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Hi, my name is Michelle Gellis and I am going to be speaking to you today about the benefits of microneedling for acupuncturists. I wanted to say thank you to the American Acupuncture Council for this opportunity, and we’re going to go to our first.
Over here. As this is a picture of me, for those of you who don’t know me and today as I mentioned, we’re going to be talking about the benefits of microneedling and micro needle noodling. What it is the use of tiny needles to beautify the skin. And this can be like a microneedle pen or a microneedle Derma roller, and, or what’s called a hydro roller or a Hydra needle, which is a little device where you put liquid in and you.
Infuse it into your skin directly. So all of these different devices are very modern ways of beautifying the skin, but they are based on the Chinese principles of using needles to beautify the skin, which is something that’s been done for thousands of people. And it is not just so it is preventative as well as it is restorative.
And it doesn’t just work on the outside. Microneedling if done by an acupuncturist will work on the inside as well. The principles and the practice of microneedling is almost identical to practices that we already have of either circling the dragon to treat a scar or some sort of just chromia in the scan or.
Intradermal needles or a seven star hammer, like a plum blossom needle for things such as hair loss and other skin concerns. And seven star hammers are used in Chinese medicine to treat blood stagnation, neuropathy, scars, and alopecia, but we can do the same thing with some of these other more modern.
Devices. So here is a photograph of a, what we call a dark spot or a liver spot. And Yeah, little wrinkles that might form around the lips or in the nasal labial area. Typically we will take small intradermal needles and insert them with tweezers, superficially to bring blood and Xi to the area. We can also thread larger needles and doing things like this helps to release.
Stagnation, any sort of fascial adhesions, which can cause the skin to fold and wrinkle and help to encourage the growth of healthy cells. So these are things that we can do with regular acupuncture needles. But this can also be done with a Derma roller or with a micro-needling pen. And this will mimic the, these are modern ways of mimicking some of these ancient techniques.
When I teach microneedling in my classes, I do. So as part of a holistic TCM practice, I incorporate my five element. I’m a traditionally trained five element acupuncturist, and I incorporate it as part of my. Overall system of health and wellness. So I do my diagnosis either your five element or TCM Dyke neurosis, and then you would use body points to help to build the cheap yen blood move stagnation, move, stagnant, fluid, stagnant sheet, stagnant blood.
And this is all in service of treating the outside because in order to treat the inside, you have to treat the outside and vice versa in order to treat the outside, you have to treat the inside. Here is a map of the face. And one of the principles of our medicine of course, is the connection between our skin and our internal organs.
And this is actually mapped out on the face as a microsystem where different parts of the face, when you treat them, it affects. Different organ systems.
So what are some of the things you might use microneedling for in your treatment room for a cosmetic. Purposes, it can be used for fine lines, acne scars, loose skin, and large pores, crows feet, lip wrinkles, any sort of dark spots or melasma things like stretch marks and even hair restoration. Many people have suffered post COVID hair loss and microneedling can help them.
So how exactly does it work and what does it do? From a Western standpoint, when you puncture the skin, when you make little holes in the skin, your body is stimulated to build its own collagen. Plus if there’s any products you’re using, like I showed this little Germa stamp here. The Hydrus stamped.
You can put fluid in here and infuse it directly into the skin. If you are, even if you’re just Derma rolling, or if you’re using a microneedle pen, you put your products on and then when you. Use these needling devices, these microneedling devices, it helps to infuse it because many of the products that we use, we put them on our skin and they never get absorbed.
So what are some of the benefits of microneedle Lang versus maybe some of the Western treatments, some of the more invasive treatment. That people are having done, whether it’s fillers or toxins, such as Botox with microneedling this very little downtime, it’s very low risk. It’s very effective.
There are many clinical studies many clinical studies that have been done. If you go to my website, which I’ll show you at the end. If you go to my website, you can see many articles that I’ve linked to and blog posts that I’ve written on this. So it’s very low risk. It’s very effective and it allows your body to produce collagen.
Naturally it can help with stretch marks, acne scars can decrease hair loss, encourage new hair growth. Like with eyebrows. As we get older, we lose the tails on our eyebrows can help with. Wrinkles on the neck and within cosmetic acupuncture, the neck can be a really difficult area to treat. So when you’re dealing with the neck, those fine lines around the lips crow’s feet.
So areas that would require a lot of small needles, the microneedling devices can address those. It is not painful or most cases it’s not painful. And the results last a long time. So the needles create these little micro channels and then a micro channel stimulate a healing response and collagen and elastin are produced.
And when that happens, the skin becomes firmer. Any depressed scars, start to gradually. Diminish, and this will help to smooth the wrinkles over time. You can do microneedle laying on your face, your neck, your scalp, your stomach, your thighs, your arms, pretty much anywhere on the body. You don’t want to do it inside the orbital rim on the red part of your lips or Ani, any mucus membrane.
So here’s just a little refresher. Here is a cross section of scan. And when we’re microneedling, we are just working right in this top layer here, the epidermis and the collagen induction therapy. As I mentioned, works on the wound healing responses. There is this all. Inflammatory reaction that happens.
And then the body recognizes it’s been injured and it makes nice new, healthy skin. So here’s a, just an example. This would be with a Derma pen, but it looks very similar with a Derma roller dermis stamp and you can see how it creates temporary little. Micro wounds or microtraumas, and then the body heals itself.
So if you’re already doing cosmetic acupuncture, like what are the differences and what are the similarities? So with micro needle, Lang you’re working very much on the skin level, the fine lines, any depressed scars, you don’t want to go over raise scars. With the nano needle. So there are little nano needles that you can get for the microneedle pen, which you actually can use inside the orbital rim and on the red part of the lab.
And the results happen fairly quickly. There’s a little downtime depending on how deep you go. And then the results are very long lasting up to five years with cosmetic acupuncture, your really working with the underlying causes of aging. You’re going much deeper till the muscle, the fascia you’re working with the blood and the cheek.
And it’s much better for the sagging skin jowling and your patient is going to need 12 to 24 treatments with microneedling. It’s four to six treatments and there’s no downtime with cosmetic acupuncture. So what can you expect? This is someone before treatment, during treatment and after treatment, they really should just be a little pink.
Like they have a sunburn, there should be no bleeding. Germer rolling. However can be done in your office. Or you can sell your patient a Derma roller and. Have them take it home and with proper instruction, they can do self care between treatments, which is really great. So here are some before and after pictures of a microneedle laying, this was with the microneedle pen.
So here are acne scars, and then you can see these fine lines around the crow’s feet around the eyes. And this is actually a picture of me. This was before I had done any microneedling on my eyebrows and this was after. And you can see not only is my entire brow thicker, but I have new growth in here where I didn’t have much of anything going on before.
And I don’t have any eyebrow pencil or eyebrow mascara going on here. You can see my eyebrows now. So I’ve been microneedling my eyebrows for about six months now. And I started to notice a change after about eight weeks. It was quite astounding. How do you set up your pricing? Let’s say you were already doing microneedling.
You already know all of this stuff, but you’re not quite sure about pricing and maybe how to market it. So the way that pricing is set up, typically with microneedling is. You’re going to charge per session. And depending on where in the country you are treating is how you would market your per session treatment and your packages.
Now one way that you can find out, what is a good price where you live is to maybe call some of the Medi spas and see what they’re charging. The caveat to that is I always do full body acupuncture along with my microneedling. So I put the body points in and I put, if I’m going to use numbing cream, I put the numbing cream on.
And then I come back in and take the numbing cream off and I do my microneedle. And so my patients tend to be on the table for about a half an hour. And so you want to price accordingly? Taking into account the fact that you are giving them an acupuncture treatment as well. And also depending on where you’re practicing in the country, you have to check with your local acupuncture board and make sure it’s okay for you to do packages, but you can also do a package because most people are not going to be satisfied with treatment until they’ve had at least four treatments spread out once a month.
Some other pricing options are to maybe only do the brows. Some people only want their mouth area done. Now with microneedle Lang you could do someone’s brows and then give them a. Cosmetic acupuncture treatment afterwards with the mouth area. What I have done with my patients who have a lot of lip wrinkles instead of using a lot of intradermal needles is I’ll put the numbing cream on I’ll do their body point.
And then I do any lifting points, points around the eyes, forehead, things of that nature. And then I come back in, take all the needles out in the fairs, take off the numbing cream and I do the microneedle and around the mouth, you can also just do neck and chest. You can do the back of the hands.
Microneedling is very effective for the back of the hand. And I don’t know if you can see my hands I’ve been, I am right now as of this recording, I am 60 and I hit don’t have any of those dark spots on the back of my hands. And I credit it all to microneedling because I started out many years ago when I was in my four days doing a Derma rolling on the back of mine.
Whatever CRM I used on my face, I put her on the back of my hands and then I would roll it in and then I would wash my face and it just helped everything absorb. So the vitamin C serum that I used really got absorbed very well. And I really feel like it’s helped my neck and the back of my hands and my overall.
Skin health doing the DerMarr walling. And then during the past year, I’ve started microneedling all myself with the microneedle pen as well. Also you can do knees and elbows, which Or another place where people tend to age along their elbows around their knees. And if someone has stretch marks, so these can be like standalone treatments and you can just decide how much you want to charge.
I’ve given you an idea of what I charge in my treatment space. And but you want to check around and see what’s going on with. As far as the microneedle pens, what you want to look for in a device is something that has a minimum of 14,000 RPMs. And that’s the speed. So when you’re turning it on, they have.
I could get my camera here. They have different levels and whatever speed you set it at when it’s at the highest speed, it should be a minimum of 14,000. This one goes to 18,000. Also, you want to look for that? The tip is a bayonet tip, which means that instead of just a little point of tip, it has a couple of connectors that you can put right in, turn it having a pen that comes with a couple of batteries is great.
And then if the battery does. Being able to screw it off and have a plug-in attachment is wonderful as well. Look at the warranty and make sure that the settings are easy to read that there’s a guide on it. And that you can tell. Where you’re setting the needle depth. So you’d be able to easily adjust and see the needle depth and also.
That it comes with a good user’s manual product support. And ideally it should have some marketing material that come with it. So you don’t have to go through the process of printing out brochures, coming up with information for your website, et cetera. And training, making sure that you get properly trained on whatever device you’re using is very important as well.
And so this is just talking a little bit about the side products. When you’re looking at products, you want something that is organic, so it doesn’t have chemicals in it. You will have patients that are vegan. They’re not going to want animal products or something. That’s vegan, something that’s easily absorbed.
And has properties that brighten the skin, nourish the skin, won’t clog the reporters, something that reduces inflammation, the products that I use have arnica and CBD. And and you want some after-care products for after you’ve done the treatment? I have arnica and aloe. Product that I give to my patients.
And then you want it to be slippery if it’s not slippery enough that you’re going to get drag on your device. This AccuLift skincare is my company, and I mentioned you can go to my website. AccuLift skincare.com for. Information on microneedling in general, you don’t have to be a customer.
There’s many blog posts and many pieces of information about microneedling in general. And I also teach cosmetic acupuncture classes. This is my website, facial acupuncture classes.com. All of my classes are recorded and they. Carrie CE use. I think that is my last slide. Next week we have Yair Maimon and he will be presenting for the American Acupuncture Council.
And I want to thank AAC again for having me on again, and I will see you again next time.