Introduction
What’s In this Report, How to Use It, and Why I Wrote It.
I wrote this report for one reason: to help you, a physician, take better care of women suffering from difficult-to-treat gynecological problems.
This report does not describe how to cure every woman of every disease. On the contrary, women are suffering from problems for which I have not one new suggestion. For example, there is nothing new here about how to treat ovarian cancer; but you will find a section about how to treat women who suffer from vaginal dryness and the secondary dyspareunia that often plagues women after treatment for breast cancer.
Also, some women who suffer from problems for which I offer solutions will not respond at all to the therapies I suggest; you may implement all of the suggested strategies for a particular problem and still see no improvement in your patient. I know of no therapies in medicine that work perfectly and offer no risk of negative sequelae; the strategies offered in this report are no exception and do not “work” every time.
We never say that antibiotics “don’t work,” even though some people will die from sepsis even when treated with antibiotics; antibiotics do work, but they do not work every time. With a new idea, however, this same standard does not apply. Often both patients and physicians will say, after only one person does not see the benefit, “See, it doesn’t work.”
As with every other therapy in medicine, part of the art of using the therapies described in this report is knowing who may benefit and who may not and using this knowledge to carefully choose who to treat.
On the other hand, most women who are helped by you when you offer the strategies described in this report will consider you to be nothing short of a miracle worker. Let me explain why they will think so.
“Chronic” Means “Manage,” Not “Cure”
Thirty years ago, in 1986, while sitting in class at the University of Alabama School of Medicine—that was the moment that I truly comprehended the word “chronic.”
I knew that physicians could not cure all diseases, but when I learned the word chronic and contemplated the gravity of its meaning, I felt deflated. When we label a disease as chronic, we acknowledge that this problem that plagues my patient will never go away—never. The patient and I will cease seriously looking for a cure. Instead, we will agree that since this disease will never go away, our goal will only be to minimize progression and suffering.
So, after labeling a disease as chronic, we quit trying to cure.
I hate the word “chronic.”
People who suffer from chronic conditions often sacrifice hope to the god of despair and start bowing to the god of anger and learned helplessness.
So, if I show you how to actually cure even a small fraction of the disease that you and your patients now consider chronic, then those women will recover the same awe for medicine, yes, even the idea of the miracle of medicine, that people held in the days of the discovery of penicillin and rabies vaccination.
Your Secret Ambition
It may help if you consciously acknowledge something right now: you went into medicine because you want to do miracles.
It’s OK.
You and I can talk about it. You don’t have to be embarrassed. Leonardo da Vinci once said, “I want to do miracles.”
If you only wanted to make money, you could have put one-half the effort into real estate, and you would already have over three times the money that you have now. You went into medicine, not for money, but because you want to do miracles—that's a good thing. And, compared to what the physicians of two hundred years ago could do, you already do miracles.
But, you still have this nagging word, "chronic," which describes the conditions for which you still are left frustrated, the conditions that remind you that sometimes you cannot do miracles. Chronic conditions sometimes make you feel helpless—your patient still suffers even after you do your best using all that you know.
In this report, I will show you a few places where you can make a woman’s chronic problem go away. Then, you will be rewarded with the prize that enticed you to medicine: the heartfelt “thank you” from someone whom you prompted a miracle.
So, how is this possible?
How you are About to Do Miracles that You Did Not Think Possible
So, why am I so sure of this promise that you will do miracles that you cannot now do?
Imagine that you are a physician in the days before antibiotics, then after this whole new concept, “antibiotics,” is introduced to you, now you can do things that before you did not think possible. Or imagine that you are a physician in the days before Louis Pasteur and his rabies vaccine. The whole idea of vaccines was new. But, after the idea is introduced, suddenly, you can do things that neither you nor your patients thought possible. Then, after the new idea becomes part of your practice, your job is not done; the job then becomes to take this new idea (“antibiotics” or “vaccines”) and develop it in an infinite number of ways: Where else can it be used. What dosages and routes of delivery work best? For whom does it work, and where does it do more harm than good?
First, there is a new idea. Then, there become lifetimes of investigation about the infinite variety of applications of the idea. First, there comes the idea of vaccines; then, for over a century, physicians have studied new ways to use and make vaccines. First comes the idea of antibiotics; then, we have spent over a century so far discovering and investigating the uses of antibiotics. First, there comes the idea of beta-blockers; then, so far, physicians have published over fifty thousand papers (listed on PubMed) about how to use beta-blockers for congestive heart failure.
Now, most physicians are just now learning the new idea of using regenerative therapies to improve tissue health and thereby cure disease—specifically using platelet-rich plasma (PRP) for this purpose. Over the past two decades (a relatively short time), there has been a mostly quiet revolution in medicine as physicians and patients have discovered that by using cellular therapies, some problems can be treated in ways that until now we considered impossible. Now comes the exploration of the infinite number of ways this new idea, regenerative therapy, can be used.
Until 2010, PRP was mostly talked about in the arena of wound care or post-op recovery of the avascular, hard-to-heal tissues of orthopedics and dentistry.
Now, those ideas about wound healing are being applied to tissue that has not been wounded; and the results have sometimes been amazing. More specifically, by using the same ideas used to heal wounds where there is no wound but where there is unhealthy tissue, there can be remodeling of the unhealthy tissue with new collagen and neovascularization and neurogenesis and a resultant healthier tissue and healing of disease—some of which was thought to be chronically diseased.
Only a decade ago, in the year 2010, I was the first to use these ideas and inject the penis and the clitoral-urethral complex with PRP. Since 2010, largely because of our group, the Cellular Medicine Association, the idea of using PRP for urological and gynecological diseases has developed and become more widely used. Over the past decade, I personally trained over 5,000 doctors in over 50 countries regarding the use of PRP for gynecology and urology. Hundreds of the physicians (and physician extenders) have taught other physicians and have come back to teach me what they have observed.
Also, though I have published studies, hundreds of papers have now been published regarding the use of PRP for urological and gynecological problems.
Where is the Finish Line?
Do we need more studies?
Of course, we do!
If you search the terms “beta-blocker” and “congestive heart failure” on PubMed, you will find over 50,000 results. But, we were using beta-blockers for congestive heart failure long before we reached the 50,000 mark. Now, we have this new idea of using PRP to restore tissue to health—yes, to cure some urological and gynecological diseases.
I not only acknowledge that we need more research, I implore you to help us do that research. But, at what point do you decide that you will make this idea available as a help to the next woman who visits you in your office?
As with every new idea, the point at which you pick it up as a tool and start using it will depend upon all of the following: (1) How much of what’s known about the basic science have you read? (2) Have you learned the physical skills needed to use the material (PRP cannot be injected haphazardly and work optimally). (3) Have you learned of the technology approved by the FDA for the preparation of PRP for injection back into the body and made this technology easy accessible in your office? (4) Are you keeping up with ongoing research and the changes in FDA policies and implementing such knowledge in your practice?
In short, are you learning about and keeping up in the area of the regenerative possibilities of PRP, or is your brain attacking the new idea the way an antibody attacks a foreign protein?
When the idea of antibiotics for peptic ulcers was introduced, physicians were slow to accept the idea because they already had a way to treat ulcers—surgery and Tagamet. The hindrance to knowledge is not ignorance; it’s the illusion of already knowing.
I hope, for the benefit of your patients and for your own soul satisfaction, you will use this report as a way to jump into this new arena of medicine.
What I offer you in this report is a summary of areas where I think we are at least near the place, if not at the place, where the benefit to risk ratio of using PRP for some conditions warrants that the strategy is used.
You may disagree. That’s OK. But, if I can give you the logic and the science behind the strategy of PRP done in a specific way for certain chronic or hard-to-treat conditions, if I can tell you why after looking at the research, doing some the research, if after treating thousands of patients and talking to physicians who have collectively treated hundreds of thousands of patients, if I can tell you why after all of this I think that PRP, now, should be used for several conditions in carefully selected patients, then I have done my job. Then, I hope that even if you do not agree with me about everything (smart people never agree about everything), I hope you will at least consider helping us move the science forward for the benefit of the women who now live with the word “chronic” and the resultant suffering both physically and psychologically.
The Seldom Discussed Difference in the Definitions of Disease Between Men & Women
To meet the definition of “sexual dysfunction,” a woman must be suffering from both a physical problem and secondary psychological distress.
If a man has erectile dysfunction, he has erectile dysfunction whether or not it bothers him psychologically. But, if a woman has dyspareunia or anorgasmia, she is not considered to suffer with sexual dysfunction unless she is psychologically bothered by the condition. Even with this stricter definition for women compared with men, around 30-40% of women suffer from sexual dysfunction CHRONICALLY!
What you’re doing doesn’t work all the time. So, you tell women to use a vibrator or KY jelly or go see a sex therapist to learn how to have good sex even though it hurts or even though she seldom, if ever, has an orgasm. Or, you tell her to use her steroid cream every day of the rest of her life or take her psychotropic drug for the rest of her life because her lichen sclerosis or interstitial cystitis will never go away.
But, after you read this report, I hope that BECAUSE YOU ARE NOW EXPLORING A WHOLE NEW CLASS OF TREATMENTS, you will realize that SOME (not all) of the women who suffer chronically may be able to know complete relief.
Again, cellular therapies are NOT magic and do not cure everyone of everything. Einstein said, “Either everything is a miracle, or nothing is a miracle.” I’m not sure if your patients will call the results they see when you use the ideas in this report a “miracle,” but they will definitely tell you "thank you."
And you will drive home from work to your family that you see less than you would like, and will be glad that you studied medicine instead of becoming a stockbroker.
Why You Will Worry Less
One wonderful thing about PRP is that it has proven to be very safe. Millions of PRP procedures are done every year. Regen alone sells more than a million kits per year, and there are a dozen other manufacturers of PRP kits. And, yet the number of serious sequelae reported in the literature is less than a dozen, and even these are reported in cases where unknown hyaluronic acid fillers were also used.
So, though PRP used for the indications I will show you in this report does not work one hundred percent of the time, you won’t lose sleep worrying about serious sequelae after doing these procedures.
There has been some confusion about the FDA’s stance regarding PRP, but the FDA has been very clear about its policy. The FDA regulates drugs and devices. They do not regulate urine, skin, hair, or blood products, and they do not regulate PRP. When you transfer hair from one part of the scalp to another, the hair belongs to the patient and is not regulated by the FDA. When you draw a patient’s blood, even if you fractionate it with a centrifuge and then give it back to the patient, the blood or the fraction (PRP) belongs to the patient and is not regulated by the FDA
The concepts that make PRP acceptable to use without FDA oversight include the following:
- PRP is autologous; blood is taken from a person, then a part of that blood is given back to the same person.
- PRP is homologous; platelets release growth factors that improve the health of tissue leading to repair, neovascularization, collagen production, and neurogenesis. When we inject PRP in the procedures reported here, we employ the PRP to do what it normally does. That makes it homologous.
- PRP is minimally manipulated. If you take adipocytes and put them through a multi-step process to isolate stem cells, that is not minimal manipulation; you have now made a drug. And, drugs require an IRB for use in a new indication. If you take hair or skin and move it from one part of the body to the other, you have not changed the nature of the hair or skin; you minimally manipulated it. If you draw blood and you simply take a fraction of that blood and give it back to the patient, you have also minimally manipulated; you have not made a drug.
Moreover, the FDA confirmed the above reasoning by specifically stating that they do not regulate PRP.
What You’ll Find in This Report
In this report, you will find specific ideas about how to treat all of the following:
Stress urinary incontinence in women who do not want surgery and not respond to Kegels.
Post-mid-urethral sling sexual dysfunction
Post mesh pain
Interstitial cystitis
Post-episiotomy pain or bleeding
Vaginismus
Pelvic floor tenderness
Anorgasmia
Decreased libido
Of course, you have treatments for all of these conditions already; none of those current treatments in your toolbox go away. But, by adding PRP to your toolbox, as you are about to learn, you may see some very troubling conditions simply go away or greatly improve after years of chronic suffering.
How to Get the Most From This Report
This report does not replace proper training. Those physicians (and physician extenders) who already offer the O-Shot® procedures will find this report to be a helpful review and adjunct to their training.
Those physicians who are considering beginning training with PRP will find this review to be a helpful introduction to the ideas and the techniques and a way to decide to pursue further exploration of the ideas both in training and in well-designed studies.
Only those who have been trained and tested by the Cellular Medicine Association are licensed to use the word “O-Shot®” for advertising the procedures. This is our attempt to require an agreement regarding standards of care where a procedure is done with a blood product that is. not regulated by the FDA.
In comparison with PRP, no board regulates the injection of Botox and hyaluronic acid fillers. The FDA does regulate these products because they are drugs, but there is huge variability in the way they are injected, and there is no medical board that regulates these variations. Worrying that the same variability that is seen with the injection of fillers in the face, if applied to the injection of the genitalia, would result in unacceptable results, the licensees of the Cellular Medicine Association agree to follow guidelines regarding the procedure of PRP preparation and injection. These methods have evolved over the past decade as more research and experience and the number of members has grown.
I hope you will use this experience to the benefit of your patients.
A Few Words About Who I Am and My Role In Your Life
There were at least 3 things that led to the perfect storm that led to the initial design of the O-Shot® procedure:
I.
In January 2000, I started doing clinical trials and offering micromanagement of hormone replacement for women as part of my internal medicine practice. Over the following years, after doing hormone replacement for over three thousand women, I developed a sense of the problems and the usual solutions for women’s sexual dysfunction.
II.
While doing hormone replacement to help the symptoms of menopause, including weight gain, I noticed that some women would want to gain their weight back (even to become overweight again) because when they lost weight in the face, their face looked older. Before JUVEDERM® was approved in the US, I started offering Restylane as a way to restore the youthful shape (that collapsed with weight loss) as part of the way I would encourage women who lost weight to continue their weight loss and to maintain their healthier weight.
III.
I also ran a hospital-based wound care center and developed some expertise in the area of wound healing and tissue growth.
So, with these three interests (women’s hormones and sexual health, cosmetic medicine, and wound healing) when PRP became a part of the conversation for facial cosmetics in the year 2009, I became aware of the technology and immediately wondered if the idea might apply to male and female sexual dysfunction.
So, I started by developing the Vampire Facelift® and the Vampire Breast Lift® as a way to improve facial cosmetics and to study the effects of PRP on tissue; then, I took what I learned there and applied it to the genitalia to design the O-shot® (Orchid Shot™) and the P-Shot® (Priapus Shot®).
Soon after developing the above-mentioned procedures, I teamed up with the members of the Cellular Medicine Association (CMA). We then spent the past decade publishing and teaching ideas regarding using cellular therapies to improve tissue and therefore attenuate or cure disease. Without the brilliance and the bravery of the members of the CMA, the development of the use of PRP for urology and gynecology would be nowhere near what it is now.
Much of what I describe in this report was taught to me by the members of the CMA. Our members publish research, and we meet weekly to share our observations and the research of others, and many of our members offer hands-on training. Here’s where you can learn more about how our organization so that we can support you in your efforts to help your patients to better health using cellular therapies: CellularMedicineAssociation.org
Here are other places where you can find help:
If you are already trained to offer the O-Shot® procedure, you have available to you hundreds of videos and much written (that can be translated into any language with a click of a button) within our members-only website. Here's where to change your password (if needed):
CellularMedicineAssociation.org/password
Here's where to log in to the members-only area (use the search box on the side to find videos and written descriptions that expand what is introduced in this report):
OShot.info/members/wp-login.php
Where you can learn more about training to become licensed to offer the O-Shot® procedure (with all its variations) to your patients
Oshot.com/members
Where you can learn more about training to offer the Vampire Facelift® procedure.
VampireFacelift.com/physicians
Where you can learn more about training to offer the Priapus Shot® procedure to help your men patients with erectile dysfunction, Peyronie’s disease, BXO, and recovery from prostate surgery (penile rehabilitation).
PriapusShot.com/physicians
Where you can find our teachers of multiple specialties in countries scattered around the globe.
CellularMedicineAssocation.org/teachers/directory
Final Words
My goal is to be a perfectly clean pipe that brings to you the best of the ideas that are being developed and researched in the arena of cellular therapies for the purpose of healing women and men. I respect you for making it thus far in this report and hope that (when I deliver in this report the help that I promised) this will be the beginning of our friendship and collaboration. I hope that after you study this report and think about the ideas therein, you will reach out to me and let me know how they helped you and your patients. I hate to see women struggle with gynecological problems, and I love hearing good reports after someone studies our methods and helps a woman to better health and deeper relations. Consider me on call to help clarify or collaborate.
You can email me at DrRunels@Runels.com.
Or, you can text my personal cell phone at 251-648-7704
Hopefully, you will consider it fair that if you have a question that is answered by one of the books I have written, research we have published, or by one of my websites with instructional videos, I refer you to the appropriate material. But, there’s so much still to be learned, and our ideas need more thought and development I’d love to discuss whatever seems helpful to you, even sponsoring research that you may wish to do.
Very best wishes as you work to help your patients find their best health.
Sincerely yours,
Charles
Charles Runels, MD
1-888-920-5311
DrRunels@Runels.com
CellularMedicineAssociation.org
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