The reviews of GAINSWave, a procedure in which men get their nether regions blasted with sound waves for better erections, are actually glowing. A Men's Health reporter who has also tried gas-station sexual enhancement pills and something called "red light therapy" — all in the name of journalism — wrote about sprouting a boner during dinner with his grandmother after giving the sonic treatment a go last spring.
Behind this unconventional penis technology is a Florida doctor, Richard Gaines (yes, his name just so happens to be Dick Gaines), who runs an anti-aging practice in Aventura. The former anesthesiologist takes credit for standardizing a treatment that had been available in Europe for about 15 years and bringing it to legions of Viagra-dependent men across America. His company, Sexual MD Solutions, holds a trademark for the treatment, called GAINSWave, for the purpose of "
"I’m very excited about this," Gaines told the Men's Health writer, Ben Greenfield, in a podcast interview.
"It’s really a game changer. I want it to get out there."
But now a legal spat over the penis-shocking technique has broken out between Sexual MD Solutions and another of South Florida's many age-fighting clinics, the Biostation. In a lawsuit filed earlier this month in federal court, attorneys for Sexual MD Solutions accuse the Biostation of stealing the GAINSWave trademark to promote its own shock wave penis treatment.
Steven Osber, an attorney for the Biostation, tells New Times the company denies all of the allegations.
"We feel confident that the complaint will be deemed baseless, and at the end, we expect to be completely vindicated," he says.
Gaines did not immediately respond to an interview request. According to his website, he earned his MD at Boston University and completed his internship at Tufts University and his residency at Harvard. He spent 30 years working as an anesthesiologist before opening his age-management clinic in 2005. He now specializes in more unconventional types of medicine that purportedly help reverse the aging process, such as hormone replacement therapy and platelet-rich plasma injections.
He also offers the latter treatment, which involves drawing a person's blood, spinning it in a centrifuge, and then reinjecting it, as a trademarked penis-enlargement technique. It's called a Priapus Shot, or P-Shot.
But he's probably best known for GAINSWave. Shock wave therapy is still considered experimental and is largely unknown
His company now offers the technology to other medical practices and hosts cocktail hours at swanky South Florida resorts to introduce the boner-inducing product. Doctors across the nation have licensed it for use in their clinics.
The Biostation, run by longtime cardiologist Martin Bloom, is not one of those places, according to Osber. The clinic, which has locations in Delray Beach and Miami, offers a menu of treatments meant to defy age, including hormone replacement therapy, platelet-rich plasma injections, Botox, and IV therapy. It also offers sonic wave therapy to treat ED, Osber says, but "it's a very common method."
In fact, Osber says the allegations against the Biostation are so meritless the company is considering filing a countersuit.
Update: Below is the full statement from Mark White, CEO of Sexual Health Solutions:
“Dr. Richard Gaines is not involved with the business operations of Sexual MD Solutions LLC. Sexual MD Solutions LLC is a marketing company that has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to develop consumer awareness around extracorporeal shockwave therapy for treating ED using the registered trademark named GAINSWave. The brand is extremely successful and has been employed to help thousands of patients find properly trained doctors nationwide. BioStation ran a series of false advertisements claiming they are a “GAINSWave provider”. They have never been trained by us and have never been part of our membership. Therefore they are benefiting unlawfully from our excellent brand name. In order to protect consumers from being confused and protect our licensed and trained member providers we will zealously enforce our trademark rights.”
