Eros Ctd Device

[Shantelle Wenske]

EROSClitoral Therapy Device is a small, handheld female sexual health medical device that improves sexual responses by increasing blood flow to the clitoris and external genitalia. A small, soft plastic cup is placed over the clitoris. When the Clitoral Therapy Device is turned on, a gentle vacuum is created, increasing blood flow to the genitalia causing the clitoris to become engorged. Increased blood flow to the genitalia results in increased vaginal lubrication and enhanced ability to achieve orgasm. The Eros Therapy Clitoral Device for Female Sexual Dysfunction received FDA clearance-to-market in April 2000.

Eros is a small device that uses gentle vacuum to stimulate blood flow to the clitoris. It has been used safely by tens of thousands of women since its introduction in 2000. The principle of operation is very simple. The user applies the Eros device and starts the vacuum stimulation at the lowest level available. They then gradually increase the level of vacuum to suit their individual comfort level. The level of vacuum is pressure limited to ensure safety and the user can increase or decrease the vacuum witness these safe limits as they desire. Some women use Eros in short sessions daily or every other day to condition their sexual response. Others use Eros as part of their intimate routine.

Eros is a small, hand-held device fitted with a removable, replaceable small plastic CAREss cup used as a natural way to initiate female sexual response. It was originally cleared by the FDA in April 2000 for the treatment of Female Sexual Arousal Disorder (FSAD), which includes problems with sexual arousal and orgasm. Since then, thousands of women have used Eros to enhance their sexual experience.

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Objective: The aim of this study was to determine the effect of the Eros-Clitoral Therapy Device (Eros-CTD) on the sexual function of women with and without symptoms of female sexual arousal disorder (FSAD).

Methods: Ten patients with symptoms of FSAD and 10 without symptoms were instructed in the use of the small, portable vacuum device, Eros-CTD. One woman without symptoms of FSAD withdrew early in the study for personal reasons. The patients were instructed in the correct use of the device and were asked to complete one Female Intervention Efficacy Index (FIEI) each week. The patients also kept diaries of their use of the device, noting the frequency, length, and strength of vacuum.

Results: There was a significant improvement in all symptoms of FSAD (P

Limitations: This study was done on a small sample of self-selected patients, was of limited duration, and had no long-term follow-up. All of these factors should be considered in interpreting the data.

At last, women may have their answer to Viagra. The EROS Clitoral

Therapy Device (EROS-CTD) is the first product developed to treat female

sexual arousal disorder (FSAD). Characterized by diminished sexual

sensation, FSAD affects approximately 43% of American women. It results

from inadequate blood flow to the clitoris and can cause a host of other

difficulties, including lack of desire and difficulty achieving

orgasm.

Enter EROS, a clitoral suction device that draws blood to the

clitoris to trigger sexual arousal and enhance orgasms. In a study

presented recently at an American Urological Association conference, 80%

of FSAD sufferers reported improved sexual satisfaction after using EROS

before intercourse. But EROS is no mere sex toy, says Kevin Billups,

Ph.D., an urologist and one of the study's researchers. "People say, 'Oh,

this is just a fancy vibrator'--but it isn't," he explains. "It's a

physiological device."

Because FSAD can also hurt relationships by causing lowered

self-esteem, depression and poor body image, "women suffering with sexual

dysfunction may have a relationship in crisis," says Laura Berman, Ph.D.,

a female sexual dysfunction expert. She suggests these women consider

using EROS in conjunction with professional counseling. And the best news

may be yet to come: women who used EROS regularly reported enhanced

sexual satisfaction even after they stopped using it.

Women's sexual function is generally stuck under the prim umbrella of "reproductive health." But the success of Viagra has pushed the medical world to study female pleasure, a belated acknowledgement that most nookie is decidedly nonprocreative. Earlier this month the federal government got on board when the FDA approved, for the first time, a device to help women get aroused and come.

The new gizmo, called Eros, is produced by the 3-year-old device manufacturer UroMetrics. It's distinctly premillennial in design: A soft funnel connected to a battery-controlled vacuum draws blood down into the clitoris. It strikes me as the kind of thing you could buy with comic-book coupons, if you were willing to forgo X-ray specs or a decoder ring. But this sucker is going for $359 a pop, available by prescription only in the United States.

The ailment gynecologists, urologists and other doctors will be treating with Eros is female sexual dysfunction (FSD), whose symptoms were determined during several meetings of an international consensus panel. (Confusingly, the American Psychiatric Association's diagnostic manual lists female sexual arousal disorder, or FSAD, whose symptoms overlap with FSD.) FSD covers four areas: lack of desire, inability to get aroused, inability to have an orgasm and pain during sex.

Eros addresses only arousal and orgasm, says inventor Claire Hovland, CEO, founder and chairman of UroMetrics. "Desire is more hormonal," he says, while Eros is just for stimulating the flow of blood. An engineer and physicist, Hovland started down the path toward Eros in 1984, when he and a surgeon friend developed an instrument for measuring the quantities of blood the heart pumps.

Eros treats the clitoris like the little penis it so closely resembles. Both organs are full of tiny cabernosal arteries lined with smooth muscle. During sexual arousal, that smooth muscle relaxes, allowing the arteries to fill up with blood. Eros mimics the action of male vacuum-erection devices (VEDs), suction tubes that draw blood into the penis and relax the smooth muscles. I've always thought of VEDs as rip-offs, but Hovland says they're more effective than Viagra, helping "millions of male users" get it up.

UroMetrics representatives say insurance companies have been covering "men's treatment options for years," presumably the sucking tubes as well as Viagra. UroMetrics keeps pointing this out in press materials, throwing down the gauntlet to insurance companies to cover Eros.

Eros was tested on 25 women from 23 to 67 years old. About half were post-menopausal; 15 suffered FSD and 10 did not. Subjects used it at home and kept a diary of the effects; Hovland says they were encouraged to use it with their partners, but some of the women preferred to vacuum solo.

Twelve of the 15 dysfunctional women reported "more satisfaction." Seven of them said that they had more orgasms and 11 reported more lubrication. Of the 10 "normals," four had more orgasms, three more lubrication, but only two claimed "more satisfaction."

Hovland says Eros took longer to work on post-menopausal women, because their clitorises are more likely to be "atrophic." Blood is needed, he explains, not just for engorging, but also for cleaning. Collagen can build up in the tiny arteries, and if the arterial blood doesn't come in and wash it out, "it can form scar tissue in both penis and clitoris." This kind of sexual dysfunction shares artery-contracting risk factors -- smoking, high cholesterol -- with heart disease, which may help doctors persuade pudgy smokers to shape up.

Many post-menopausal women have little or no blood flow to their clitoris. This, Hovland says, causes the vaginal dryness that drives many older women to hormone-replacement therapy. "Only in the last three years has clinical research been done on arousal," Hovland says. "We're just figuring out that vaginal lubrication is actually a reflex response to clitoral engorgement. In some of our subjects it [vaginal lubrication] happened in less than a minute."

Blood flow is the principle behind Viagra, too, which is being tested on women, both formally and informally. Apomorphine, phentolamine and prostaglandin are three other drugs being tested that aid blood flow down below and smooth muscle relaxation.

Reporters and publicists are all tossing around the statistic that 43 percent of American women suffer from sexual dysfunction. That figure came from a study published last year in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), which also found that 31 percent of men had some sexual dysfunction. The JAMA study, based on 1992's National Health and Social Life Survey, looked at nonphysiological factors and found that unsatisfying sex was linked, in a chicken-or-egg conundrum, with "low feelings of physical and emotional satisfaction and low feelings of happiness." The FDA gynecologist who approved Eros emphasized that sexual problems can be emotional and that Eros won't help everyone.

I'd like to believe science cares about improving women's sex lives, but I can't help noticing that it's an act of marketing genius to medicalize sexual discontent. Cosmo and its evil sisters have always told us we're too fat and ugly. Lately they've been telling us we're not sexual enough either, and if there's money to be made, they'll keep telling us. FSD and FSAD join ADD and ADHD in the netherworld where treatment of actual physiological dysfunction meets the exploitable hope that anything can be fixed. Maybe your kid has ADHD, but maybe he's just a brat. And maybe some women just aren't that into sex -- or their husbands.

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