“The orgasms – since they rejuvenated my vagina with a laser – are something else”: This is what it’s actually like inside a sexual health retreat

So why, several weeks after coming home from the treatment, do I look upon Sha as the place that changed my life?

Was it Stockholm syndrome, when it all suddenly clicked around day five? Or was it the words of Dr Vicente Mera, when he said, in my consultation with him: “I do not want to be mediocre in my health!”? And I looked at his glowing 65-year-old face, this man who was named Best Anti-Ageing Doctor in Europe at the European Awards in Medicine, and thought, You know what mate? Neither do I.

And so I’m not, not any more. I brought the diet home with me and now start every day with miso soup and vegetable mush. I haven’t touched alcohol or caffeine and have barely tasted wheat and dairy; all those boring health resolutions that I had failed on before are working after Sha. I did one week at the spa, have been home for two more, and have lost three quarters of a stone in that time. All without any more exercise than usual. Annoyingly, delightfully, it works.

More excitingly, I just bought some cowboy boots for the first time in years. They look bloody great. I’ve tied a red ribbon around my ponytail. My hair is getting softer. My daughter is talking excitedly about “Mummy’s glow-up”. Last night, I sat across a dinner table from someone who stared at my skin and said: “You look 30. Why do you look 30?” I’m 47, so that was nice.

The orgasms – let me tell you, since they rejuvenated my vagina with a laser – are something else. I know! It does sound ghastly, but it took mere minutes and I couldn’t feel it, beyond the initial unpleasantness of something like an ultrasound wand going up my privates. I also had the Emsella treatment, which involves sitting on a chair fully clothed while something electromagnetic seems to shoot into your genitals, turning your vulva into a game of Space Invaders. Quite fun. (Both procedures are to strengthen the pelvic floor and can help with incontinence). I only did them to report back for this article, and now I feel a bit sad that I wouldn’t have known the result otherwise.