When Chronic Pain Becomes Your Compass: How Celine Vignal Built a Femtech Company From the Inside of a Migraine

Some founders solve problems they’ve observed. Celine Vignal solved the one that was sidelining her life.

For two decades, Celine navigated chronic migraines and inflammatory flare-ups with every conventional tool available. She had a distinguished global career in sensor technology, marketing, and product innovation. She had access to excellent doctors and cutting-edge research. And she still found herself trapped in a frustrating cycle of unpredictable symptoms, lost days, and zero real-time insight into what was actually happening inside her body.

So she built the tool she desperately wished existed.

As the founder of Seesaw Health, Celine is pioneering a femtech company at the intersection of biosensing, nervous system regulation, and behavioral therapies. The premise is deceptively simple and long overdue: women shouldn’t have to choose between their health and their ambitions. And sometimes, your body’s breakdowns are actually the blueprint for your biggest breakthroughs.

The work has earned attention. Celine was named to the Forbes Next 1000 list in 2021 and recognized among the 50 Most Influential French in the U.S. In 2024, Seesaw Health received Design Capital from Femovate for its innovation in women’s wellness technology. And in 2025, she was honored as a finalist for the Atlanta Women in Technology Award for her leadership and impact in femtech.

But the accolades aren’t what make her story hit home for women like us.

In this conversation, Celine gets into the pivotal moment when she realized no one was coming to build this solution for her. The realities of creating a category-defining company in one of the most historically underfunded spaces in healthcare. And what it actually looks like to lead a health tech venture while managing the very condition that inspired it. She also breaks down how biofeedback-guided breathwork can help women stuck in chronic fight-or-flight, why the future of women’s health tech is shifting from passive tracking to active training, and what it means to put your body on the executive team.

For anyone juggling a demanding career, invisible symptoms, and maybe a business idea that feels “too personal” to pursue, this one’s worth your time.

Check out our interview with Celine Vignal below.

Celine Vignal, Founder of Seesaw Health

You spent decades navigating chronic migraines before founding Seesaw Health. Can you walk us through the pivotal moment when you realized you needed to create this solution yourself, and how your personal health journey shaped your approach to building the company?

Celine Vignal: For most of my adult life, migraines and inflammatory flare‑ups ran the show. I could be “on” and high‑functioning at work, then suddenly sidelined for days by pain, fatigue, and brain fog. The real breaking point was realizing that even with great doctors, I was effectively self‑managing a chronic condition with very little real‑time insight into what was inflaming my system and what was actually helping.

When I started experimenting with slow, structured breathwork, I saw something surprising: my flare‑ups became less intense and less frequent, my recovery was faster, and I had more stable energy. But there was no simple way to measure that shift or to know, “Is my nervous system actually calming down right now, or am I just hoping it is?” That gap is what led me to build Seesaw: a tool I wished I had years earlier, something that could translate invisible physiology into clear feedback, so women can understand their inflammation patterns and feel in control of their own levers.

Transitioning from two decades in sensor technology and marketing to founding a femtech startup is a significant pivot. What were the biggest challenges you faced in making that leap, and what skills from your previous career proved most valuable in building Seesaw Health?

Celine Vignal: On paper, it looks like a big pivot; in practice, it was a natural convergence of what I’d been doing for 20 years, working with sensors, complex systems, and behavior change, and what my own body was teaching me. The hardest part was less about technology and more about category‑building: convincing people that breathwork plus biosensing is not “nice‑to‑have wellness,” but a serious, evidence‑grounded way to modulate inflammation, stress, and symptoms.

What translated directly from my previous career was the ability to sit at the intersection of engineering, product, research, and storytelling. I understand how sensors work, how data behaves, and how to ground our decisions in evidence from clinical literature and real‑world testing, then translate all of that into plain language for a woman who is exhausted, in pain, and just wants something that fits into her real life. That research‑centric, user‑led approach, paired with a deep respect for experience design, has been invaluable in making the Egg feel playful (you actually play a game with your breath) and intuitive rather than clinical or intimidating.

As someone who has been named to the Forbes Next 1000 and recognized among the 50 Most Influential French in the U.S., what does success look like to you now compared to when you first started your entrepreneurial journey?

Celine Vignal: Early in my journey, success looked very external: titles, recognitions, big launches, growth curves. Being named to lists like Forbes Next 1000 or among the influential French in the U.S. was validating but also clarifying. It made me ask: “Okay, now that the spotlight is here, what do I actually want to use it for?”

Today, success is much more internal and relational. It looks like a woman telling us, “I finally understand what breathwork really is,” “I can feel and see I have more control over my anxiety,” or “It’s my secret reset tool”. On a personal level, success is being able to build something ambitious without sacrificing my own health again, proving that we can create high‑impact companies that are aligned with our biology instead of constantly fighting it.

For our audience who may be unfamiliar with biosensing technology, can you explain in simple terms how Seesaw’s egg biosensor works and what physiological signals it’s actually measuring to provide actionable feedback?

Celine Vignal: The Egg is a small, handheld device that you breathe into while you play a one‑minute game on your phone. Inside the Egg are two biosensors that look at two main things: how you’re breathing and how your nervous system is reacting to that breathing.

More specifically, it measures your breathing frequency and rhythm, and it tracks markers linked to your parasympathetic nervous system, often called the “rest‑and‑digest” system, through heart rate variability and related patterns. Your breathwork is fully guided, and the app then gives you instant feedback: it shows how well you’re hitting the target slow‑breathing zone (around 0.1 Hz), how your nervous system is shifting out of fight‑or‑flight, and how your consistency over time is impacting symptoms like sleep, migraines, anxiety, or perimenopausal flare‑ups.

The connection between nervous system regulation, cyclical inflammation, and chronic symptoms is fascinating but complex. How do you educate women about this mind-body connection without overwhelming them with medical jargon?

Celine Vignal: We start with what women already feel: “My symptoms flare around my cycle,” “Stress makes everything worse,” “Some days my body feels inflamed for no clear reason.” Then we build a simple bridge: your nervous system is like a volume knob for inflammation and pain; when it’s stuck in high alert, your body is more reactive, and when it is calmer, inflammation has a chance to dial down.

Instead of leading with pathways and jargon, we translate the science into concrete patterns they can see in the app with streaks, optimal zone target, and breathwork completion. From there, you can go deeper, we absolutely expand about vagal tone, the cholinergic anti‑inflammatory pathway, and HRV, but always layered on top of lived experience and visuals, not in place of them.

The femtech industry has grown exponentially, yet women’s health remains historically underfunded and under-researched. What gaps did you see in the market that Seesaw Health is uniquely positioned to fill?

Celine Vignal: I saw three big gaps. First, an enormous blind spot around chronic, “invisible” inflammatory conditions as in migraines, burnout, perimenopausal symptoms, and cyclical pain, where women are told to either medicate or meditate, with very little in between that’s personalized or measurable

Second, tools that talk about nervous system regulation but don’t show you whether your nervous system is actually regulating. Many apps are beautiful but still rely on guesswork; there’s no closed feedback loop between “I did the thing” and “My body responded like this.” Third, most devices have been designed around male physiology or general population averages, not women’s cyclical, hormonal realities. Seesaw is explicitly built for women’s patterns, symptoms, and life stages, from high‑stress careers to perimenopause, so our recommendations and tracking are grounded in their reality.

Many ambitious women in our community struggle with managing stress, hormonal shifts, and maintaining energy while pursuing demanding careers. How can biofeedback-guided breathwork specifically help women who feel they’re constantly in fight-or-flight mode?

Celine Vignal: When you’re in chronic fight‑or‑flight, your body is prioritizing survival, not long‑term health: digestion, hormones, and repair all get deprioritized. Biofeedback‑guided breathwork gives you a way to interrupt that loop in minutes instead of waiting for a vacation or a burnout crash to reset you.

By guiding you into very slow, rhythmic breathing and showing in real time when your parasympathetic system switches on, we’re essentially training your body to access its own “brake pedal” on demand. Over time, that translates into better stress tolerance, more stable energy, improved sleep, and, for many women, fewer or less intense flare‑ups of symptoms that used to feel random or out of their control.

You’ve described Seesaw’s mission as helping women “exit fight-or-flight mode quickly, naturally, and effectively.” What does that actually look like in practice for a woman juggling a high-pressure career, family responsibilities, external anxieties, and her own well-being?

Celine Vignal: In practice, it has to be fast, simple, and non‑performative. For a woman with a packed schedule, “regulation” can’t mean a 60‑minute routine; it looks more like one to three minutes before a big meeting, in the car after school pick‑up, or in bed before sleep.

With Seesaw, she picks up the Egg, does a one‑minute breathing game, and instantly sees whether her nervous system actually shifted gears. Over days and weeks, she can track how these micro‑sessions stack up: fewer 3 a.m. wake‑ups, less crashing at 2 p.m., or tearful moments that used to feel inexplicable. Getting out of fight-or-flight isn’t a vague promise of “someday.” It’s a practical skill: something she can notice, name, and practice in real time.

Many women in our audience face the challenge of being seen and heard in male-dominated industries. What advice would you give to women who are trying to establish themselves as thought leaders and experts in their fields?

Celine Vignal: My first advice is: let your lived experience count as data. For years, I discounted my own body’s signals because they didn’t fit the “standard” narrative; in hindsight, those signals were leading me to exactly the problem Seesaw exists to solve. When you anchor your expertise in both evidence and experience, your perspective becomes much harder to dismiss.

Second, pick a specific hill to stand on. For me, it’s the idea that nervous system regulation and inflammation are central to women’s everyday health, and that we deserve precise, convenient tools to engage with them. When you’re clear about your focus, it’s easier to show up consistently, on panels, in your writing, and in product decisions. Over time, that consistency is what builds thought leadership.

Managing a pioneering health tech company while dealing with your own chronic health condition requires incredible resilience. How do you personally practice what Seesaw Health preaches in terms of nervous system regulation and stress management?

Celine Vignal: I use the Egg myself, often multiple times a day. Before investor meetings, interviews, or big product decisions, I’ll do a one‑ or three‑minute session to make sure I’m responding from a regulated place rather than from adrenaline. Seeing my own nervous system data is a strong accountability partner; it’s hard to lie to yourself about “I’m fine” when your metrics say otherwise.

I also design my calendar around my physiology as much as possible: I cluster deep‑focus work when my energy and symptoms historically tend to be more stable, and I build in non‑negotiable decompression windows, even if they’re short. It’s not about perfect balance; it’s about not repeatedly asking my body to pay a price it has already told me it cannot sustain.

For women who are considering entrepreneurship but worry about the toll it might take on their health, relationships, and work-life balance, what would you tell them based on your own experience building Seesaw Health?

Celine Vignal: Entrepreneurship will amplify whatever is already there, your passion, your stress patterns, your boundaries, your blind spots. I would never tell a woman, “Don’t do it”; I would say, “Do it with your eyes open and your body on the executive team.”

Practically, that means building regulation and recovery into the business model from day one: How will you protect your sleep? What are your personal non‑negotiables? How will you notice early signs of burnout rather than waiting for a collapse? If you design your company as if you were a replaceable, endlessly resilient machine, it will cost you; if you design it around your actual biology and values, entrepreneurship can be an incredibly healing and liberating path.

Looking ahead, where do you see Seesaw Health in the next five years, and more broadly, how do you envision the future of women’s health technology evolving?

Celine Vignal: In five years, I see Seesaw as a go‑to nervous‑system and inflammation companion for women across key life stages, early career, fertility and postpartum, perimenopause and beyond, integrated not just into wellness routines but into clinical and workplace settings. We’re already exploring how our biosensing and breathwork framework can support broader pain, hormonal, and sleep pathways, and I expect our ecosystem to expand accordingly.

More broadly, I believe women’s health tech is moving from tracking to training: from passively logging symptoms to actively reshaping physiology in ways women can feel and measure. The future is personalized, data‑informed, and deeply humane, tools that respect women’s time, intelligence, and complexity while giving them simple, tangible ways to feel better in their own bodies. Seesaw is one piece of that future, and I’m excited to help build it alongside many other innovators in this space.