OurStory
hi® was discovered accidentally, by a husband trying to help his wife.
The hi® massage system was discovered accidentally by Steve McGough trying to find a way to help his wife Wendy recover from tissue adhesions that came from emergency c-section surgery. The current version of hi® is the result of 12 years of research. Numerous doctors and physical therapists recommend hi®. Now thousands of women and men have experienced its benefits.*
hi® came from a tragedy
After 5 years of trying to get pregnant, the miracle finally occurred for Steve and Wendy McGough. Tragically in the last 2 months of the pregnancy, Wendy was exposed to an antibiotic-resistant bacteria when they visited Steve’s Mom at a surgical recovery center. Wendy soon became very sick, and complications forced her to have an emergency c-section. Sadly their son Luke only lived a day. Wendy spent 2 years in and out of ICU because the infection was resistant to all known antibiotics. Thankfully the Mayo Clinic eventually found an antibiotic that cleared the infection. It took Wendy a long time to recover, but now was dealing with painful tissue adhesions. Scar tissue from the multiple surgeries she’d needed caused adhesions between her intestines and uterus. These adhesions would cause her intestines to periodically twist and become blocked, which can quickly become life-threatening.
How do you relieve c-section and abdominal surgery adhesions?*
Steve was a co-founder of a government software company but had previously worked in neuroscience research. He’d also studied various types of massage for many years. So he was familiar with surface tissue adhesions, but this was deep inside her abdomen. He researched everything he could think of that might help, and eventually learned about a physical therapy method called the “Wurn Technique” created by Larry and Belinda Wurn at Clear Passage Therapy in Florida.
Unfortunately at the time, no physical therapists locally were familiar with it, so Steve decided to try to do his understanding of it himself. Basically, while Wendy was laying on her back, he would press his hands gently into her lower abdomen and quickly rock back and forth, causing her whole body to shake. Many times this would relieve Wendy of the pain. Their hope was that continually doing it might reduce the adhesions. But it wasn’t easy to do, especially to maintain the vigorous massage for 5-20 minutes continuously. Plus Steve traveled frequently for work and wouldn’t be around to do the method daily as they thought would be needed to release the adhesions.
Steve started looking for massage devices that might help. Unfortunately, nothing he could find would do what was needed. So he pondered what was actually going on in the body with the method, and if it could be done a different way. He first worked on designing something that could mimic the technique by “shaking” her body. But this only made her nauseous.
Later he wondered if the ligaments that suspended the uterus could be vibrated in the right way, maybe that would transfer the massage far enough into her belly to help. After a year of designing and building prototypes in their garage, he found a solution that worked well for Wendy. They were greatly relieved because now there was something she could use while he was out of town that seemed to help.
The abdominal massage device had an unexpected “side effect”
What they didn’t realize was the device often caused a very unexpected “side effect”. It first happened about a week after creating the device and they decided to try moving it around the abdomen to the different scarred areas. The device at the time was in a big PVC tube and sounded like a lawnmower. Bizarrely, holding it on one spot induced what seemed to be an abdominal orgasm. This shocked them because Wendy was fully clothed, and had experienced many challenges after the repeated surgeries and nerve damage she’d endured.
Wendy later asked some female friends to sign an NDA and test it. The women who volunteered experienced orgasms… through their clothing… just by holding the device over their abdomen and pelvis. This “side effect” didn’t make sense because the stimulation of the original devices had been only through the abdomen, and women were often describing the feeling of a “g-spot” orgasm. Women who had c-sections or related surgeries also seemed to benefit the most.
Based on Steve’s understanding of what “should” be going on, this didn’t make sense. He reviewed textbooks and studies on the related nerves (pelvic, pudendal, hypogastric, etc.) that might be involved, and how different types of external stimulation could be affecting them.
It occurred to him that the various nerves responded to different types and frequencies of stimulation. But it was still a mystery as to what was really going on.
Over time he refined the device and created a system that can be used to help women relax when dealing with a variety of women’s challenges. The new system not only gave abdominal massage but targeted multiple nerves simultaneously, in the optimal way to stimulate them.
Later after talking with Dr. Barry Komisaruk and other neuroscience researchers, the only conclusion could be it was the distal end of the vagus nerve going into the uterus. The unique type of percussion was generating a pressure wave that appeared to be stimulating the vagus nerve externally. This was the first discovery of transcutaneous stimulation of the vagus nerve.
They also found that it had seemed to have possible benefits for urinary incontinence, urinary tract infection, pelvic pain, and other female pelvic areas.*
As well Steve developed a potential alternative method to the “Wise-Anderson Protocol” for pelvic pain. The benefit of this alternate method was it could be done quickly, pain free, and while fully clothed.*
Men have also appeared to have potential benefits for bladder and urinary tract infections.*
Some parts of women’s health are still taboo – especially – in the South
However, they lived in North Carolina and soon discovered that while the device profoundly helped women (and men) in many ways, the “side effect” was far, far more “taboo” than they realized.
Steve first contacted MDs he knew from past years in research at Wake Forest School of Medicine. While they were equally fascinated with what was going on, they said “fully clothed or not” there was no way they could research a device that also caused that “side effect”. He had similar challenges when he approached NIH and other groups. So they decided to release it as an “over the counter” consumer product.
Thankfully after releasing hi®, doctors in other regions became very interested in the potential benefits. While they sometimes suggest using hi®, we are not making any medical claims.
Many wanted us to eliminate the “side effect”
Steve had been involved in the regional IT industry and knew many businesses and investors. He was completely shocked at the community’s response in North Carolina. At first, they were amused but didn’t think it was real. Then when he provided devices to prove it was, most were either offended, or would completely avoid him after that. His business community friends repeatedly warned him to abandon it “before it destroyed his reputation”. This seemed crazy since it was used fully clothed and helped women dramatically in so many different areas.
Several groups mocked him and then became very angry when he questioned how something so helpful could be so terrible. Plus why was it that this area for men was “medical”, but for women, it “wasn’t to be talked about”? One group even told them if they could eliminate the “side effect” and guarantee it couldn’t happen, it might be a possibility for investment for the health applications.
A good friend of Steve’s from the Investment community even told him that if he continued to talk about this “insane idea” it would destroy his reputation and company. He asked Steve to agree to just “put it on the shelf – and never speak of it again”. Steve’s friend assured him that if Steve did this, everything would be fine. If not it would seriously hurt his company. The excuse would be that Steve had just been under extreme stress from the extended illnesses and losing his son. But he had to agree to never talk about it again.
When Steve told Wendy that night, she mentioned that if they didn’t do this they’d always wonder how it could truly help women. But he had worked for over 15 years building the company he’d co-founded and it was too much of a risk.
Then she asked him that if their son Luke had lived, what would he be more proud of after he was gone. Would he be more proud of them doing government software, or them helping millions of women with a variety of health areas? So Steve set up plans to leave his company.
Creating the hi® massage took 12 years because groups either didn’t believe what they were saying was possible – or thought it might be disruptive for other health areas and also wanted to “put it on the shelf”.
Refusing to abandon it, they ended up going on a journey across the United States, to the Caribbean and Asia. After years of research and refinement, six patents, and testing on thousands of people, they created a completely new way to relax for both women and men.
Wendy and Steve ended up getting doctorates in Human Sexuality, focusing on Clinical Sexology. Beyond studying what was going on neurologically, Steve created new refinements of the “sensate focus” techniques Masters and Johnson developed, by mapping it to a modern understanding of the nervous system. He also found new techniques using certain frequency patterns from hi® to help men with psychogenic (stress-based) ED.* This expanded into transcutaneous stimulation of the sacral plexus and other nerve groups. This unique type of stimulation as well appears to have benefits in many areas.
Health care providers often suggest hi® as a non-medical adjunct to other approaches they are providing. No medical claims are made for hi®.
How could this discovery be presented so women aren’t embarrassed?
Their goal was for hi® to be seen as a wellness product and not an adult toy that could have the related cultural taboos. However, setup for product manufacturing was very expensive (typically $800K – $1M). They had received offers from adult-related investment groups and personally didn’t find anything wrong with the adult areas. But they felt that focusing just on adult areas would take the product down a path that would make it seem “taboo” and “embarrassing” just like the Southern groups viewed it. They also had come to realize that many times women had just as much embarrassment and discomfort around the topic as men.
This technology was something totally new and helps women and men relax in many ways far beyond the often taboo sexual areas. They felt hi® shouldn’t be embarrassing for women to talk about openly – especially when it might profoundly help. Hopefully, accepting this would help them become more comfortable with other aspects of their lives.
Fortunately, they met Greg Fisher, the CEO of Berkeley Sourcing Group, LLC. Greg is a visionary product Developer and realized its potential for helping women. His turn-key product development company finalized the designs and set up manufacturing in Asia.
Together with Greg, and his team of designers and engineers, they created the current version of hi®.
They ran a successful crowdfunding campaign and then delivered the product. Then they received investment from an amazing venture capital firm for ongoing manufacture.
hi® helps women, men, and couples experience completely new ways to relax, connect, and live life more fully. It took a long time to create, but we think you’ll find it was well worth it.
An Unexpected Miracle!
Wendy and Steve had been told they had virtually no chance of getting pregnant due to damage from the surgeries. 5 years later Wendy started getting very weird symptoms none of her specialists could figure out. The symptoms continued to get worse and 24 weeks later (after 7 doctor’s visits) a nurse’s assistant commented, “hmm that sure sounds like you might be pregnant.” The MD gave the assistant a harsh look because they didn’t want Wendy’s feeling hurt as that wasn’t possible.
Driving home Steve & Wendy stopped & picked up a pregnancy kit and… AND THEY WERE PREGNANT! 16 weeks later they had an amazing little girl!
Their daughter Daniela is the most wonderful blessing of this whole experience.
Now Fertility specialists also work with them as part of a unique natural protocol to help couples become pregnant.*
*Medical Disclaimer – hi® is a percussive massager and can produce positive results for general muscle relaxation that are well documented for this type of massage. It is also designed specifically for relaxing women’s pelvic and abdominal muscles. However, hi® has not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. No medical claims are being made. The hi® product, and or any statements made by this site as well as any associated video, audio, or written content therein, are not intended to diagnose, prevent, treat, or cure any disease. hi® and its related training programs are not intended as medical advice, nor to replace the guidance from a qualified health care professional. This site and all associated content, and products are intended to help share knowledge about wellness and relaxation approaches. Visitors and customers with any medical or health-related concerns are encouraged to contact a qualified health care professional. Please note that hi® provides a vigorous percussive and vibratory massage. Consult with, and get approval from your doctor or other appropriate medical advisors before using hi® if you are not in good health or have any medical conditions where you should not receive a highly vigorous massage. The method and related devices used by hi® are patented in the United States, Australia, Canada, and the European Union.