Emsella from Grantham: What a Six-Session Course Involves

Newark and Grantham sit on the same road. That sounds like a small point until you look at what an Emsella course asks of you, which is six appointments inside three weeks. For a one-off treatment nobody thinks twice about a drive up the A1. For six visits in twenty-one days, the route is part of the decision, and I would rather you worked that out before you book than during week two.

So this article is about the practical shape of a course, for anyone reading it from Grantham, Barrowby, Long Bennington, Claypole, Sleaford or the villages between. The clinical detail is covered in full in the patient guide to Emsella. What follows is the part that decides whether you finish the course.

What happens in a session

You sit down, fully clothed, on a purpose-built chair for 28 minutes. There is no undressing, no examination and no intimate exposure at any point.

The chair generates a focused electromagnetic field beneath you, which drives the pelvic floor into contractions stronger and more complete than voluntary effort can produce, because the field bypasses the conscious neuromuscular pathway. That is the whole mechanism. The muscles respond the way any muscle responds to progressive resistance training: the fibres strengthen, and the reflex that closes the pelvic floor against a sudden rise in abdominal pressure becomes better coordinated. That reflex is what has failed when you leak on a cough, a sneeze or a lift.

The sensation is unfamiliar rather than painful. Strong, rhythmic, and impossible to override. Most people find the first session odd and the third unremarkable. You walk out and drive home.

The course, and how it fits round a working week

The standard protocol is six sessions, two a week, across three weeks. That is the protocol used in the published research and the one we follow.

Six visits, 28 minutes each, no downtime, no aftercare, fully clothed. We are open until 20:00 Monday to Thursday, 09:00 to 16:00 on Friday and 08:00 to 14:00 on Saturday, so two evening slots a week is the pattern that suits most working patients travelling in. If you would rather do both weekly sessions on the same day with a gap between them, say so when you book. We can usually arrange it, and for anyone driving a distance it halves the number of round trips.

The clinic is at 65 London Road, Newark-on-Trent, NG24 1RZ, straight up the A1 and onto the A46 approach, with free parking at the front. It is not in the town centre, so there is no multi-storey and no parking meter at the end of the drive. Patients also come in from Lincoln, around 25 minutes on the A46, and the Lincoln clinic page sets out that route and the wider menu.

Pricing is £120 a session or £600 for a course of six, confirmed at the screening consultation before anything is agreed.

What the published evidence shows

This is one of the better-evidenced things we offer, and the numbers are worth reading properly rather than in a headline.

In a study of 75 women published in Lasers in Surgery and Medicine in 2019, using the same six-session protocol, 61 of 75 patients (81.33%) reported a significant reduction in symptoms. Symptom scores on the ICIQ-SF improved by 49.93% by the sixth session and by 64.42% at three-month follow-up, so the benefit carried on building after treatment stopped. Absorbent pad use fell 43.80% immediately after the course and 53.68% at follow-up. Patients with mixed incontinence improved 69.90%. No pain, no downtime and no adverse events were reported (PMID 31172580).

A 2025 systematic review and meta-analysis in Neurourology and Urodynamics pooled seven studies and found a significant improvement in ICIQ-UI SF score against control (mean difference -3.03, 95% CI -3.27 to -2.79, p < 0.00001) and fewer incontinence episodes (mean difference -4.10, 95% CI -7.34 to -0.85, p = 0.01) (PMID 39760417).

Here is the part most clinics leave out of the summary. That same meta-analysis found no significant difference between HIFEM and control for measured changes in pelvic floor contraction or resting tone. The symptom scores move and the quality-of-life scores move; the muscle-tone measurements in those pooled studies did not separate from control. Read straight, the evidence supports Emsella improving how the pelvic floor behaves and how people feel day to day, and it does not yet prove the mechanism through tone measurement alone. I would rather tell you that than hand you a percentage and let you discover the caveat elsewhere.

For men after prostate surgery there is a 2025 prospective study of 27 men in Therapeutic and Clinical Risk Management using the same six-session protocol, where ICIQ-SF scores fell from 10.58 at baseline to 5.43 after treatment and 4.16 at one-month follow-up, with daily pad use falling alongside and no adverse events (PMID 40909763). Twenty-seven men is a small study. It is a reasonable basis for offering the treatment and not a reason to promise an outcome.

Individual results vary, which is what the screening consultation is for.

Who we screen out, and why the consultation comes first

Every course starts with a screening consultation, and a meaningful number of them end with us saying no.

Emsella is not appropriate during pregnancy, or where there is a metal implant, a copper coil or a pacemaker. It does not treat pelvic organ prolapse, which needs assessment by a urogynaecologist or a pelvic floor physiotherapist. It will not repair structural damage to the sphincter mechanism that needs surgical correction. Blood in the urine, pelvic pain, or leakage that started after recent surgery should be seen by a GP or specialist before anyone books you into a chair.

You do not need a GP referral to come to us. You do need the screening, and if your symptom pattern points somewhere outside what a chair can fix, we will tell you and explain the route.

The other thing worth saying: this is not a replacement for pelvic floor exercises. Supervised pelvic floor muscle training is the recommended first-line treatment in NHS guidance, and it works when it is done correctly and consistently. Emsella earns its place where the barrier has been technique or adherence rather than effort, because it drives the muscles directly instead of relying on you isolating them correctly in the first place. The comparison with pelvic floor physiotherapy sets out where each one fits.

What changes, and what you have to keep doing

Most people notice something within the first two to three weeks of the course. The strongest improvement usually arrives six to eight weeks after the final session, because neuromuscular adaptation carries on after the stimulus stops. That lag catches people out, so if week four feels underwhelming, that is the expected shape of it.

What changes day to day is specific rather than dramatic. Coughing and sneezing without bracing. Lifting a grandchild without mapping the route to a bathroom first. Sleeping through instead of getting up twice.

The results are muscular, which means they behave like every other training effect and fade if nothing maintains them. We ask patients to keep up pelvic floor exercises after the course and to consider a top-up session or two each year. That is not an upsell, it is how muscle works. Anyone who tells you a six-session course fixes this permanently is selling you something.

Background on the underlying problem sits on our pelvic floor and incontinence page, and the full treatment detail is on the Emsella treatment page.

Frequently asked questions