I placed my hand on the handle of the glass door leading into the medical clinic, took a deep breath, and glanced at my crotch. “You ready for this, little fella?”
At that point, I wasn’t quite sure what sort of adventure my nether regions were about to embark upon. But just a month prior, I’d committed to visiting, on my trip back from a yoga retreat in Costa Rica, an anti-aging and sexual therapy clinic called “GAINSWave“ in Hollywood, Florida, with plans to subject myself to a fancy, new sound-wave therapy protocol called “extracorporeal shock wave therapy.”
When GAINSWave called to offer me a complimentary, guinea-pig trial, they claimed that with a quick 20-minute procedure, they could enhance one’s sex life, build entirely new blood vessels to the genitals, fix libido and sexual issues, eliminate erectile dysfunction, and increase size and vascularity—all without the use of Cialis or Viagra. We’re talking a penis pump on steroids.
How could I say no?
Upon stepping into the clinic, I was welcomed by a stand of colorful brochures advertising fringe medical procedures like the P-Shot (literally, a shot of growth factors into your dick), the O-Shot (same thing, but for the ladies), a smattering of hormone injections, and of course, sound wave therapy for the crotch.
Just like at the doctor’s office, a bespectacled receptionist smiled, checked me in, and handed me a bottle of chilled water along with a horse-sized syringe of white penis-numbing cream. “The nurse will be right out.”
I nodded and gulped, staring at the syringe in my hand. Before I had time to take a swig of water, a side door swung open and a nurse stepped out. Not your typical blue frock-donning nurse, mind you, but more like Jessica Rabbit decked out in in a full-blown white sexy nurse outfit, cherry red lipstick, short pleated skirt, hair pulled back in a bun: the works.
She escorted me to the office of—don’t snicker—Richard Gaines, M.D. That’s right: Dr. Dick Gaines is the name of anesthesiologist turned anti-aging physician who has patented the GAINSwave technology nationwide. After he interviewed me for over an hour about my hormones, my libido, my sleep, and a host of other factors that made me feel like a retiree checking into a nursing home, all I could say was:
“Look, doc, my equipment works fine. I just want to go from good to great. Do-able?”
He grinned the grin of a 60-plus-year-old doctor jacked up on growth hormone and testosterone. “I think you’re gonna be pretty happy. Let’s get that numbing cream on, shall we?”
I grimaced, half-expecting him to snatch the syringe from my clutch and rip my pants off right there. But instead, the door of his office opened and the nurse stepped back in. “Mr. Greenfield, come this way.”
She escorted me to a white-washed medical examination room with a table, a stool, a pile of space-age equipment, and a rack full of medical gowns. “Apply the numbing cream everywhere on your penis and testicles. I mean everywhere. And put on one of those gowns.I’ll be back in a few minutes. You can read this if you finish early.” With that, she handed me a brochure for “GAINSWave”, cover adorned with the smiling face of Dr. Dick, and walked out of the room.
I set the brochure down on the table, pulled down my pants, and squeezed a quarter-sized dab of numbing cream onto my hand. Reaching down into my crotch, I smeared it everywhere. There was still a half syringe of cream left, so I stretched my fingers back and smudged a bit on the asshole and that soft spot underneath my balls. Just in case, I thought, nervously glancing at the wires, tubes and wands scattered around the room. I’m going in with full deflector shields activated.
Then, while waiting for the cream to kick in or my dick to fall off, I finished getting fully undressed, pulled on a thin, cotton gown, sat down on the exam table and began to peruse the brochure she handed me.
Apparently, the science behind the technology involves something called low-intensity shockwave therapy. Shockwave therapy has existed in modern medicine for decades and has primarily been used as a treatment for lipoatrophy (localized loss of fat tissue) and to break up kidney stones using high frequency acoustic waves.
About fifteen years ago, researchers in Europe realized that by using lower intensity acoustic pulse waves, they could also apply these same waves to the penis without damaging the skin or organs. Based on this trendy breakthrough of kidney doctors blasting their gonads with sound waves, physicians were eventually able to treat erectile dysfunction at its root source: poor blood flow.
(For a comprehensive resource on what causes ED and how to fix it, check out The Men’s Health Guide to Erectile Dysfunction.)
When the acoustic pulse waves are applied to the penis (or the vagina), they supposedly break up micro plaque and also create a micro-inflammatory process that releases nitric oxide, a vasodilator and the same chemical induced via the consumption of stuff like Viagra or Cialis. Over the course of eight to twelve weeks after the procedure, new blood vessels in the genitals are supposed to grow, a process known as “neovascularization.”
Scientific studies suggest that this therapy might be more effective than other treatments, including medications and really expensive penis pumps. But thanks to the overcrowding of the sexual performance industry by pharmaceutical and supplement companies, there were no standardized protocols, machines, or training programs until dear Dr. Dick designed his patented method of bringing this technology to the masses.
As a bonus, these same shockwaves also may supposedly “wake-up” dormant stem cells in the penis, leading to improved erectile function and enhanced tissue growth. In other words, GAINSWave therapy may also increase the size of the penis.
While I contemplated how much larger my penis would actually get and whether I’d need to upgrade my boxer-briefs, the nurse walked back in. “Ready?”
“Um. Yeah. I think it’s…” I looked down at my front of my gown. “…you know, the stuff. The numbing stuff. It’s kicking in.”
It was indeed kicking in. My fingers were numb. My crotch was numb. So numb, in fact, I wouldn’t have known if my genitals had dropped off and were piled in a quivering heap at my feet.
She smiled. “OK, let’s do this.”
With that, she laid me back on the examination table with my legs fully spread eagle, and with zero hesitation, grabbed my dick and flopped it out of the way of my balls. I could barely feel her maneuvering my junk, but could tell there was some serious rearrangement going on down there. Then she reached for a giant, vibrator-like wand hanging beside the exam table.
“Here we go!” She looked excited. I wondered what course of medical classes a nurse must go through before being allowed to become a professional dick-shocker. Then she flipped on the unit and started jack-hammering.
Drrrr. Drrrr. Drrrr.
The sensation was as if someone had just placed my entire genitalia between two high-fidelity speakers, then turned on Nine Inch Nails to full blast. There was shaking, an intense vibration and the loud rat-a-tat-tat of the dick wand as she worked at me like a welder for the full 20 minutes of the protocol. I laid back and stared at the ceiling, thoughts racing through my head.
Do I have a boner?
Why is she smiling?
Do I have a boner?
I wonder if I can buy one of these wands for my coffee table.
I really hope I don’t have a boner.
Just before she finished, I sat up slightly and peeked around my folded-up gown. I had to know whether I was embarrassing myself with a full-on fatty spiking up towards the nurse. But my dick was flaccid. No boner. Phew. Just a pinkish-red hue from being attacked by numbing cream and blasted by sound waves.
And then it was over. She stood up, smiled and thanked me for being a good patient. Then she walked out, and I imagined her waltzing into the examination room next door to work on the next old retired Florida golf devotee with a limp snake in his pants.
Just before I left, the receptionist smiled at me. “I hope it went well. Do you have woman to be with tonight?”
Hand on the door, I stopped in my tracks.
A woman? I thought of my wife 3,000 miles away in Washington state. That wasn’t going to happen. I envisioned myself rolling around my Holiday Inn Express hotel room bed in some kind of a raging sexual spasm, trying to keep my balls from exploding before my flight home.
“Uh, I have dinner with my Grandma tonight.”
It was true. My only plan was dinner at the Cuban restaurant with my 90-year-old Grandma.
“Well, just be ready for some new sensations once that cream wears off.”
I nodded, and groin still senseless from the numbing cream, hopped in an Uber and headed off to have dinner with Grandma.
It was about halfway through my plate of pulled pork, fried plantains, black beans and rice, deep in a conversation about diabetic glaucoma with Grandma, that I felt something twitch in my loins. The cream was wearing off.
And then it happened.
Sitting right there across my wrinkled old granny, I popped a tent in my pants. Just like a 15-year-old boy. Thanking myself for pulling on my tight jeans before heading to the restaurant, I sat it out for a moment, then excused myself to the restroom, ducked into a stall and pulled down my pants to take a glance at what was happening down there.
Holy-moly.
My penis was venous. Big. Throbbing. A porn-star-esque mass of quivering tissue.
Things got interesting from there. I finished dinner, gave my Grandma an awkward hug goodbye while keeping my crotch a respectable distance from her body. Back at the hotel, getting to sleep was a bit difficult, but, pillow tucked under my boner, I managed to settle myself down and nod off. I woke just a couple hours later with what I can only imagine folks in the highly respectable scientific and anti-aging community would deem a “raging nocturnal penile erection.”
I managed to fall back asleep (possibly with the assistance of a bit of self-administered banana buffering) but woke again in the mid-morning to pee, once again with a enormous tent popped under the sheets. When I woke the next morning deep in a pleasant dream that involved nurses and fancy Cuban mojitos, my experience replicated just about every morning I had experienced as a 15-year-old boy: big, healthy, vascular, hard morning wood.
Geez. This stuff works.
I pulled on the tightest underwear I could find in my travel duffel, then headed to the airport.
Ultimately, the effects of the sound-blastingstuck with me for a full month, day-in and day-out.
Viagra-like hard-ons? Check. Vascularity and size? Check? A satisfied, albeit exhausted wife? Check.
More than a month later, I’m just now getting back to “normal,” which falls into the approximate timeline the good folks at GAINswave suggested to me. I am no longer a poster-child for the mutant Avenger with gonadal superpowers, but Dr. Dick did email me last week to check in, and to see if I want to come back down his way for a P-shot.
Perhaps, I tell him. Perhaps.
And then I make a mental note to arrange dinner reservations in Miami with Grandma.
Ben Greenfield is a strength and conditioning coach, exercise physiologist, and the author of Beyond Training: Mastering Endurance, Health and Life. He blogs about fitness, nutrition, and wellness at bengreenfieldfitness.com.
SOURCE:
https://www.menshealth.com/sex-women/a19545512/extracorporeal-shock-wave-therapy/ Men’s Health, April 13, 2017
