Nurse Maureen‘s Health Show
Welcome to Nurse Maureen's Health Show Podcast where we dive deep into all things health, sex, menopause, relationships, parenting, communication and more! Hosted by a passionate nurse with years of frontline experience, we bring you expert interviews, real-life stories, and the latest insights on staying healthy aging. Nothing is off limits as we delve into overall health, sexual health, mental health, and sexual health. Whether we’re breaking down medical myths, discussing cutting-edge treatments, or chatting with top health professionals, this show is your go-to for practical advice and inspiring conversations.
Nurse Maureen‘s Health Show
The Kegel Throne for Urinary Incontinence
Uncover the transformative power of the BTL Emsella, affectionately known as the Kegel throne, and how it offers a non-invasive solution to urinary incontinence. Join us as Tim Rea, District Sales Manager for Western Canada at BTL Medical Canada, shares his expertise on this cutting-edge technology that employs high-intensity focused electromagnetic waves to enhance pelvic floor strength. Get ready to challenge the misconceptions about who is affected by urinary incontinence and discover how this dignified treatment can fit seamlessly into any lifestyle, empowering both men and women to reclaim their quality of life.
Our conversation delves into the broader impact of urinary incontinence across genders and discusses the role of the BTL Emsella in addressing various types of incontinence, including stress, urge, and mixed forms, along with nocturia. We explore its application in medical settings and the comprehensive training BTL provides to ensure effective implementation. Hear Tim's insights on overcoming the reluctance some clinicians might have in adopting this revolutionary approach, especially for patients with a history of cancer. Whether you're a healthcare practitioner or someone affected by these common ailments, this episode promises a wealth of knowledge and hope for better health outcomes. Don't miss out on the chance to learn about a treatment that could transform lives.
Urinary incontinence is the involuntary loss of bladder control, which can range from occasional leaks during physical activities to a strong, sudden urge to urinate that is difficult to control. It affects men and women of all ages, but is more common in older adults. It affects women after childbirth, at perimenopause, menopause, and men when they have prostate issues. It also affects people with other medical conditions as well in other times of life. It's important to understand the type and to know one thing there is treatment available. Good evening and welcome to Nurse Maureen's Health Show podcast. Thanks so much for tuning in to the podcast. I appreciate all of your follows and downloads. This program would be nothing without you. Well, we we're talking, as you know, about an embarrassing, undignified condition urinary incontinence, bladder leaks people. It's so common, yet nobody wants to talk about it. Well, there are treatments available. I want you to know.
Speaker 1:Enter the btl mcella, otherwise known as the kegel. It's an innovative, non-invasive treatment for urinary incontinence that uses high intensity focused electromagnetic technology to strengthen your pelvic floor muscles. It delivers thousands of contractions during a single session. It's fantastic. You can sit on it fully clothed. Do it during your lunch hour. Joining me on the line to talk further about this is Tim Ray. He's the District Sales Manager for Western Canada at BTL Medical Canada. Good evening, tim. How are you?
Speaker 2:Hi, I'm great, Maureen. Thanks for having me today.
Speaker 1:Well, thanks so much for joining the program. You know urinary incontinence affects so many people. It really impacts quality of life. It can lead to anxiety, depression, it prevents people from exercising, it makes them feel older, it's embarrassing, they can lead to urinary tract infections and skin infections as well. I mean, it's really a nuisance. And it takes a woman on average seven years to speak to her doctor about urinary incontinence, and oftentimes she is met with well, is it really that bothersome to you? Or, you know, just try and wear pads. You know it's really not something we've got a handle on. And yet there are treatments available, one of which is the BTLM cella or the Kegel throne. So how does the BTLM cella work to treat urinary incontinence and what makes it different from other available treatments?
Speaker 2:Well, that's a great question, and it really comes down to a unique type of technology that our company developed several years ago, and the energy is called high FEM high intensity focused electromagnetic energy. Now, what is really unique about this energy is that nothing has to be inserted inside of someone to be able to do this treatment. The pelvic floor is about 10 centimeters up from the skin surface and you'd think that you know you'd have to do a surgery, have an insertable wand of some sort, but we don't do any of that. This energy source will actually travel through the skin tissue and the muscle and focus in on the nerves that can control the full pelvic floor muscle group. So what we're actually doing is activating action potentials down these nerves, which causes what we call supramaximal contraction of these muscles. In layman's terms, what that means is that we're contracting these muscles to 100% of their capability, whereas voluntarily you may only be able to contract them to 30-40% of their capacity. So just by sitting on this chair, fully closed, this energy source will do your Kegels for you.
Speaker 1:And I understand that it does 11,200 Kegel exercises in 28 minutes in one sitting.
Speaker 2:Last time I counted it was 11,800, but pretty close.
Speaker 1:I sit corrected. It's great that women and men can sit on the Kegel throne and have their treatment done, as opposed to an undignified method of treatment, and so this is very dignified. It's simple People can go on their lunch hour. What types of urinary incontinence are most effectively treated by the Kegel throne?
Speaker 2:That's a great question. So the Health Canada and FDA clearances are really pointing to all types of incontinence. So that would be stress incontinence, urge incontinence or a combination of the both, called mixed incontinence. We're helping in various different ways because we're helping with the muscles being able to control the loss of leakage, but we also seem to be helping with the nervous system as well and that can be related to that urge incontinence and quite often even nocturia, meaning you have to get up multiple times in the night. I would say the patients who see the most outstanding responses are usually anywhere between mild to moderate stress or mixed incontinence.
Speaker 1:Okay and stress incontinence just to define it for the listeners is leaking a small amount of urine with increased abdominal pressure, like when you cough or sneeze or run, exercise, go from a lying to a standing position in bed, for example. An urge. Is that overwhelming urgency to have to go to the bathroom right away, and you may or may not leak urine with that, and then mixed obviously is the two of them. You talked a little bit about the science behind high-intensity focused electromagnetic therapy or high-fem technology. How does it strengthen the pelvic floor?
Speaker 2:That's a great question. So, as we said too, this is an invisible magnetic field and it's really most similar to an MRI field. Now, it's very safe as well. So what happens is this energy source will activate the motor neurons to cause these huge contractions in the muscle. We repeatedly contract the muscle again and again and again and again over a full 28 minute treatment. So these muscles are squeezing and reacting, you know, like they've never done before. You can't do a Kegel to mimic this. So in response, the muscles are going to repair themselves with hyperplasia and hypertrophy, which is increasing the density of muscle fibers and the size of those muscle fibers.
Speaker 2:But what I really think is the biggest takeaway from the success we see with Amsela is the neuromuscular re-education and with that, the best way to explain that would be that you know, quite often you don't have that mind to muscle connection and it's really hard to do a certain movement. You have to learn it and you have to control it. Quite often after childbirth and pregnancy, a lot of women will have their nerves damaged and they lose control of that muscle and so it could be strong, but they're just not activating it properly. So what we're seeing here is a two-stage process. First of all, we're strengthening those muscles, but then we're re-educating the person on how to use them properly. So they're firing those muscles effectively day-to-day afterwards and those results can be very long-lasting because of that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's incredible. What's the typical treatment protocol for the Kegel Throne or the Amcella?
Speaker 2:Six sessions is typical. You want to space the sessions about three days apart. So you're going to complete your full series of six Amcella treatments in a three-week period and each treatment you come in it's a 28-minute treatment. There's no preparation before or afterwards. You can continue on with your day. There's no lifestyle changes, it's just very simple.
Speaker 1:That's awesome, and I've actually worked with the Kegel Throne. I've helped some of the clinics that have Kegel Thrones in them to launch the Women's Health Department, and so I know the reactions that you know women have had. They're delighted. They may have been leaking urine, you know, since childbirth and they're in their late 40s or many women leak at perimenopause. They start getting urgency, you know, and women are delighted. And what kind of results can patients typically expect and how soon do they see improvements in the symptoms, would you say?
Speaker 2:Yeah, most patients will start seeing improvements during the initial set of the treatment. So by your second, third, fourth treatment, you know there's a good chance you're going to start seeing. Sorry, marina, I've got a phone call ringing in my ear here. That's okay, I'm going to have to start that again.
Speaker 1:Phil, we're going to have to redo this little segment.
Speaker 2:My Bluetooth headset. It just vibrates my whole skull when it's ringing, so it's too much. Okay, Do? It's my whole skull when it's ringing?
Speaker 1:so it's too much.
Speaker 2:Okay, do you want to ask the question?
Speaker 1:again. Yeah, sure, here we go. Start from here. You know I have actually worked with the Kegel Throne. I have treated many patients with it, men and women alike, and I've certainly seen the results. And people are delighted with the results. You know they often after a few visits. What I've seen is they start, you know, to leak less. They have less urgency, they have much more bladder control. What kind of results can patients typically expect and how soon do they see improvements in their symptoms?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would say everyone varies typically, but usually during your treatment series of those six sessions, you should start seeing an improvement. Quite often we'll have patients say, when they're driving in for their fifth or sixth treatment, it's the first time they didn't have to make a washroom stop on their commute over to the clinic, and that's a great sign to show that it's already starting to work. So there is a lot of clinical studies investigating this technology, and there's different factors we look at. One is we look at general improvement, and usually about three months out is when we see the, the biggest result, biggest gain from this, and then we hope that's going to last for a year or two or maybe much longer, but quite often you see about 60 to 70 increase or decrease in the usage of leakage pads.
Speaker 2:We see 64% improvement in nocturia, 57% average hygiene pad reduction. 76% improvement in sexual satisfaction and desire 62% improvement in orgasm. We're even seeing men with an improvement in erectile dysfunction 37%. You know, I'd say the biggest outcome here, though, is that we were finding we did a study to find this is far more effective compared to pelvic floor physiotherapy and has been a gold standard for years, and that's tough. It's a lot of visits to the physiotherapist, a lot of Kegels at red lights. Instead, you can just sit on this chair and find it's going to be the most effective treatment out there to this date.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's so true. I mean, I know that so many patients of mine would come in and you know they had done pelvic floor physiotherapy for stress, urinary incontinence, for example, for a year, a year and a half, and no change whatsoever. And that's definitely not the case with the BTL, amcella or the Kegel. Now we were talking about bladder and you veered off there on me, Tim. We were talking about sexual health, one of my favorite subjects.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much. I'm glad you said orgasm Anyway, so this is not just limited to patients with bladder control issues. It also can be helpful for sexual dysfunction, as you mentioned.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. You know, as we know, for sexual function, the pelvic floor muscles are very involved, so is blood flow, so is sensitivity with the nerves, and Amsela is going to be impacting all three of those in a big way. So we're seeing sensitivity, stronger orgasms, you name it, and that's just something that Kegels have been known for years and Amsela is doing Kegels like nothing ever has.
Speaker 1:Which is great. I see so many patients in my clinical practice with low sexual desire, anorgasmia, primary anorgasmia, where they've never experienced orgasm. Lots of women at midlife, at perimenopause, menopause, have difficulty with arousal and orgasm, with lubrication and that kind of thing, and that can lead to low sexual desire. So it's awesome that there is a treatment available that not only helps with bladder control, bladder leakage, but also with sexual function. These are subjects we don't talk about too much, so I'm delighted to have you on the program today. You know some people might choose a procedure, for example a transvaginal taping, for their urinary incontinence. How does Emcella complement other pelvic floor treatments or therapies like surgical interventions?
Speaker 2:Well, I would have to say, is that you know, when we're going through an aging process or you know organs or areas of our body are not functioning like we hope they do, the number one thing is that the person themselves need to learn how to control that repair. That. That should be the foundation of anything we're doing. We can't just rely on pills, medication, surgical intervention to fix everything for us. We really have to be accountable and take charge of our own bodies and how we deal with it, and SELA is a great way that's doing that. And it's very difficult to obviously understand the pelvic floor and how to control it and do proper Kegels. And Amsela, by doing this automatically for you, is really just going to set you up for success by combining it with any other changes that you would recommend your patients, whether it's lifestyle, other treatments, medication, you name it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's fantastic and you know, some of my patients actually decided to cancel their surgical interventions after having sat six times on the Kegel throne, which is amazing. Are there any clinical studies or patient testimonials that highlight the efficacy and safety of mCell for urinary incontinence and sexual dysfunction?
Speaker 2:incontinence and sexual dysfunction Absolutely. There are at least 15, maybe even approaching 20, studies that we have out right now. It's one of the most researched treatments that we're seeing in this area and at first, you know, there was a lot of doubt about this technology. It sounded too good to be true. But now, in its seventh year on the market, we've really seen it taken off, just because, again and again and again, we have peer-reviewed evidence demonstrating the success for Amsela for its incontinence treatments and sexual health treatments in both men and women.
Speaker 1:And that's just amazing. You know we really need to raise the awareness about urinary incontinence and sexual dysfunction and talk about it like you know shampoo, or talk about it like you know any other subject that we discuss around our health. And you know, because both of those can really impact relationships, quality of life, sexual self-esteem, self-esteem, productivity I mean it impacts so much. I've seen patients, you know we get depression, isolation, depression as a result of urinary incontinence or, you know, have issues with their relationship, with their marriage, because of sexual dysfunction. So it is awesome that the Kegelthrone is now available and has been available for a number of years. So, say, a doctor or a naturopath or another type of clinic is listening and they wanted to bring the Emcella or the Kegelthrone into their clinic to offer it to their patients. What would be the best way for them to learn more about it?
Speaker 2:The best way would really be to contact your local rep at BTL. If you go to btlestheticscom and you can find information form there, fill it out and someone will be in touch with you and what we can do is really look into the demographics of your market and walk you through the process of what it would look like to add the technology into your clinic and answer any of the technical questions you have about offering the treatment. So just go to btlestheticscom.
Speaker 1:And you know people are, you know, very smart and I think a lot of clinicians realize that urinary incontinence and sexual dysfunction are massive areas where there's a gap in that type of health care and so they might be a little nervous or, you know, think I know that I need this in my clinic, but you know how do I bring it in when I don't know. You know a lot about it, necessarily. What kind of training and support does BTL offer to practitioners who may want to implement Emcella in their clinics?
Speaker 2:It's very simple. We'll do with a full training and certification process for any technician at a clinic, so they could be a doctor operating the device or it could just be a technician, but, btl, we'll take it on ourselves to fully teach them how to do the hands-on aspects of using the technology, which is very simple and more so just going through the patient consultation and the safety process of selecting your clientele and patients to use the treatment.
Speaker 1:And I know that I have, you know, educated a lot of doctors, nurses, nurse practitioners, clinicians, naturopaths, just around the subject of urinary incontinence and sexual dysfunction, because, you know, these are not subjects that these healthcare providers were taught in medical school but they certainly have a flood of patients, pun intended, you know that they have maybe not been able to treat over the years, and now there is this technology, this high femme technology, that they'll be able to treat, you know, a vast array of patients, men and women alike. I just have a quick question around the safety aspect again, for patients who have had reproductive cancers or patients who've had prostate cancers, is the technology safe for them?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we always are very careful with who we're treating. If someone has active cancer, we don't want to treat them. We don't want to have any blood flow to that area, so it's important to check on that. However, we do have studies and we have a lot of male treatments who are doing this after they have prostate removed and it's totally fine for them. So we just got to make sure the cancer is not active, it's remission and it's completely safe. Other than that, it's just metal implants near the treatment area, electronic implants and then one that can sneak away without noticing is a copper IUD. We just want to be careful that the patients don't have that. However, a Mirena IUD will be okay.
Speaker 1:Perfect. That's awesome, and you know. I do want to point out too although I think urinary incontinence has been victim to pink marketing men also leak urine, and I see so many men in my clinical practice who leak urine after prostate cancer treatments, whether it be radiation or prostate surgery, and so this is a great option for men as well, and I think we think urinary incontinence is limited to women, but it's not. Men can experience it as well, and even men can get overactive bladder frequency, urgency and nocturia or getting up at night as well, equally as much as women do. So that's another myth that we have to dispel, but I really appreciate you coming on the program and helping to educate the listeners about this.
Speaker 2:So, tim, once again, if people wanted information about BTL, msella or the Kegel Throne, yeah, you can just reach out to your local representative and you can find them by going to our website at wwwbtlastheticscom.
Speaker 1:Perfect. Thank you so much, Tim. I really appreciate you coming on the program.
Speaker 2:You're very welcome, it was my pleasure.
Speaker 1:That was Tim Ray, District Sales Manager for Western Canada at BTL Medical Canada, and I am Maureen McGrath and I really appreciate you tuning in. For more information, you can go to my website, maureenmcgrathcom, and if you feel that this episode or any of the episodes on Nurse Maureen's Health Show podcast would be beneficial to somebody that you know, please feel free to share and thanks so much for tuning in. I'm Maureen McGrath and you have been listening to Nurse Maureen's Health Show podcast.