HOUSTON – According to the National Institutes of Health, urinary incontinence affects twice as many women as men. And much of it has to do with pregnancy, childbirth, and menopause.
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But one latest treatment called FormaV uses radio frequency to help ease and get rid of symptoms. It’s being touted as having a “surgery-like result” without the surgery.
What is FormaV?
“It’s a device that delivers radiofrequency directly to the tissues to heat them up and what that does is it builds new collagen, and it tightens your existing collagen so you get a new, tighter skin or mucosal surface,” says Dr. Forrest Roth of Dr. Roth Plastic Surgery.
“It’s a non-invasive procedure, it’s performed by one of our female physician assistants and it’s performed here in the clinic while you’re awake. There’s really no preparation for it because it’s painless and afterwards there’s no downtime. When we finally got them (the machines), we finally had this non-invasive treatment that bridges the gap between surgical treatments and non-surgical treatments, there is something now you can do in the middle,” added Dr. Roth.
Who is a good candidate?
“One out of three women have stress urinary incontinence, if you have urination accidentally when you don’t want to , when you’re laughing, coughing jumping, sneezing, using the trampoline, then this is for you. Every day they’re having to deal with it, sometimes they have to wear a pad every day, there’s all sorts of things they can or can’t do because of this issue and now you don’t have to worry about it. Things like yoga or just running down the block, it just changes your way of life,” says Dr. Roth.
What kind of results might you see?
“Most of our patients have a complete resolution of this issue without any cutting, downtime, hospital, surgery, stitches, it’s an amazing treatment and we think it’s going to help so many people. It’s an instant tightening and restoration of maybe the way things were maybe before having children,” says Dr. Roth.
Who is coming to get the treatment?
“I will say most of our patients are moms, I will say I noticed that you’d be surprised it’s really all ages, from 20′s all the way up to 90′s. It’s so easy to do because it only takes 45 minutes, you just come in, it’s kind of like getting your nails done,” adds Dr. Roth.
What can you expect?
The individual treatment takes about 45 minutes.
Dr. Roth recommends you repeat the treatment three times, six weeks apart and you can expect to see benefits after about one week.
How much does it cost?
A series of three treatments cost $3500.00 at Dr. Roth Plastic Surgery. The cost of FormaV varies from practice to practice. It is generally not covered by insurance.