Mona Lisa touch reviews

Thanks for your input. How is your current urologist treating you?

inga, did you have the procedure because of UTI's, vaginal problems or both? Sorry to hear it caused you problems. When you say back to normal are you now noticing improvement over your pretreatment condition or back to the normal being back to square one so to speak?

Please let us know what your doctors have to say. We have to get this info from each other as doctors don't typically go into great detail and I believe very often don't follow up with their own patients. One would think a follow up call should be required after most appointments where procedures are done or meds are prescribed. How else do they know if it something that works?

 

Burning after third treatment lasted for three weeks. Has subsided somewhat I had Uti's and vaginal burning n pain. It is better than it was. No Uti's since treatments Will report when I see doctor. Docs don't have much more input. Just treat with creams.

Hi Beverly,

Prior to procedure I only had painful intercourse. After 1 treatment I had pelvic pain, vaginal burning and urinary symptoms that my gyn said was cystitis caused by procedure. After being put on so many meds, creams etc... The pelvic pain is very slight and vaginal burning is better. I have been dealing with this for over 3 months but have faith that time will heal and my pain will all be gone

Estrace, vesicare, medrol dose pack, coconut oil....and my symptoms are getting better. I plan on being on none of it by mid may as I am not big on meds but could not handle the pain any longer. I hope this helps and keep talking with me. We will get there!

I am glad your symptoms are better. Its a long road. Have had this issue for 6 years many urologists and gyns. Every good day is appreciated. Uti's have subsided so grateful for that. Glad your regime is working

Do you think in your case 2 treatments was what was needed instead of 3? Were you feeling cured (normal) after the 2nd? Perhaps you needed more healing time between 2 and 3. I can't remember...was yours part of a study? How new is the doctor at doing it? Sorry for all the questions. You can see what sort of a doctor I'd be!

inga, doesn't it seem odd that a vaginal laser treatment would cause a bladder infection? I wonder why that was. Do they put you on an anti-biotic after the ML treatment? I have a relative who just underwent heart surgery without a hitch. Instead because of a pre-existing prostate problem the catheter caused major issues. That led to a prostate procedure which has now led to infected testicles. So..things happen. I just wonder how much is caused by lack of diligence of the part of doctors and their staff. Everyone's human, but....

After first two treatments was fine. Then third a developed burn but no uti. Doing better. One day at a time. Doctor was referred to me by my uro gyn. Don't want to go back dr yet. He was well recommended but this treatment is so new.

Many rounds of antibiotics which I should never have been put on as all cultures were negative. It is cystitis caused by the friction is what my gyn told me and he said I had severe atrophy. Urethra is right next to vagina. Anyway.....time will heal. I have faith just wish I had never heard of ML

So I had a cystitis diagnosis about three years ago and the urologist I was going to that would actually put medication inside of my bladder to try to help unfortunately and

After being treated for about two years it turned out that it wasn't cystitis it was the atrophy causing all the problems… I hope for you that everything works out

Inga, have you ever tried drinking kefir? It is like a liquid yogurt, but has many more strains of good bacteria in it. I have started drinking it for bowel issues and it seems to work. Might help you with infection as well. You can make your own or buy ready made at many markets. Along with the usual cranberry juice of course.

Wish I never had the Mona Lisa treatments.  I am worse now then before.  I was fine after third but she did a fourth and been miserable ever since.  I burned so much on Monday took oxy and burning still did not go away.  Went to urgent care.  She said I had blood in urine but no uti.  She put me on macrobid.  Said to call tomorrow for results.  Also had urethritis twice between treatments.  Have oab and peeing more than usual.  Seeing another urologist next week.  Let's see what she has to say.

Hi Inga. I see this was posted a while ago. I had my 2nd Mona Lisa treatment 3 weeks ago and have had chronic pain and burning and urinary issues since the procedure. I also had some pain/burning after the first treatment but it only lasted about 2 weeks then resolved.  The treatments were 9 weeks apart.   How long did it take your issues to completely resolve and what did the urologist say?  Where you ultimately any better after the Mona Lisa treatments, worse, or the same?  What did the GYN/urologist feel occurred that caused these worsening symptoms and how were they treated?  When you read all the literature on-line now it says Mona Lisa is a relatively painless procedure w minimal to no side effects!  I believe my GYN was more aggressive with the second treatment as I have severe vulvar/ vaginal atrophy, am 7 years after menopause, and have not been able to take any sustained vaginal hormone therapy due to side effects. 

I appreciate any help from you or anyone else on this site.  Thank you. 

Hi Tal, I am fine now. Since this was a while ago I can’t remember what urologist treated me with. Perhaps a steroid?  I think it took months to get back to normal and she does not recommend this procedure. I am no better with atrophy post procedure. Waste of my time for sure!

Hi Tal... we are all different... Mona Lisa helped me and I see less posts on this about VA mostly lichen sclerosis, I wonder if that is because of the Mona Lisa helping... it is not perfect but it is all I have.  Go once a year now and may have to kick up to two... no choice..

Had my first gynecological appointment in 3 years. Had been experiencing an itch/burn that came & went, but had to wait till I returned to my home state as I have an HMO I can only use here. Asked the latest doctor about the Mona Lisa. She said she is reserving her judgement until there are enough cases to compare. She is leary, however, as atrophy causes the skin to thin so burning it doesn't seem the best way to treat it in her opinion.

I am now finally using a compounded version of Estrace and a steroid as it turns out the itch was caused by LS. In retrospect it seems the hormone cream would have been the way to go 3 years ago, but that doctor never mentioned LS. Only that not using the hormone cream to treat the atrophy could lead to "further" problems. As I was concerned with using estrogen when my sister had stage 4 cancer I passed as the atrophy was not causing any problem.

I really think there ought to be literature handed out to women with pros & cons so we can make educated decisions. I feel as though we might as well be going to witch doctors as reluctant as they are to discuss these issues in detail. I thought the Mona Lisa would be the solution for me if the atrophy were to get worse & cause problems. Now, not so much. Will have to wait to see what the results of the steroid and the estrogen cream are.

Mona Lisa Nightmnare

I had my done a year ago, i had no other resource , they assured me, even with a hug, im going to get my life back, OMG..it didnt work, and i am comvinced they over did the latser near or on my "perinimum" it the worst burning and pain i can decscribe,after paying $ 2, 274 dollars !!! even after secind one, the pain earlly got worse !! Now, have spent thousand smore on emergnecy room cause of pain and buring, its a living hell for me, i iwish now i hadnt had it done, I also couldnt do hormone creams, and suppositories, useless !! YET..they have NO answers what to do, no of course insurance wont pay for it, they havent seen good results !!! Recommended me to Pian Management, we cant afford the different procedures, I cry most everyday from pain and burning, , and lost hope xause nobody has answers, they just send you on to another doctor, or cream,

Oh it may work for a a few..BUT think very carefully before u do the Mona Lisa, read reviews, then....there is NO guarentee to it will work, they promise nothing.Any one please..id having same issues after, that help, share with me, im altered to a life of pain and hopeless here

Thank You

Another beverly here! Sorry to hear you are having such a horrible time of it. Can't they at least numb the area so you can get relief? This may be a ridiculous question, but would a skin graft be possible?

When you say you couldn't do hormone creams, what exactly was the problem you had with them? I am finally using one for AV; have been for a few months along with a steroid for LS. Use the hormone only at entrance to vag. It does create a bit of soreness, but I am now having to use it nightly to keep estrogen steady as PH fluctuations are apparently causing fleeting BV. 

Had a negative reaction one time to steroid after a bout of diarrhea so stopped for about 10 days. Skin became inflamed and very sore. Back to using it twice a week and no problems. 

I wonder if any two of us are alike! No wonder doctors are guessing how to treat us.

Both my gyn and my GP are very leary re using laser on the skin. Got my hopes up 3 years ago when I first learned about ML. Now seems the only options again are hormone creams and steroids. Steroids in particular scare me but gyn says "bad for healthy skin good for unhealthy skin". But if the problem is that it thins skin, how can it be good for skin that is thinning?

Clearly ever since gynecology has existed these problems have. How were women being treated all these years and why isn't the medical field further along? Has no money gone into research?

Again, I hope you are able to find some relief. It sounds dreadful. You have my sympathies.

Hi Beverly !

I cannot do estrogen, i have had 3 bloodclots over the years, i have heard alot if nightmares about the estrogen. As far as a graf, haha, they cant even help with my burning and pain, I dont blame your doctors being not sure about the ML, theres not enough proof, it really works.

The creams, as i have read on other reviews, they felt burning and stinging, to helo fir pain, but mine never stopped till i cleaned it off. Only lil relief i get is from a very cold compress right on it, wrapped in a wet washcloth.

I sure hope yours gets better too, i was recommended from my gyno, to a dermatologist...really ??? This us what we have to rely on..their guesses.

Where do you go from here? have you seen the dermatologist? I don't think its strange to see one. After all, this is a skin issue and LS can be anywhere on the body, so they may actually have more experience treating it than a gyn.

I do hope you get some relief. I am responding well to treatment, but who knows what the future will bring? Am new to all this and am trying not to think of possible problems. 

I wonder if acupuncture would help at least with the pain. Have you ever tried it? 

I have an excellent doctor, he has me return to his office to be re-evaluated after two weeks.

He really cares, he told me he would like to see me live a normal live. He is very compassionate.

Count my blessings for him. He has given me TWO FREE treatments.

..

OMG, I'm so sorry for you. I hope you feel better soon. i cannot imagine what you are going through.

Pam,thank you so much for your reply, I am no better,it amazses me how few gynocologist know very much about this ,still, thousands women suffering,You have the atropy as well ? Its totally changed my life. I pray someday theres real help for this.****

at Beverly43 and others, ... I have Lichen Sclerosus and was thinking of having this done post-surgery but now I won't. I've had a terrible ordeal because my doctor who did not know that it was LS mentioned that he thought they were cysts that he would lance off. On the day of surgery he denied this and said he never called them cysts, but when I tried to pin him down to what was it, he gave me no answer. He did lance it off and he did send it out to pathology, and that's when we had a positive diagnosis for LS. But because he did a botched job and did not stick to the Braille like raised dots on my right labia lip, but instead decided to do a partial vulvectomy I no longer have a clitoris and some of the other places at the back near the taint of the perineum is beet red and not healing. He cut me all the way from the back close to the taint or the perineum and by my vaginal opening all the way up to my clitoris, where I now have a nub with not much feeling. I'm in the process of trying to sue him but nobody wants to take the case thinking it's not winnable. Aside from that he gave very bad advice throughout the whole process even prior to the surgery. At first he was telling me that I should use a steroid cream and although many people do get relief from LS with the Clobetasol steroid cream it does have a tendency to thin the skin and my pharmacist said most people don't use that beyond 2 or 3 weeks at a time. And then after that they just use it whenever they have a flare. Hate to tell you ladies but often the pharmacists know the drug portion of this better than the doctors do. At another time I was actually given Lidocaine because it was burning so bad from the LS, which most insurance companies won't cover but you can experiment with whether the cream or the ointment is less expensive and pay out of pocket. I think it was about $30 for me.

The Cream is water based and the ointment is petroleum-based. All these creams by the way cause stains in your underwear and residue, however adding borax to your regular detergent in the washing machine really does help pull that out. Sorry I couldn't resist giving another little tip.

So after the surgery on my first 10 day follow up he explained to me then it had come back positive for LS and there was no cure for LS. He said I'm afraid that if you don't start some kind of cream now it will grow back. He made another bad call by suggesting that I use a testosterone cream. I said wouldn't that be bad for my hormones, I mean I know that women have a little bit of that anyhow but adding extra testosterone sounds risky. He assured me that it was less than 5%, so it should be safe. I said okay so initially I was going to do it and my insurance denied it thank God. I asked the pharmacist should I come out of pocket for this since my insurance won't cover it? He said I wouldn't, you'll become a hirsuite and you'll have hair growing everywhere including on your face, and I know you don't want that. So I told my doctor, my Obgyn that even though the insurance would not cover it, I refuse to come out of pocket and pay for it based on hearing from my pharmacist. But I was prepared for a back-up plan and he was not, and I had read in advance some other treatments, and had talked to the pharmacist as well, and we decided that Tacrolimus ointment would be best. I had to suggest this to the doctor even though he told me that the Testosterone was the only thing that would get rid of this and I said no, I read that article it was in a peer-reviewed medical journal that said as a last resort you could use the testosterone. I don't think we're at the last resort yet. He didn't like the fact that I knew more than him so you have to tread lightly when you say this to your doctors. So the tacrolimus I found out is something that is supposed to suppress your immune system because they believe that lichen sclerosus can come from hormonal changes and being out of balance which would stand to reason with someone who is postmenopausal, or it can be due to an autoimmune condition. So in this case the immune system is in overdrive so you don't want a modulator to bring it up, you need a suppressor to bring it down. Also Tacrolimus can be used for a longer period of time than the steroid cream. It takes about 2 weeks for it to even get into your system. It is a very small amount like .1% I believe. So once you get this under control you only have to break it out and use it when you have another flare-up. Unfortunately I could never get around to using to using the Tacrolimus cream yet myself, because off the butcher job that was done with regards to the surgery, which was supposed to be a lancing, but became a partial vulvectomy. Let me state his name Doctor Randal J West, I want everybody to know that.

My point is that with his terrible butcher job for which I am still sore and red and swollen and not healing, I have to use another cream to resolve that problem first and eventually work my way over to the Tacrolimus cream. But if I had been able to take the Tacrolimus cream within 2 weeks of the stitches dissolving it would have probably kept the LS at Bay, but now the LS has come back because it's been 3 months of healing and I can't start my cream yet.

I hear a lot of people approaching this from the standpoint of trying to control the hormones, but not looking at it from the other standpoint of it being a possible autoimmune. Particularly if you haven't even had your hormones tested then you really don't know what is out of whack - your guessing.

As far as moisture this may not work for the ladies that have LS because I've already tried it since having LS, but it is something that I used to use years ago before I had LS and before I was postmenopausal, but whenever I had dryness before, but that was about 10 years ago and it worked then. I would use the over-the-counter product Replens.

Summary: if they Lance It Off and they don't take off extra bits or do a chop job, you should be able to start your cream as soon as the stitches dissolve. If you don't want to try surgery which would be better if you could avoid it, then try to treat it with the Tacrolimus like an autoimmune condition. also prior to the surgery and the creams I did have that acid put on that is similar to the iodine type of product that they used to use on genital warts. The acid did provide about 50% relief from the burning of LS because that acid can be used for more than one thing. don't know if that would be helpful after the Mona Lisa or not.

Also another thing you could try is a wound dressing particularly for those who had a bad experience with the Mona Lisa and described their 3rd or 4th treatment as being pretty severe. Unfortunately though it can only be used on the outside near the opening of the vagina and cannot be stuck up inside the vagina. The 2 best ones are: Calmoseptine that really is more of a barrier dressing though so that your urine doesn't wash it off and your panties doesn't scraped it off.

The other one is a true wound dressing and not a barrier cream and it is prescription-strength, also is for external use. That one's called Santyl. It has an enzyme collagenase to help you produce collagen to heal the wound. If however treatment has caused the wounds to become infected and the wound dressing itself has no antibiotic in it, then you will need to resolve the infection first and you can always go back later and put the Santyl on to create the collagen. Almost always when you have a infection down there in the genital area then if they don't give you pills, the cream will most likely be Cleocin. Now that can be used both internally and externally. Almost all insurance pays for that and it is something that is used for bacterial vaginosis as well, but can be used for other infections too.

I am not a doctor, and this is not to be taken as medical advice, but is only my opinion and my story that I am sharing with you. I hope it helps some of you.

I think that if I could have again as I said before taken the tacrolimus cream immediately after surgery or maybe in lieu of having surgery altogether, I think I'd really be on the road to recovery and at least being able to manage this condition.