Come on, lean a little closer because I’m going to address a couple of problems that are shared by many women but are rarely discussed. I’m talking about sexual dissatisfaction and incontinence. Now, the two may be mutually exclusive but, according to pelvic surgeon Dr. Oscar A. Aguirre, a board certified urogynecologist in private practice in Denver, CO, the fix for the former cures the latter. The technique used by Dr. Aguirre is called FemiLift™ and, although it’s designed to improve women’s sexual satisfaction, it has the added side effect of reducing incontinence.
What Is FemiLift?
FemiLift, also referred to as Non-Surgical Vaginal Tightening, uses a CO2 laser to resurface the walls of the vagina. The product of an Israeli design company, FemiLift has been used in Europe and South America for several years to treat vaginal looseness and was introduced to the U.S. last year. Says Dr. Aguirre, “I was the first surgeon in the U.S. to use FemiLift which is a cylindrical laser probe that’s inserted into the vagina to deliver thermal energy to remodel vaginal tissue.” The purpose of FemiLift is to stimulate the production of collagen and elastin, resulting in a firmer vagina. (I know – but don’t give up yet. Keep reading.)
Sounds Painful
According to Dr. Aguirre, the FemiLift cylinder is small enough so as not to be painful and no anesthesia is needed. (Nerve endings are concentrated in the lower third of the vagina and not inside its depth which lacks nerve endings. This is why many women don’t orgasm from vaginal stimulation alone. The clitoris, on the other hand, has about 8,000 nerve endings and, fun fact, the penis has about 4,000.) Dr. Aguirre explains that some of his patients say the sensation of the FemiLift laser is like that of a rubber band snapping inside the vagina. Some patients describe a sensation of warmth; others describe no sensation of at all. “The first patient I tried [FemiLift] on was a volunteer and her experience was phenomenal. We used it to improve vaginal sensation. After that, I tried using it on more patients and the response was always positive.”
The Naysayers and Detractors
There are those on the internet who feel that FemiLift is a procedure that undermines women and is performed to improve men’s sexual pleasure. I mentioned several of the negative articles I read online and Dr. Aguirre said he was unaware of them. While FemiLift is too new to find accurate data on the pros and cons, many medical professionals worry that women are seeking vaginoplasty, a procedure that surgically tightens the vagina, to achieve a media-hyped sexual ideal. “Since when is wanting better sex a crime or a pathological problem?” asks Dr. Aguirre. “I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that many [health care] providers women go to aren’t comfortable with the topic of sex and so they brush it off. That’s why I’m more than happy to offer this to my patients.” To digress just a little, I knew a woman who, after the birth of her third child, had a surgical procedure to tighten her vagina to improve her sex life. It seems that FemiLift offers similar benefits without surgery.
So What About Incontinence?
While the majority of Dr. Aguirre’s FemiLift patients come to him complaining of a lack of sexual stimulation due to vaginal looseness, several also experienced incontinence. Dr. Aguirre reports that of his patients suffering from incontinence, all were helped by FemiLift even though that’s not its primary purpose. However, “it’s not normal to lose urine,” says Dr. Aguirre. “I have many patients in their 60s and 70s who never lose urine. Women will delay treatment for incontinence for years because they think it’s normal to leak when they cough. And, their doctors will tell them it’s normal. That’s very unfair. There are many reasons for incontinence. It’s important that the patient’s symptoms are properly evaluated. I feel very frustrated when I see women coming in to my office [from other medical practices] where they were just told to do kegels [for incontinence.] Women who suffer from vaginal prolapse are not candidates for this procedure. That is a perfect example of what millions of women suffer from. When they go to their physician and are diagnosed with prolapse, they are told to do kegels. They won’t help one bit. However, women who are candidates for FemiLift have no anatomical problems. They are otherwise ok,” aside from suffering from an unsatisfactory sex life and perhaps mild incontinence.
Vaginal Looseness – The Ins and Outs
So, vaginal looseness. Is it a thing? It apparently is. A quick visit to WebMD.com has this to say, “Women will come in describing a change in sexual function and say it feels loose and they feel less satisfied,” [says Dr. Christopher Tarnay, MD, director of the division of female pelvic medicine and reconstructive surgery at the UCLA Medical Center.] “Women who are able to contract the pelvic floor muscles can increase or decrease the size of the [the vaginal opening],” he says. “Increasing pelvic floor muscle tone can reduce looseness.” How do doctors recommend we do this? Kegels. (More on these exercises later.)
And then there are those who say vaginal size doesn’t affect sexual satisfaction. A 2010 study on whether or not vaginal size impacts sexual activity and function finds that it does not. Researchers recruited 500 heterosexual women, ages 40 and older, to see if there was a correlation between the size and length of the vagina and sexual satisfaction. They used medical records, a physical exam and a questionnaire to gather data which indicated that arousal, desire, pain, orgasm and, ultimately, sexual satisfaction were not linked to vagina size.
Hm, maybe I’m confusing vaginal looseness with vaginal size, so let’s examine the vagina a little more closely. The vagina is an elastic canal that’s about two to four inches long and about 3/4 of an inch wide. It’s ringed with muscular ridges that enable it to expand to accommodate a penis, tampon or a baby. During sexual arousal, the vagina swells to about four to eight inches long and about 2.5 inches wide, but this is only temporary. Experts also say that childbirth won’t permanently affect the size of the vagina which typically will revert to its original size within about six months after giving birth. (However, some experts say that the vagina can stretch permanently if a woman has given birth to many children.). Also, with aging and the attendant loss of estrogen, the vaginal walls become thinner and the muscles begin to lose their tautness which may result in incontinence. Maybe there is something to this FemiLift, after all. Yet the often-recommended medical solution for an aging, thinning vagina is … you guessed it, kegels.
So, how do you know if you have a loose hoo ha? Perhaps sexual dissatisfaction is one way. Another way is to insert a finger into your vagina and to then contract your vaginal muscles as tightly as you can around it. An article in Psychology Today says that aging can loosen the vagina but that kegels or ben-wa balls, which are sold as sex toys, will exercise the vagina. The article’s writer recommends inserting ben-wa balls into the vagina and walking around the house, trying to keep them in. If the pelvic floor muscles are weak, the balls will drop out. As you practice keeping them in, the pelvic floor will strengthen and you’ll be able to hold the ben-wa balls inside for longer periods of time.
Dr. Aguirre says that age is also a factor when it comes to a woman’s sexual satisfaction and that older patients who’ve experienced dryness due to menopause have noticed an improvement in lubrication with FemiLift. “When they come back for their followup appointment, I see a more youthful vagina. It doesn’t look as atrophied as before the procedure because it’s creating new collagen.”
Dr. Aguirre is pioneering FemiLift in the U.S. where only perhaps a handful of other physicians offer it. When I asked him why it wasn’t more widely performed, other than the fact that it was new, he said, “ I think a lot of it has to do with many providers that women go to aren’t comfortable with the topic of sex and so they brush it off. That’s why I’m more than happy to offer this to my patients.”
To date, Dr. Aguirre has performed 32 FemiLift procedures. Each treatment costs $2,000 but if the patient receives three treatments the cost is $5,000. FemiLift, which is FDA approved, is not covered by insurance. And, the results from FemiLift don’t last forever. Says Dr. Aguirre, “The physicians who’ve had the most experience with FemiLift found that it lasts for two years. Then women will come back to be re-treated.” Note: Follow-ups require only one session.
Oh, and by the way, Dr. Aguirre says to keep doing your kegels. “That’s important.” I will – and so should you, but if they don’t deliver and you want to learn more about FemiLift, check out Dr. Aguirre’s practice’s website at Aguirre Specialty Care.
For more information on how to do kegel exercises, click to be redirected to the Mayo Clinic Website.
And, check out InCONTROL Pelvic Exercise for Women DVD by Karen Armstrong. Based on Core Pilates principles and therapeutic exercise guidelines, the exercises in this DVD are designed to help viewers address incontinence, sexual response and recovery from childbirth by isolating and strengthening pelvic floor muscles.
Get it here:
YOU MAY ALSO LIKE:
Want Better Sex? The New Naked May Help
Does 50 Shades of Grey Promote Sexual Abuse?
