In this episode, I am talking with Dr. Charles Runels, The creator of the Priapus Shot and the O Shot.
The Priapus Shot is a natural treatment using your blood to treat erectile dysfunction. An alternative to pills and surgery.
We will discuss:
- How common is ED
- Why most men don't know they have ED
- How the P Shot works for ED
- Why the P Shot is the best treatment for ED
Dr. Charles Runels Episode Contents
- Episode Video
- How Common Is Erectile Dysfuntion
- Building Up The Courage To Test The P-Shot
- How the P Shot works for ED
- Why The P Shot Is The Best Treatment For ED
- Tips And Facts When Getting A P-Shot
- About our Guest Charles Runels
- Episode Links and Resources
Dr. Charles Runels Episode Video
How Common Is Erectile Dysfuntion
Anne: Do you know that from the age of 40 to 70, 50% of men have erectile dysfunction and that of those 50% of men, 67% of them do not even know that they have ED according to standardized questionnaire? And that when you have ED, it's actually a reflection of your cardiac health or heart health in the future, and it's actually a check engine light to your general wellbeing. And that is a warning sign that it could reflect how well you're doing in general health.
Anne: So if you're not doing well sexually, then you should be concerned because that could be a reflection of how well you're doing in your general health. So men, listen to this episode because I am here today and joined by the creator of the Priapus shot, or the P shot, Dr. Charles Runels. And we're going to talk about everything about the P shot, why he created it, the origin of it, and he's the one that taught me the P shot in 2014, and we're going to have fun on this episode. So Dr. Charles Runels, teach us about the P. Shot today.
Charles Runels: Thank you for having me. I know you were doing, way before I met you, you were teaching and about regenerative therapies and stem cells, and it’s so fun to be able to share notes with you.
Anne: Well, thank you.
Charles Runels: So what do you want to know?
Anne: Well, how did you come up with the P shot and how it all started?
How Dr. Charles Runels Invented The P-Shot
Charles Runels: Okay. Well, it's sort of a fun story. I had been doing work with wound care, sort of the constellation of things came together. I was running a wound care center at a hospital during my ER days, so I knew about healing tissue, but I'd never heard of PRP, wasn't using it. Then after I started a practice and was doing some cosmetic work, I was injecting faces with filler because when women would come to me and lose weight, they would complain their face looked old. They lose the fat in their cheeks and they say, "Oh, my face looks older. I want to gain my weight back."
So I thought oh, I better learn how to do fillers like Juviderm to put the shape back so they want to keep losing weight." I think it was Liz Taylor said before the days of Juviderm and fillers, she said back in the sixties, once a woman reaches 40, she has to choose between her body and her face because if she keeps her body lean, then her face gets lean and it looks more wrinkled. And so now we don't have to do that because we can use fillers and regenerative therapies.
But so I was doing that and then a person came to my office and said, "Hey, have you ever heard of …?" It was a salesperson selling FDA approved kit to prepare plasma. He said, "Have you ever heard of this stuff, you use it … You can use it in the face like Juviderm or a filler, and it gives new volume and new blood flow and there's never been a side effect." And instantly, and I'm a guy, I'm thinking new volume, new blood flow, that should go in my penis.
But I said, "I better read about it and try it in faces for a while." So I read about it and then I was shocked that I'd never used it before in the wound care because there's so much as you know out, and this was 2010, 11 years ago, but 10 years before that it was being used for hard to heal wounds from your orthopedics experience, and it was off my radar. Since then, we're up to 15,000 papers on PubMed about platelet rich plasma and a lot of them now is sexual medicine. But at that point, it hadn't been put in the penis, but I read everything I could about it and I found some ideas that showed it might work.
I saw one place where it had been talked about being used in rats, and I thought well, shoot, why hasn't no one ever tried this? But I was trying to get my courage up and I had been injecting faces for a few months, about three months and men and women come back and say, "My face is glowing. You could see the new blood flow in the face."
And I thought okay, well it looks like it's working, but I'm still not sure I want to put this in my penis.
And finally, one day I got this odd phone call. I got a call from a man who said, "I'm a conservative Jewish man and I have not had sex with my wife or my fiance, and we're getting married in a month and I'm embarrassed about the size of my penis. Can you help it grow?" I've never gotten a call like that. And I said, "Well, not really." I said, "Your hair just grows a fourth of an inch a month. We can't help you." And he says, "Well, I think you can." And I said, "I could be a call from the dark side. I don't know what's going on here." But I said, "I have an idea, but it doesn't need to be you. I think I need to try it on me first so call me back in a week."
So I knew at that point, there were only about 7,000 papers on PubMed, 5,000 or 7,000, and to this day, I can't find any papers that show necrosis as back then, no granulomas, no necrosis, no neoplasia. There's one weird study where someone got necrosis in the face but they were injected in a hotel room and the PRP was mixed with some unknown filler, which you know can cause necrosis if you inject, though it got a bad route, but it wasn't PRP, it was the filler. So anyway, no one's ever had a serious sequela from PRP.
Anne: Right.
Building Up The Courage To Test The P-Shot
Charles Runels: 35,000 people a year die from GI bleeds from nonsteroidals, but you don't see those coming off the block. We're talking die, 35,000 a year, per year, die from GI bleeds from nonsteroidal drugs, and you can't find one person who died from PRP, and not even. So I thought okay, well, I don't know, maybe something bad is going to happen. I'm pretty nervous about this, but I'm going to try it anyway. And you know how I got my courage up to do it? How are we on time? How much time we got? I got to tell you the story how I got the courage.
Anne: We got time. We got time. It's only eight minutes.
Charles: So here's how I got my courage up. If you go to Wikipedia, I knew this story about it, I went and reread it to get psyched out. If you go to Wikipedia, you can see the story of the first person, first man, do the hard cath, and it's really sad, but the amount of courage this man had was astounding. He knew that he would get in trouble for doing it, so he tied the nurse to the gurney at the hospital. I sometimes wonder if he had her tied there for a different reason, but for whatever reason, his nurse was tied to the gurney, then he ran the catheter up his own groin, this was in the 1940s, walked up two flights of stairs, and took the pictures to prove it could be done.
Anne: Oh my goodness.
Charles: Where upon, he was promptly lost his hospital privileges. Back in the forties, if you got depressed, they'd give you shock wave therapy and lock you up in the institution, and he died in the institution.
Anne: Oh my goodness.
Charles Runels: So I thought okay, let me reread that story to get psyched out because I know I'm not going to have anything that bad happen to me. So I thought if he can be this courageous, so I got my sweetheart at the time to come film it so I kept documenting so she could … And I injected it, and a week later I didn't do as much as I do now.
Anne: Well, did you numb it up first before you injected it?
Charles: I did some numbing cream.
Anne: Okay.
Charles Runels: And my worry was that … Well, whatever, I had a thousand worries. But I injected it, and as you know, it's instantly usable, and the reason I initially used a vacuum pump right afterwards was to spread the material through the corpus cavernosum so the PRP spread evenly. Now I'm not sure that's necessary, but back then I thought it might be so I did. But I take the pump off, now if it's been injected with PRP and I've had a vacuum device on it, and we just … Okay, well, it was looking healthier and more robust than usual, so we just tried it out instantly. And I remember were thinking it looks like she's having more fun than usual. I could tell it was, and I'll spare you the details
but the point is that it was instantly usable and noticeably improved, and I didn't have ED, but it was better.
Anne: Well, that's interesting because I also recommend doing PRP for just better, firmer erection for men without ED as well too. So there's nothing wrong with getting a P shot when you don't have ED. It's like going to the gym for exercising your muscles. I compare the penis, the corpus cavernosum or the penis muscles as going to the gym and keeping it healthy and adding just extra blood in it to keeping it healthy.
Charles Runels: I agree. If you do nothing, here's what happens, we both know this, by the time a man reaches 65 if he just lets … "Aging gracefully". By the way, nobody says that about their car. I'm not going to watch it or wax it and just let it age gracefully. I'm not going to paint my house. That's called neglect, it's aging gracefully. You'd call it neglect if you did nothing to upkeep your house. But somehow there's this idea … The extreme of that was in the middle ages, there were some Catholic priests who thought it was a sin to take a bath because it was paying too much attention to the physical body instead of the spiritual body.
How the P Shot works for ED
Charles Runels: So it can be taken to an extreme. There's a balance. But if you do nothing to maintain, just like a man's muscles get smaller with age, a man normally loses half of his endothelium by the time he's 65. A man's penis is shrinking, and doing nothing, it starts to shrink. Honestly, think a decade from now, somebody will be watching this, one of my grandchildren may be watching this a decade from now and I'm having sex in heaven somewhere.
Anne: You'll still be here.
Charles: I hope so.
Anne: You're not in heaven somewhere.
Charles: I think that women will be getting an O shot postpartum in the labor and delivery room after every delivery.
Anne: Oh, that would be wonderful.
Charles: And I think men will start getting a P shot starting maybe in their early to mid twenties once a year to maintain their endothelium. Why wait until half of it's gone before you do something, right? So I completely agree.
The way I help my men who visit me lighten up, I took care of a very famous and very powerful man, and I said,
"Even Lamborghinis need a tune up. You don't have to be embarrassed about having something done for your penis and you don't have to wait until it breaks down and turns into a broken down Ford before you do something with it."
A week later, it was a week, I noticed that … Now we do … We have a technique where we've discovered that you need more than one injection, usually two per side to completely feel the corpus cavernosum. But that time, that first time, I just injected the base of the penis and a week later it was thicker at the base. So I asked my girlfriend, "Am I making this up?" She says, "No, you're not making it up." So I said, "Okay." So I called the guy up and he came out, I gave him the injection, and then he goes away and I gave him as a hedge on my bet, I gave him … Or a hedge on his wedding night. I gave him my course on how to teach a woman to have an ejaculatory orgasm, or how to lead your lover to an ejaculatory orgasm.
The Results Of The Treatment
Charles Runels: So then I waited a month and thereabouts, he's back from his honeymoon. I called him and I said, "Okay, so how'd it go?" He said, "My penis is not any bigger." By the way, he didn't want to use the pump. I tell guys, "Think of it like yoga for your penis. You wouldn't not stretch the other parts of your body. It's just penis yoga." But anyway, he didn't use the pump and I think that's like trying to get bigger muscles without lifting weights. Just take hormones and get bigger weight, bigger muscles, you got to do something physical too.
I said, "Okay, I'm sorry. Hope the honeymoon went well anyway." And I'm going … I charged him a little bit. I said, "I'm going to put all your money back on your card." Because that's what I do. People got to love what I do. I don't keep any of their money. He says, "No, doctor." He says, "I don't want your money. I don't want my money back because it's working a lot better." And I said, "Oh, okay. We might have something then."
Why The P Shot Is The Best Treatment For ED
Charles Runels : So now fast forward, and as you know, quite a number of studies have come out, but the best one came out made the cover of the Journal of Sexual Medicine last year, double blind placebo controlled study demonstrated PRP and the corpus cavernosum increased erectile function. Now the other studies, that's the only double blind placebo control, but the point is now we're 11 years later and it's being done all around the world. The study came out of the University of Aristotle in Greece, but we got a long way to go before I think insurance is paying for it. As you know, insurance isn't covering it yet, but they will. Anyway, that's the long version of it.
Anne: Right, exactly. We're definitely not going to go to the insurance story. Why insurance is not covering for a platelet rich plasma. That's going to be a debate there at this point. So just for listeners, just a quick review, platelet rich plasma is just your own blood that we get out from your veins and the platelets are coming from your blood and the platelets just help restore blood flow to an injured area. And when you have ED, the penis muscles are not getting enough blood flow and therefore, it's not functioning well. That's why therefore, you're not getting an erection. So by putting in platelets in the penis, it restores function again by restoring blood flow.
Anne: Ninety percent of causes of ED is physical and 10% is psychological and mainly it's really due to blood flow dysfunction, so by injecting the platelets or platelet rich plasma from your blood, there is literally like Dr. Runels says, no side effects because what side effects is there could go wrong? It's your own blood that is injected back to yourself to restore function. What other best methods are there besides that? Your body that doesn't create Viagra, your body doesn't need Viagra to get an erection.
And in fact, I correlate Viagra and Cialis as taking opioid pain medication for pain because once you take it, it becomes a crutch and you get addicted to it and then your body forgets how to function naturally now. And therefore, you just lose the way your body naturally creates an erection. Therefore, you also lose the way you will want to have an erection and you just become dependent upon it and then you realize you can't get an erection without it. And then it doesn't work anymore, and then where would you be, like Dr. Runels said.
Some Main Points About The P-Shot/O-Shot
Anne: And one of our colleagues, Shelly Glover, that every man and every woman should have a P shot. If you have a vagina and a penis, you should get a P shot or an O shot, and we both heartedly agree with that. And I myself, as well as a lot of our colleagues, and I know you, get an O shot every year, as well as my husband, just for general wellness as well too. And so in general, having being the creator of the P shot and the O shot, what have you observed over the years since you created this? What will be kind of like your main point that you want our listeners to take away from this?
Charles Runels: Yeah, maybe two or three. One is that it's not a magic shot. As you pointed out, it is natural and it's exactly what your body would make if you had a cut, and it's the same thing that your body made when you scraped your knee as a child. It's that goo that formed and made the scab. That scab was not just to stop the bleeding, it was the whole growth factors there from the platelets to grow new skin. So we're making that, putting it back in the tissue, and if that were dangerous, then so would the scab that's on your leg be dangerous. It's the same thing.
But on the other hand, as you know, it can help the tissue become healthier where you put it. But if the cause of erectile dysfunction is say a spinal cord injury or the circulation through the iliacs or block from years of diabetes, then locally treating the penis is not going to make up for that. So I don't want to over promise. I know some of our providers say they're able to help people that are farther along than what I normally attempt to help.
When you take Viagra or during your night, your nocturnal erection, or when you're aroused, then we could probably make things better with the P shot. But if you take Viagra or Cialis, or you try to have sex and just nothing happens, then there's a higher probability that you may have vascular disease, up close to the aorta and so locally treating the penis may not be of help, which is why this is not a do it at home thing. This is where you come in and our other providers, where you're thinking not just a simple shot, it's the whole procedure of how you think about a person and their overall health and the other factors from hormones and nutrition to their social interactions.
Tips And Facts When Getting A P-Shot
Charles Runels: So it's … And you know this, but if you're asking the most important thing, obviously, you're teaching it and doing it, but I want to make sure everyone who's been kind enough to listen to us this far knows that sex is the cherry on top of many other factors and good sex, and if you pull one of those away, make your testosterone go away, or be in a stressful place where you're having trouble at the job or you're being bombed because you're in Ukraine. You're going to have a … I can give you P shots all day long and it's not going to work, which is why you need someone who knows what they're are doing to think about the whole process.
The other question that comes up as well, this isn't an FDA approved procedure, and that's where a misunderstanding of the FDA comes in. The FDA never approves any procedure. They don't approve or even evaluate hysterectomies or bypass surgery, they evaluate drugs and devices that physicians use. What they don't control … And they do control some things if you use … You know this because you're an expert at it and teach it. But so our viewers know, if you do lots of things to tissue then the FDA has decided that's now become a drug so you can multiple steps and now it's no longer your body.
If you minimally manipulate it, so if you take a piece of skin and you put it on a different part of your body to patch where you fell on your motorcycle, that's your skin, that does not belong to the FDA, and your hair and your blood and your urine all belongs to you, and even if it's a part of your blood that's still your platelets, your plasma, and so … But you should have a device, and I know you do this, but if you have a … You need a device that is approved by the FDA to prepare that blood to go back into the body, which is a different thing than just preparing it to analyze it, a different level of accuracy and a different kind of sterility.
So those who get this procedure done should use someone who's licensed by our group so that they've agreed to follow these guidelines and they know the whole process. Even that study, I don't know if you read the protocol, that study that came out of Greece, it was horrible how those poor guys were tormented.
Anne: Yeah.
Charles: You realize they took a needle in for nine minutes, they threaded the corpus cavernosum per side and then they had to wear a tourniquet for 30 minutes. It sounded like a torture chamber of some Game of Thrones or something. So we don't do that, but the people we've had now 11 years to work on our protocol and I'd recommend to use someone in our group who knows what they're doing. Those guys are brilliant and I'm grateful for their study, but we've had 11 years to define and tune up the process so that it's painless or almost painless.
Anne: Oh yeah. Yeah.
Charles: The last thing…
Anne: There's also a nerve block that is painless.
Charles: But you don't thread somebody's corpus cavernosum for nine minutes.
Anne: No.
Charles: It's like that, right?
Anne: Like you said, that sounds like a medieval torture chamber.
Charles: They're smart guys, but I wish they would've called us up. Anyway, so the last thing, and then I'll quit rambling, but I think it may be the most important, is that for guys to realize that your sexuality is not just about the pleasure you have in your bedroom, it relates to your confidence at work and your personality and even your spirituality. Hence, every religion has things to say about the way sex is practiced because it can be denervating and destructive or it can be inspirational. And even only half joking when I say, "Yeah, if you have a good orgasm, you should have visions and prophesy." That's only half a joke because it's … And every deep religion has thoughts about how to use sexual energy in ways much more profound than having fun in the bedroom, although that's important too.
Lessons From Anne And Charles
Charles: So I would just encourage people to pay attention. Obviously, you're a teacher who has a great understanding as a physician and a teacher and I'd encourage people to follow you closely because you're in the literature and you're making sure that things come out that need to be known. And I would just make a project out of being healthy. It kills me when people say, "Yeah, I would die for my kids." But okay, you would die for them, but how uncomfortable would you be in this current life? Would you be uncomfortable enough just to throw your cigarettes away? Or start walking every day? You'll say you'll die for them, but I'm doubting it because I don't see you even want to go for a freaking two mile walk just to keep your heart healthy. Or maybe you just mean you intend to die.
I don't know what that means when people say, "I will die." I say, "Well, would you live for them? Would you be uncomfortable for the next 30 minutes by avoiding this thing that your doctor says is making you not healthy?" Then I'll know … In other words, being healthy is not just about having fun in the bedroom, it's about being around and I may drop over dead tomorrow, but it won't be because I didn't at least think and do my best to be around so that one of these grandkids runs up to me one day and says, "Hey, what about this?" I'll be around to pick them up and give them a hug or something. That's all I got. Anne:, I appreciate you having me on your show.
Anne: That is beautiful. And congratulations on another grandchild coming up in July. And I know that for you, family is the most important thing in your life of all.
So tell me about that statue behind you there, it's been distracting me and I've been looking at it.
Charles: Well, someone gave me that statue and I think she knew my heart because I mean, I don't have a Greek God of love that I pray to, but I recognize there's a spirit of love and relationships and when I come to the office, I put a little … I light a little candle right there to remind myself that that's what we're after, what's demonstrated in that embrace. Not just physical pleasure, but the embrace of two lovers making a life together and being bonded physically and spiritually. And then before that candle goes out, which I think it lasts about six hours, I try to make something that's going to make that statue more likely in somebody's life. That's why I do that.
Anne: Well, that's a beautiful story because that's what we're all here about, right? It's about love and connection, right?
Charles: Yes.
Anne: And living longer to enjoy living with our loved ones and being fulfilled because at the end of the day, that is really what this is all about and that's what Dr. Runels and I love doing and seeing, that the moment that we see our patient comes in with their loved ones. Tell you a story about one of my patient, Ed, who hasn't had intimacy with his wife in 17 years. They have not been able to have …
Charles: Oh wow, but still together.
Anne: Intercourse, and we gave him three shockwave … I mean, three P shots and 12 shockwave and hormone replacement therapy, and for the first time in 17 years, they've been able to have intercourse again. And then they come back to my office holding hands and giggly and smiling.
Charles: Nothing better than that.
Anne: And they act like they're like in their twenties and on their honeymoon again, and thanking me profusely for reconnecting them again and discovering who they are in their seventies.
Charles: Yeah, beautiful.
Anne: And realizing that they're discovering what it's like again to be able to enjoy each other, not only emotionally, but also physically again, and discovering how it can really bring them closer than they ever thought would be possible because they have really acclimated to living apart physically. But now that they're together, it's a whole new world for them that they didn't know existed.
And at that time I knew I was doing the right thing in the same place, and I'm very grateful for you to introduce me to that world of sexual wellness. And since I was in the world of orthopedic medicine and doing themselves and doing PRP, but now I'm in both worlds and I'm actually teaching my colleague in the orthopedic world and stepping into the world's sexual medicine as well too now as well. So I appreciate you for being here with me today.
Charles: I'm honored. Very honored.
Anne: Again, sharing your wisdom. And what would you like to say before we leave and for our listeners and what would you say to a man that discovered he has ED?
Charles: Oh, just count it as a blessing that you, as you said, had this warning because the warning could have been the heart attack and the bypass. So you have the ED, I would say, "Find someone like yourself," and you're so brilliant, "that understands medicine and say, "Hey, let's think about the big picture and put this thing back together."" Because this is a beautiful place. I know this is a beautiful planet and it's just one life and you don't have to stay home and try to find stuff on the internet, get to the right person and get well.
Anne: Don't go to Dr. Google, go to a doctor that knows what they're doing.
Charles: Yeah, that's right.
About Our Guest, Dr. Charles Runels
Emergency room physician trained in the University of Alabama in Birmingham, trained in internal medicine and also in research. He is well-versed in endocrinology, cosmetic medicine, and sexual medicine. Published in multiple peer review scientific publication in hormone replacement therapy, sexual medicine, immunology, and hypertension, and in cosmetic medicine as well. He is the originator and the founder of the Vampire Facelift, the Priapus Shot, the O-Shot, and the founder of the Cellular Medicine Association
Link to his book; Extend Sex with ICU: The 30-Second Trick
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