What’s it like to try the Emsella Chair?

You’ve heard me talking before about the Emsella chair – I love it because of the way it quickly and effectively tightens up the pelvic floor which, let’s face it, is not something that we tend to talk about. (Why tone it up? Because the pelvic floor invariably becomes weaker with age, or after childbirth, or both, and that leads to stress incontinence. That’s something which women just don’t talk about and seem to think is ‘just one of those things’.

To help demystify this important area of female health and the technology behind the Emsella itself, here’s my full review of my experience on the chair…

What’s it like to use the Emsella chair?

You just sit on it, fully clothed, and let the high-intensity electromagnetic pulses of energy go to work for half an hour. That’s it. You need to wiggle about a bit to get the right contact. That means rocking forward on your pelvis a little so as to ground your front parts down towards the seat, rather than rocking back onto your seat bones, until you can feel the electromagnetic pulses zinging evenly around that whole hammock of muscle that hangs between your pubic bone at the front and your tailbone at the back. (If you want to know more details about the device, there’s a whole page about it here.).

What does Emsella actually feel like?

Firstly – it’s not painful. It’s a strange, prickly sensation – you are having electromagnetic pulses pulsing around your nether regions after all – but it’s seriously not painful. Also, the technician who is talking your through the treatment starts you off gradually, on a low setting, then increases the intensity as you adjust to it, aiming to get you to as high a level as you can tolerate. I found that I needed to start off slowly, but by the second session, was able to have the device on 100% quite quickly, just because I was more used to the feeling. You can’t hold your phone while you’re on the chair (because of those electromagnetic pulses), but I found I was relaxed enough to read a book to pass the time.

Why is Emsella called The Happy Chair?

Some people absolutely love the device because they find the pulses very, er, stimulating, which is why some clinics call this ‘The Happy Chair’. I’ve tried to find the joy in it but honestly can only feel the zinging and prickling.

Why did I try the treatment?

It’s ‘use it or lose it’ with muscle function, and that applies to the pelvic floor as much as to the abs and triceps. If you’re not good at doing regular Kegel exercises (guilty), this gives you the equivalent of 11,000 kegels in one half-hour session. My pelvic floor is ok – laughing or sneezing don’t bring on leaks – but previously skipping on a full bladder was a major challenge, and I wake up several times a night to pee. I hoped a course of treatment might improve this.

Who can benefit from the Emsella Chair?

If I was Queen of the World, I’d find a philanthropic billionaire to donate one of these devices to every doctor’s surgery in the UK and make it available to any woman who needed a few sessions on it. It would take a billionaire because these devices are hugely expensive and, just now, the treatment costs around £300 a session in private clinics, and you need around six sessions. That puts it out of most people’s reach, though it’s a treatment from which most women would benefit. Why? Anyone who has given birth naturally will know what that does to your pelvic floor, and more women than care to admit it have issues with stress incontinence that creep up with age. It is time to stop simply accepting that as normal, despite the debilitating effect it has one our lives.

What results did I get?

After six sessions at the Dr Medispa clinic, I can do 50 skips no problem, which is a major result! I still wake up a couple of times in the night, but I think that problem may be more in my head than my bladder.

Find out more information about tweakments for poor pelvic floor and female health, especially those linked to the perimenopause and menopause on our tailored pages.