like motion

to the vaginal wall and it lasted for like three days.

I felt that quite a bit and I was like,

“Wow, I must have really needed some,

some, I guess circulation to the area.

What’s typical for people to feel afterwards?

Do you have like a gauge on that?

GUEST: That’s why you just described it.

Usually about two, three days where you might feel

like there was some intercourse

or there was a treatment that you had a treatment done.

More so I think if we do longer sessions

at the goals to short sessions,

again, we’re facing an outpatient tolerance.

So usually we’ll check in with my patients

when they come over for a first one.

JANNINE: Soothing warm there and it definitely works to just relax.

I felt like my whole like urine wall, I’m probably even some of my public floor.

I feel like it was just really relaxing.

I had to take my headphones off there, squeezing my head too much today and take those guys

off.

There we go.

Get comfortable.

So, you know, when, well, let’s put this way afterwards.

I did feel like it kind of felt like I had had sex, right?

’cause there was a lot of motion to the vaginal wall

and it lasted for like three days.

I felt that quite a bit and I was like,

“Wow, I must have really needed some,

some, I guess circulation.”

Now I’m gonna have Kara talk all about

the Morpheus with microneedling.

So it sounds super scary to have microneedling

in your vaginal tissue,

know that it can be numbed up, not the end of the world.

And that in a lot of cases, the lowered pain receptors

in the vaginal area make it really easy to do.

Much different than having micronealing on your face.

But care is the expert, let’s have her tell you.

GUEST: In moderate to severe symptoms,

we use a device called Morpheus V,

which is radio frequency,

but in conjunction with that is microneedling.

And as we’ve said before, we know a lot of women cringe

when they think about needles in the vagina,

But it’s important for women to know that first of all,

we don’t have a lot of nerve endings in the vaginal canal.

So as far as that goes, it would be minimally painful.

However, we also numb women up so that they only feel pressure.

And what this device does is it passes radio frequency

at different depths for deeper collagen stimulation

so that we’re getting better elasticity

and better tissue rejuvenation in women

with moderate to severe symptoms.

And this of course includes the wall of the bladder

that sits anteriorly in the vagina.

It can help improve blood flow and collagen stimulation

in the urethra and urethral meadus to help protect us

from leakage and from recurrent urinary tract infections.

It can improve blood flow to the clitoris

and women find that they may have easier

to obtain orgasms or even more satisfying orgasms.

But regardless, this technology is used

for the more severe cases or women who don’t respond

to the less invasive technologies.

And I think we talked about downtime before

and the downtime in this is a little longer.

women are sore for a couple of days.

You can’t have vaginal intercourse

for probably two to five days.

So we have women plan for that.

And sometimes there is some post-treatment itching

as they heal.

But overall, what we’re seeing is that they are back

to baseline with improvement of symptoms often

within a week.

JANNINE: Kara mentions improved symptoms in a week.

Whoa.

Especially in severe cases with prolapse and–

GUEST: in order to really maximize, you know,

kind of invest in this.

We want you to have maximal results.

And so I sent her back to her primary care and said,

“Hey, go ahead and talk to her about vaginal estrogen,

“at least temporarily.”

And I wanted her to be on that for at least a month

before she came in for her first treatment

so that she can get really good results

because if her tissue isn’t estrogenized,

then it’s not gonna respond as well.

And we even talked about just briefly

that she may need surgery in the future,

but as Shannon spoke about the evolve,

if she does need surgery, improving her tissues

and improving her pelvic floor muscles

will make her surgical outcome that much better as well.

So we’re not necessarily saying we are a solution to surgery,

but even if a woman needs surgery

to maximize outcomes and to really make it so

they get maximal relief from whatever symptoms

they’re suffering from.

This can be an integral part of their treatment plan.

JANNINE: That makes sense and I’m glad you bring that up

because yeah, I mean, I think even Shannon and I

saw someone on Instagram that was kind of saying,

“Yeah, it only gave me 50% results.”

And we’re like, “Well, yeah, but where did you start from?”

So…

GUEST: Well, and you know, if you’re only paying 50% of the time

to me that seems like a great thing for you to do.

I think it was, I think we have to realize

that we cannot turn back the clock 100%, right?

We’re not gonna turn your pelvic floor

into the pelvic floor of a 20 year old

who has never had children,

but we can help turn that back some

and give you significant improvement

and quality of life because really it wasn’t until

about 20 years ago in medicine

that we even started looking to the quality of life of women,

especially post-menopausal, right?

At menopause, 20 years ago, you’re done.

You were just a shriveled up grandma,

you couldn’t be sexual, if it’s fine, if you peed your pants,

right?

Just put on a diaper and sit in the corner and be quiet.

And we know that women want to have amazing quality of life.

We live a third of our lives in menopause.

And we want to be sexual beings, as much as that,

we feel like we need that in our lives post-menopausal as well.

And so I think it’s women standing up and demanding

to have this quality of life and to have improvement

in their quality of life that has really started changing

the tide, but we have a long way to go.

JANNINE: Absolutely, absolutely.

I mean, I think we’re just starting to really gain momentum.

And I think that, yeah, we have a lot of different,

you know, things that are gonna probably come up

over the next couple of years and technology is going to keep getting better and better.

And it sounds like you guys are at the forefront of it.

So you’ll stay on top of the next evolutions of the V-forma and all of the things here

and kind of keep moving forward.

So of course, having said that, my next question is, all right, what’s next?

What kind of things are you looking at to add to help women at this point?

GUEST: As far as devices go, it works good for this unit.

I think when you take on a new device, you always are good and relieved to a degree right

to say, “Okay, it’s doing what the white papers are saying.

It’s doing what the doctors, we trained what they’re saying.”

Now it’s our turn to maximize the results for our patients.

We’re figuring out more and more about, okay, maybe our gals with more serious or significant

symptoms.

Maybe we need an extra couple of V-tones.

Maybe when we initially thought of forma was going to do it, maybe we need to switch

to more for us.

So for us, it’s the anecdotal pieces of maximizing patient treatment outcomes.

So I think for me, I’d rather just focus on maximizing outcomes than the next device.

However, I will say the device that we have also does do, we talked about the external

of the tone with skin-to-non-invasive, the device still does have a more fierce face

and a more fierce body, and those technologies continue to improve in terms of safety and

efficacy.

So, this device will also can do, if you are concerned, about fine lines wrinkles, needing

to regenerate some collagen in the face, neck,

declite, or around the abdomen, arms, et cetera,

this device will do that as well.

And then again, that technology continues to improve

just because of the sheer research

and determination of the unknown company.

JANNINE: Yeah, yeah, I know that makes sense.

That makes sense.

I think it’s just, you can outside the box

and also thinking about like, yeah,

how can you enhance the,

Like what’s going to get the most effect in terms of treatment

protocols and things of that nature?

So all good stuff, all good stuff.

Gosh, I’m glad you guys are local.

I’m glad we have options for patients in Tacoma.

And of course, if folks are out of state, you can always pop into.

There’s no saying that these guys wouldn’t take someone that came in from out of town.

I’m guessing you may even have folks that are coming from like across the

across the bridge and also probably on the other side of the state too, sometimes.

GUEST: Absolutely, as far as we know, there’s only one other,

there’s one other device in Western Washington,

it’s up north and from what we hear, of course,

what you hear is maybe not always what’s happening,

but that they are not doing the Morpheus V.

And what we have found is,

some Morpheus V has a really great niche

and is essential in a lot of women’s care.

And if we wanna maximize outcomes,

that we have to have that available.

And so as Shannon was saying, we sometimes switch gear.

I had a woman who started on forma.

And when she did not respond as well as we had hoped,

we switched to Morpheus and we’re just seeing

just amazing response from that.

And she was nervous about it ’cause she’s had Morpheus face

and she found that painful,

but this she finds completely comfortable.

So it’s important for us to make sure

that our patients are getting the best outcomes

that they can get.

And sometimes we have to switch plan of care, but we’re more than willing to do that.

JANNINE: Awesome.

Awesome.

I have no doubt that you guys are going to be helping a lot of folks.

And I’m really glad that I know you and have this resource.

Thanks again for coming on today.

I really appreciate it.

Thank you so much.

It’s really awesome and just appreciate you reach out.

Thank you.

No problem.

Empowered med spot.

Just in case you guys are wondering, maybe you’re in the Tacoma area is located

at 1310 South Union Building A, it’s suite 202.

And if you’re looking for them on Google Maps

or whatever, it’s the zip code 9405.

If you wanna get in touch with them via phone,

it’s 2532404543.

Now, if you’re not in the Tacoma, Washington area,

that is okay.

Head over to my podcast notes at doctor spelled out

JKRAUSEND.com.

and I will have the listening for how to find practitioners in your area. Thanks for watching

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