Are you happy with the amount of new patients you have coming in? And the other question is where are you going? Do you have a plan? Do you have a strategy? Do you have a way of knowing that if you do X, you will receive X number of new patients coming in and what are your roadblocks?
Disclaimer: The following is an actual transcript. We do our best to make sure the transcript is as accurate as possible, however, it may contain spelling or grammatical errors.Due to the unique language of acupuncture, there will be errors, so we suggest you watch the video while reading the transcript.
Hi folks, Jeffrey Grossman here. And thank you AAC for writing you back for another installment of sharing insights and knowledge and wisdom about growing your practice and marketing. So before I go further, I want to ask you three questions and these are important questions that I asked all of my coaching clients and the questions.
Where are you currently in your practice? Are you happy with. Development. Are you happy with its growth? Are you happy with the amount of new patients you have coming in? And the other question is where are you going? Do you have a plan? Do you have a strategy? Do you have a way of knowing that if you do X, you will receive X number of new patients coming in and what are your roadblocks?
What is. Keeping you from going out there and growing your practice and marketing, or doing social media or doing health fairs and things of that nature. So those are just three questions that I would love to just put out there and have you comment below if you’d like, and just to keep in the back of your mind as we go through today’s presentation.
Right now you have expertise that the world needs right now, probably more than ever. People are suffering. They’re looking for what you have to offer, but most likely they don’t really know what you have to offer. And I’m sure you would agree that most patients understand that acupuncture is really great with pain because that’s what it’s most widely known for.
But what about everything else? Like immune support and allergies and improving sleep and increasing chances of making babies and families. Many people are looking for these solutions, but they don’t even know that you can be that go to practitioner for them to help them get what they’re looking for.
So how do you make more people aware of you and all the things that you can help with? Part of this challenge is that you need to put on your business hat and get out there and do the work of marketing your practice. And that’s what I’ve been sharing all these weeks on AAC, these tools, these tips, these different ways to grow and build your practice.
My name is Jeffrey Grossman, and I am the founder and owner of acupuncture, media works and Accu perfect websites and Accu downloads. So I’ve been in this world of marketing and business development since 2002. So quite some time. So before we get into this marketing aspect, you need to know that your practice.
That your business needs to be rooted in a solid foundation of proper messages. Business modeling service offerings, pricing fees, and systems. And when you have all of these things in place, you’ll stand out from the friendly neighborhood competition and position yourself as the go-to acupuncturist in your community.
So today we are going to talk about three critical success factors that are really important for every acupuncture clinic that creates a solid foundation to grow your. So the three critical success factors are clarity, which is who you are, what you offer and why you’re different focus, which is who you serve.
What problems do you solve and decisions, which is marketing tools and how you find prospects and how you set up systems in your practice. Okay. So the first one is clarity and clarity is all about getting really clear on you and your practice and how you stand out. And this is the biggest thing that I find when I work with my coaching clients is they’re not really clear on who they are and what makes them different, because most of acupuncture’s I’m an acupuncturist because I can treat all these different conditions under the sun and help out all these different people with all these different problems.
That’s great, but there’s, there, there needs to be more defining of the clarity of your messaging in that way. So you’ve got to ask yourself two questions in order to help clarify this message. Who are you like? So who are you as an acupuncturist? What do you do? What makes you different? Why should people choose you over the practitioner down the street?
What do you offer? What is the transformation that you can affect to happen with people that seek you out for their care by what? How would their life look differently after they see you? Then before they saw you. So what can they do now after the treatment plan and after their protocols with you, they weren’t able to do in the past and why you’re different?
What makes you different from the next practitioner down the street? Good. Cause last time I looked at there’s a lot of acupuncturists all over the country, especially in concentrated in places like New York and LA and Florida and see. And most acupuncturists are just out there saying, Hey, I’m an acupuncturist.
And I serve all these different people and all these different conditions and that’s fine. But when you get clear on who you are, right? And I’m not saying who you are with regards to my name’s Jeffrey and I’m owning these businesses, but who are you in regards to a practitioner? Meaning what is unique about.
And your offer and the transformation that only you can offer the people that seek you out. Okay. If you have any concerns on not really sure what, you feel free to reach out to me, feel free to comment on this video. And I would be more than happy to help clarify this aspect for you. Okay.
The next aspect on the three different success factors is for. Getting laser-focused on exactly who you serve and exactly the problems that only view solve. Okay. So what’s unique about you. What’s different about you that can resonate with your clients. Do you perform gentle needling techniques that, that, that are pain-free?
Do you just offer techniques that are that are, that, that are Japanese type of needles that don’t even penetrate the skin? Do you offer a special type of cupping or guash Shaw or TuiNa? That is really. Unique about you. So one of the things that I have my clients do is to make a list of all of the things that you do that.
And then we pick out the things that are really incredibly unique about you, and that helps position. You helps you stand out differently from the next practitioner down the street. Okay. And part of really understanding what this is. Finding out what resonates with your clients. Okay. And the only way to really understand what resonates with your clients is to really dive deep into exactly who you serve and exactly the type of problems that you solve.
So for instance, if somebody is coming in for infertility issues, what’s their problem, what do they want to have resolved or affected in their life that will make their life transfer? They want to be more fertile. They want to be able to hold a pregnancy to term. They want to have a family and a child.
That is going to be a different conversation than let’s say somebody who comes in big, because they’re training for the next triathlon. And they they have, they want to either just get stronger. They want to prevent injuries. That is going to be a different set of conversations and communications that you have with that.
Sports minded person versus that family, fertility minded person. So really getting clear around who exactly you’re serving in your practice. And I know a lot of practitioners are like I treat everybody. I am just a general practitioner, which is true and which is fine, but there needs to be something that makes you stand out differently than the next practitioner down the street.
Something that’s unique about you. And in order to do that, you’ve got to figure out what problems do you solve. So that goes into the what’s in it for me. So what’s in it for your patients in that respect. So your patients are coming to you because they want to have a family, right? They want to have babies.
So they want to know what’s in it for them. You’re going to provide fertility treatments to support them so they can come to term with their babies. Okay. They somebody who’s coming into you for sports support or sports medicine, they want to do have their ankles and their legs stronger. So they can perform better at their next race where they can win medals or whatever it is that they want.
So when you get clear and you get focused on who you serve and the problems that you self. You are moving closer to tapping into these critical success factors that only you offer that’s different than your competition. And then the next part of this is making decisions. And that means what types of marketing tools will you be using?
Where will you be searching to find your best prospects and your new patients, and how will you build up a following? With your offerings. Okay. So you need a deep understanding first of what your patients want, what they need, what they value. And from that, you can develop content that addresses those problems or those challenges that, keep them up at night, so to speak.
So for instance, if you are embarking upon doing social media marketing, or even email marketing for your clientele and they are looking for. Create a family, your social media strategy. We’ll be doing. It will look different. The branding will be different than somebody who is trying to win their next race.
You’re going to have different strategies, different images, different things that will, that you’ll be using for your. For your marketing plan in order to keep it moving forward. So you’ll have images of babies and families and maybe soft colors. If you’re looking for fertility patients, whereas if you’re looking for sports medicine, you’ll have people running or.
Track or I don’t know what, but there’s but there are different strategies that you need to make decisions on with your marketing tools on which, and what you should use. Okay. So you’ve got to ask yourself, when you start with your marketing, you have to make sure that it’s valuable, right?
And that your marketing ads of value. Before you money exchanges hands before people schedule their first treatment with you. It’s got to be valuable for them where they look at this and they’re like, oh, that looks interesting. I need to seek that out and check that out. Couple of things to think about is your marketing and the information that you’re providing them.
Is it leaving them better off than they were when they first saw, are you offering something that they actually want or need, are you offering and teaching and giving them actionable things to make their life better? So let’s say you are talking about fertility. We’re just going to go with the fertility in sports, because that’s where we started with.
And maybe you can talk about. Recipes and social media that enhanced fertility, maybe if you’re talking about sports, you can talk about different ways to stretch or different types of techniques to support shin splints or something like that. So different conversation, different prospect, different people that you’re working with.
Because your marketing needs to be hyper relevant to what their problem is or their pain or their concern is. And it needs to motivate your audience to take action. All right. And one of the biggest things that I noticed when I worked with my clients is that when they do any type of marketing, they miss one very important piece of that marketing, which is calls to action.
So when you do any type of marketing or when you do any talk or when you do any health fair or at any networking event, it’s really. For you to have calls to action. Now what those are different ways to motivate a prospect to literally step foot into your practice. So for instance, if you have, if you’re in the sports medicine field and you are at a a running event, Do you think would be a motivational tool or a motivational something that will motivate that person to take their first step to literally come into your practice?
Maybe you would offer them a sports acceleration assessment where you go through, certain points. So maybe Osher points and find out maybe where there are underlying balances that may be leading to potential future. Same thing with infertility. What type of call to action can you use to get families in, to.
To, to state, to step foot in your practice. So maybe you can offer like a seven point assessment on, to see how fertile people are or aren’t, maybe it’s a questionnaire that you offer them. And then at the bottom of that, you invite them into get an evaluation. Okay. So that’s the ultimate goal of any marketing that you do is to get people to take action.
Okay. So once. Got your success factors in place of clarity, focused and decisions. Where, how do you find new patients? Okay. So there’s different ways. There’s internal marketing, external marketing, online marketing. Okay. Those are the three different avenues that you should be participating in right now.
Internal marketing are using is patient education. It’s in-house of events. It’s having a reactivation, how to react to. Patient’s plan. It’s getting testimonials, it’s offering a referral jive it’s things that you do inside the clinic to motivate referrals and to motivate a deeper awareness around what you do and how you offer this medicine.
External marketing relates to content like social media videos, newsletters, blog posts, webinars, and tele-health. These are all aspects that will help you. Maintain and obtain focus on growing your practice. And then you’ve got online marketing, which is making sure that you’ve got your website dialed in correctly because all leads all in.
Goes to your website first. So if your website isn’t focused on what we talked about earlier clarity so if I go to your website and I’m not clear on what you offer. If I can not get your website, it’s not like clear that oh, Jeffrey offers sports medicine or Jeffrey offers fertility treatments that needs to change because you only have a few seconds to capture people’s attention before they before you lose them.
So you all leave. Point to your website and it’s really important. So another thing to have is, Google plus and Google, my business is to be set up, need to have emails on your website to capture leads and paid ads are really helps. Helpful. Okay. In conclusion without clarity and focus and decisions, your strategy is always changing your tactics.
Your tactics will become scattered. There’ll become exhausting for you and your results will become inconsistent and you’ll lose motivation and interest in the idea of marketing and growing your practices. I was there. I hosted yoga, Merde and yoga classes back in the early days of my practice. And that was the way that I would attract people to come into, to visit me.
I would offer free community Meridian, yoga classes. And the first few times I did it, there was. The first three times I did it, there was zero people in the class, but I get it. Anyway. Fourth time I had two people in the class. Third, the fifth time I had five people in the class and then the six time and moving forward, I had upwards of eight to 10 people in the class.
And from that class alone, it really helped me to grow my practice directly and through referrals. Even though it was my, it was sub par with regards to my initial thoughts on marketing. I stuck with it. I became consistent and hammered it in and did it and stop and made it happen and it became successful.
So when you get clear about these three important success factors, the marketing that you do will be 100 times better, it’d be more focused and more productive. So who are you? What are you passionate about? What are your patients passionate about? What do they want to learn? What do they want to do? How do they want their life to look differently after they come see you?
These are questions to ask yourself. Okay. So finally, as you work through your business here’s some thoughts that I want to leave you with. Then these are three very important questions to be asking yourself, how do you stand out from the noise and get attention by what makes you different?
Okay. And who are your ideal prospects at patient? And who do you want to fill your clinic with? Who are your ideal patients that you just love? You see them on your schedule. You’re like you lighten up, you brighten up and it’s beautiful as opposed to the ones that you see in your schedule. And it’s oh, I can work through this.
It was, you don’t want. Clinic with those people. You want to fill your clinic with the people that raise your energy. So who are those ideal patients and how will you get in front of your ideal patients? Like where are they? Where’s their head at? What are they looking at every day in order to in order, social media, or are they reading books or are they on Instagram or Facebook?
So I want to remind you that you are never alone, that I am here for you. If you’ve got any questions and concerns, please feel free to reach out to me. You can reach me on Facebook or you reach me at acupuncturemediaworks.com. You can reach me at acudownloads.com and I. Your time. I appreciate you spending a few moments with me here today.
And again, thank you AAC for inviting me back yet to do another installment and share some insights and information. So join us this Friday, where Lorne Brown will come on and share some more insights and business tips with you. Thank you very much. Take care.
Disclaimer: The following is an actual transcript. We do our best to make sure the transcript is as accurate as possible, however, it may contain spelling or grammatical errors.Due to the unique language of acupuncture, there will be errors, so we suggest you watch the video while reading the transcript.
Hi everyone. This is Sam Collins, your coding and billing expert for acupuncture, the American Acupuncture Council. And of course, just the profession. Welcome to another episode to always help you get your practice uplifted, make sure you’re getting paid for what you do, because that’s what I do. We try to make sure that you get your claims paid, can get paid for your services.
One of the questions that I get quite a bit, is, can I get reimbursed for codes beyond pain? Now, of course, I’ve been teaching acupuncture seminars now for some 26 years, and so we often get people saying what’s now what was then truthfully, if you went back to a seminar I did in the nineties or early two thousands, there were very little reimbursement beyond simply pain that has changed quite a bit.
We still have to understand, that it’s not quite as open as we would like, but much more so it’s good to know what will get paid and can I get paid beyond pain? So let’s go to the slides. Let’s take a look at what’s occurring here. What’s going on with insurance and reimbursements for acupuncture now as always, here’s my email.
Here’s our website as well, but let’s focus in on acupuncture covering. When insurance has to pay, what do they pay for? And I think this is often where people get off track. The assumption is, oh, they pay for everything. Not quite. And there can be nuances that some will pay for more than others. In fact, there’s one that honestly will pay for everything, which I’ll give you a demonstration of.
One of the things we have to think of is how do people foresee or what do they see when they think of acupuncture? Think of it. Ask your friends, ask an acquaintance. What do you think? I. What do we treat in acupuncture? And I think you’ll invariably give you it’s pain and have an ignorance toward, and it’s part of our.
I think to make sure they understand we do more than that. So by example, I’m showing two offices this year that have some signs up near their office or in their office that talks about the things they treat. Notice this one on the left talks about fatigue, stress, anxiety, depression. And in fact, they don’t get down to anything towards pain until the very end, because how many times people have these types of conditions and think, oh, they don’t associate it that way.
Is there coverage for it? I think partly is making sure people know that acupuncture can treat. And more importantly, or maybe not more importantly, but just as a. Can I get my insurance to pay for it. Look at this other one, they talk about pain first, but then brings in things like anxiety, depression, Bell’s palsy.
Heck I think a Justin Bieber, if you’re familiar with his condition probably should be getting some help from an acupuncturist. So it’s really understanding what do plans cover. Can it be more than just pain? Cause that’s what. Obviously, many of you are aware of the American specialty health model, which I will call the musculoskeletal model or an often I’ll think of it as the physical therapy chiropractic model in that what they cover things like headaches, hip, or knee pain associated with arthritis or extremity pain with arthritis or other mechanical irritation, meaning strains and sprains, or just pain syndromes of the joints and soft tissues back and neck pain.
So you can see here for the most. It’s mostly just pain. A little bit to Nazi with pregnancy, but notice nothing here about abdominal pain or how about anxiety, depression, or anything else beyond that generally? No. Now the good news is pain is often what you’re going to have with any condition, how it manifests itself, but this can be fairly limiting and for many plans can be.
So by example, is there something I can do more than. And not all carriers are the same. There are going to be differences between each of these. And I’m going to demonstrate some of the differences that you’ll see among these to start to give you an idea of it. I’m going to recommend this is why you want to get more continued education with programs like ours, to really get the full breadth of what can be covered and the nuances from state to state region.
So by example, here’s the newest Aetna protocol. And as you’re probably aware all Aetna policies that are now from their commercial line have to cover acupuncture, but you’ll notice here it’s still pretty limited. It’s limited because it says it covers neck pain and headaches, low back pain, nausea, arthritis, chemotherapy-induced nausea and TMJ disorders.
That’s good. This is a pretty nice. Only pain, but it is when you look at these other than the arthritis, so this one could be pretty limited. The good news is Aetna will tell you what codes they cover. So here’s their list, everything from migraines, all the way down to postoperative pain to the teeth.
So pretty limited. Now the thing that this list says though, is that it’s not all inclusive. So the difficulty is you get a list like this and you think, okay, great. This is what I know they’re going to cover. You build these, they pay it, but are there other things that I can do. That they may pay. What we have found is generally other joint pain, but I’ve had a few offices believe it or not with.
That have been covered for anxiety, depression, with the code M 48.1, certainly something you could venture into and just say, if I’m treating that, is it a possibility? Many of them are working concurrently with some type of medical provider treating it as well, but you can dip your toe. What I can say is this one though is pretty straightforward.
This is what they’re doing. Without question, as you can see. That’s pretty much pain Sam. What about Cigna now? Cigna, this is their newest coverage and they cover a lot of things. You’ll notice here in the bullets that says tension types, headaches, migraines, musculoskeletal joint, nausea, post-surgical pain and chemotherapy induced nausea.
So you’ll notice it again is still along the pain. Now this list from Cigna though is vast. If you tell me any joint with a stranger. Or any type of pain to a joint, they’re going to cover it. Myalgia, fibromyalgia. You bet pretty ubiquitous, but again, is it beyond pain? Not really. Not until you get into companies like this particular one.
This is the company Evercore. And to give you the background, Evercore is behind the scenes for most of the products that are sold under Anthem, meaning blue cross blue shield. United health care. And of course, Optum and you’ll notice right off the bat, what they cover are pretty much pain codes. You’ll see.
Okay. The neck, the back musculoskeletal, cervical cranial lumbal sacral pain. But then you’ll notice that the very end of the list, it says internal medical conditions, and this is something that’s remarkable and has been around now for about three years. Take a look at what things. Adjunct cancer care.
Now I want to be careful. They’re not saying they cover to treat cancer, but they’re paying you to treat the symptoms associated, the nausea, the vomiting, the other conditions associated with it. Notice also the mental health conditions. These are things like PTSD. Believe it or not anorexia bulemia but also depression, anxiety.
I would suggest, always be working with probably concurrently, but at the same token, this is something they’re not saying no to notice allergic rhinitis, adjunct post-stroke dry eye syndrome, constipation prostititus pain, asthma irritable bowel. Of course the vomiting you’ll stupid. Look at the very last one medical.
And this particular one, they’re not covering menopause just to say what are we treating you? Don’t you’re actually treating insomnia. And hot flashes. So there’s really been a great growth here. Now I’m going to recommend, again, probably to dig in a little bit more. This is what we do, and that are more advanced or navigating the insurance seminars.
But you can see here while this is a little beyond, I particularly really hope some of the offices that when I first taught seminars, always taught to say, Hey, let’s talk about the code you get paid for. And they said, we didn’t do an internal medicine. I said we didn’t because it’s not paid. Now you can see here.
This is beginning to get paid. Now this company again, I did Anthem’s Optum’s are going to be more or less. In addition. What about another company like health partners? I know a lot of you in the Midwest area will see this one and they do have a pretty good amount of coverage for all the musculoskeletal things as you’ll see here.
But it goes beyond that. Look at section V here, PMs or menstrual disorders. In fact, they give a list of codes and you’ll notice here things like interstitial cystitis, Macedonia, menstrual disorders, vomiting, but take a look at the last. Weakness fatigue, malaise. There’s a lot of change that’s occurring that there’s going to be more so it begins, start asking, will this plan cover and don’t be afraid to ask, does it cover fatigue?
Does it cover abdominal pain? Will it cover prostititus pain, things of that nature to know, because not often as much as I’m showing you this list, does every insurance company produce a little. Not always. So we want dig a little bit further to say what’s covered and I would suggest start keeping a list.
That’s one of the things we emphasize in our program to know the codes that are covered or not covered that way. You have the best idea of making sure you get the best benefit. One thing we want to be clear with the patient, what’s going to be covered. Don’t be fooled. Don’t let your patient before. If you’re not sure something is covered, don’t be afraid to say we will bill your insurance.
And we hope they cover, but we’re never going to guarantee that’s the downside. People want to make people or patients believe everything’s going to be covered. You’re going to give, we’re going to bill your insurance confidently with the condition you have. Will your insurance absolutely cover. We can’t guarantee it until once we build now, here’s the beauty of this start collecting this data.
Does this insurance pay this particular diagnosis? Keep in mind. Most of you don’t use a lot of diagnosis and that’s okay because you see a lot of the same things, but begin to learn which ones are or are not covered. Notice this one here. If someone just comes in and says, I feel tired, health partners is going to cover it, but take a look.
This is one of my latest VA. For the VA take a look at this. This is just this may and notice what it is. Provisional diagnosis, tobacco use to help console the patient there. Now the VA is authorizing for some people to go, let’s try acupuncture to help with this addiction. Notice it says to assist with smoking cessation.
So have we changed? Is there more access to what you do? Yeah, because it’s beginning to be recognized. It’s one of the reasons we’re moving towards ICD 11 is to make sure that we can better account for all the things that acupuncture can do. My hope is we move to something like this. One, take a look for any of you that are in Massachusetts.
You have the Mecca of coverage, blue cross blue shield of Massachusetts. Now covers is in way that most aren’t even aware of. I want to see every state do this. Acupuncture benefits for 12 visits per year, for any reason. So this particular plan is saying, I don’t care what you have. We’re going to cover you for 12 visits.
In other words, an acupuncturist can be an acupuncturist, treat what you’re seeing, not to try to fit into some other guidelines. Notice here, all the things they’re talking about, dental pain, addictions, headaches, menstrual tennis, elbow, fibromyalgia. Now some of that is painted up, but notice digestive, emotional ear, nose, and throat.
Gynecological issues, literally anything. My hope is that we continue to move forward this way, because part of the best way for acupuncturists to get coverage is to collect data among what we treat. So imagine someone with let’s look neurological that has Parkinson’s disease, and we start to collect data that wow, people who have Parkinson’s that get acupuncture have resulted better from.
Do you think that might be something that will be more useful for the patient, but also for the insurance, remember acupuncture is always going to be the more economical choice. And so the movement forward is acupuncture. Can’t be hidden. It works and it works with. So as a consequence, better coverage. So I want to start to say to you, get out and look nowhere you can go.
That’s why we offer this service called the network, get an expert, which means me on your staff. Just hold your phone up to that. QR code will bring you right to the site so you can dig into this. Our Accu code has this list as well. We want to make sure you have the best information. Or no one it’s not going to be paid.
The American acupuncture council is your ally and your resource. Our group is the network. You can go to our site, take a look. Obviously many of you are insured with us as well, but at the same token, we want to be a resource that you can be helped to make sure that your practice continues to thrive and grow.
And that’s going to be about access to your. So I’m going to say to all of you, thanks for that time. Next week house will be Jeffrey Grossman, as always, I’ll say to you, it’s good to be important, more important to be good, be that person to your patient, make sure they can get access to care. The number one problem with acupuncture is people not understanding what you do and gaining access and gain their trust.
Let them try it. They’re going to get better. See you next time.
So as acupuncturists, we are all required to do some ethics training. Things will come up when you’re dealing with taking care of your facial and your cosmetic acupuncture patients that are a little different than your traditional patients.
Disclaimer: The following is an actual transcript. We do our best to make sure the transcript is as accurate as possible, however, it may contain spelling or grammatical errors.Due to the unique language of acupuncture, there will be errors, so we suggest you watch the video while reading the transcript.
Hi, my name’s Michelle Gellis and I would like to thank the American Acupuncture Council for giving me this opportunity to present on Ethics in Facial Acupuncture. I’m ready for the first slide.
So as acupuncturists, we are all required to do some ethics training. And over the years I have a full acupuncture practice and cosmetic and facial acupuncture practice. And what I have come to know to be true is that frequently. Things will come up when you’re dealing with taking care of your facial and your cosmetic acupuncture patients that are a little different than your traditional patients.
And so I put this I put a course together it’s a two hour CEU course to cover. Facial acupuncture, ethics. And this is an overview of that little bit about me. For those of you who don’t know me. I was on faculty with the Maryland university of integrative health from 2003 to 2021. And I teach facial acupuncture classes internationally.
Here are some of my publications. You can look them up. On my website, which is facial acupuncture, classes.com and there is the NCC a O M code of ethics. Now each state will have its own code of ethics, but since this is a nationally broadcast show, I put up the NCCC Aon, a O M code of ethics just as a guideline.
And in a nutshell, the code of ethics state that you will work within your scope. You will practice integrity and respect, and you will also. Participate in events like this that helped to contribute your learning. And so the topics I want to talk about in the time we have together is an overview of communication.
So the ethics of communication, how do you see. With your patients in an ethical fashion, the ethics of contract. So having integrity between what you say and what’s in writing, how to document with your facial patients and then the ethics of touch when you are when the face is concerned. Under the big umbrella of ethics of communication, our listening skills, which I’m going to talk about in a minute.
And then really that goes to understanding your patients. And this can be unique when it comes to. Facial acupuncture because we have in, or we may have in our heads, some ideas of how we think about aging, but how do your patients feel about aging? What does it mean to them? Where did they get those ideas and letting them communicate to you?
What they are unhappy with as far as their appearance and what they’re happy with and not projecting our thoughts and our ideas on aging and appearance onto our patients. So this all comes back to listening skills. So the Chinese. Character for listening effectively is the ear and the king. So the ear above the king the number 10 or maximum the eye and the number one or single, and then the heart.
And essentially what it means is. When you’re still, you listen with the heart and the ear is worth 10 eyes. Tic not Han had said an hour of mindful listening can change the life of an individual. So what does it mean to be a good listener? When I was teaching at M U H a. Used to give a one hour lecture just on listening skills.
So here are some of the highlights a an Indian philosopher had said that to observe. Without evaluating is the highest form of intelligence. So to be able to be in the presence of our patients without putting our values and judgements on whatever’s going on over there, and then being able to listen to them is.
The most, one of the most important things when we are doing cosmetic acupuncture, it is very human to have our preferences and our opinions, but letting go of the sheds, the expectations, the beliefs, the judgments can be very freeing, both for your patient and for yourself, not interrupting. So putting yourself on.
Just let them talk because every time you interrupt them, you give the message that what you have to say is more important than what they have to say, and it can cause your patients to shut down. Being a little more quiet, providing where you assurance paraphrasing what they said, these will encourage talking, denying.
If your patient says something is a concern to them making light of it or saying, oh, don’t be ridiculous. That’s not a big deal that will cause them to shut down, interrogating them. And this doesn’t mean question asking, it means really bombarding them with questions. To the point where they’re not comfortable.
Advice-giving people come to us for a certain amount of our professional opinions, but too much advice giving patients will shut down and then psychoanalyzing your patients. If you are a therapist that. They should be coming to see you for that. And many states, I don’t know about the laws in every states, but in many states even if you a licensed therapist, you’re not supposed to be doing psychoanalysis in your treatment room, they’re two separate things.
So listen for their feelings, ask them, don’t tell them And what you think or what you feel really get into how they feel about different things. And this will give you information about where and how you should be approaching treatment as far as their eyelids their jowls, their lips really listen to what it is they’re saying.
I’ve had patients come to me with concerns that really weren’t that obvious. And through questioning and listening, I come to find out they had something else going on in their life. And so this drooping, eyelid or thin what they felt were very thin lips a wrinkle or something. Really was not that apparent became a big deal to them because that’s what they were focusing on.
Let them tell their story. Even if you have the same story, keep your story sharing to a minimum, your stories that you share should be teaching stories. This is not a conversation that you’re having with one of your friends. This. About really drawing a picture in your mind of where your patient’s coming from and being able to listen to what it really is they want.
So paraphrase and check in with your patients. Each of the 800 words that we use on a regular basis. Has an average of 17 definition. So if you’re all unclear, check in with your patients, listen between the words. People really want you to hear what they’re not saying. And this can come through with their tone, their body language, let their face be the guide to your understanding of.
What they’re saying, listen to those incomes for in consistencies. Are they telling you how happy they are about something, but they’re all slumped in their seat. Make observations about these types of things. Really getting a picture of what your patients want. Why they are coming to see you.
This all falls under the umbrella of respecting their dignity and in order to set realistic goals and outcomes,
you want to be able to like over pro over. Under promise and over deliver. So when you’re telling them how you’re going to help them with any concerns that they have. Have integrity in what you say, let them know what are realistic expectations and stay within your scope of practice. If someone is asking you to do something, that’s not really in your wheelhouse, just refer out.
American acupuncture council does require that you get training. In cosmetic acupuncture by someone who they have deemed appropriate to teach you cosmetic acupuncture is not just something you can learn. By yourself by watching YouTube videos or just making stuff up. There are certain country for indications and precautions and guidelines for cosmetic acupuncture.
So respect the dignity of the patients who come to see you. They need to understand that this is a safe space, that if you were going to use any before and after photos, it would only be done with permission that you are going to check in with them every step, along the way. Everything that happens in the treatment room is confidential and really keeping appropriate boundaries.
Also things like gender and race diversity. People’s sexuality. So much of this is tied into our appearance and have that in mind when you’re talking to people when they’re discussing a body part, certain races of people have we all have different face shapes and. Certain individuals might want their face to look more Caucasian or less Caucasian or their eyes to be more round or less round.
These are all things we can actually work with, but again, use the listening skills, understand what’s going on for this person. And it will guide you. With your boundaries and how you are communicating, setting realistic expectations is really important. There’ve gotta be verbal expectations on the phone written expectations.
When you’re talking to the patient, you write down what it is that they’re expecting, and then you have to communicate to them. How many treatments might this? What might the results look like and be clear and honest about this. There are a lot of things that go into setting these expectations. And when I teach my cosmetic acupuncture classes, we go through quite a bit of there’s quite a bit of learning around.
How can you determine what the outcome might be? And some of those things are your patient’s diet, their lifestyle, their genetics, their actual chronological age, their constitution type from a five element TCM perspective, their TCM diagnosis, and then their history. Have they spent a good part of their lifeline out in the sun.
So this is all part of the big picture because not everyone is going to get the same results. General rule of thumb is people are going to come once or twice a week. And then you reevaluate after six to eight treatments. And. For most individuals, they are going to be looking at 12 to 20 weeks of treatment and then maintenance people are going to continue to age for someone who’s younger or has less signs of aging.
They may need fewer treatments and it goes the other way as well. So how do you talk to your patients? Cottage medic acupuncture. What can you do? How does it work? This is a pretty extensive list, but it’s certainly not comprehensive. And that is, it works with your body. I always do body points.
When I do cosmetic acupuncture, it works with the face. It brings blood and cheat to the area. It increases circulation. It helps your digestion. And if a person has had a facelift and they are fully healed, like a year out, it can help their face lift last longer. And improved digestion immunity, circulation, and is going to carry nutrients out to the skin, helps to create collagen and elastin in the areas where needles have been inserted.
But it does take a minimum of 28 days to produce collagen. So it’s not a one and done and. There are things that contribute like facial expressions. And as I mentioned, lifestyle, that can cause a lot of these conditions or signs of aging. And if the person continues to do it, it can take a lot longer.
So when you’re talking to them, you set the realistic expectation. You find out from them what they would like to accomplish. You go through your TCM diagnosis and if they’ve had any outside treatments done, they must speak to that person to find out when it’s okay for them to have acupuncture and everything should be documented.
Everything that they say. If they’ve had Botox, any sort of surgery on their face. Injections lasers, peels, all of that stuff should be documented. And then what it is they would like help with and what your treatment plan is, and then go over it with them.
As far as contra-indications major ones should be screened for on the phone. Things like high blood pressure migraines debilitating or severe health conditions seizure disorders, epilepsy, hepatitis coronary disease, some of the. Or red flags. You wouldn’t even begin with the patient. Others. You can still have them come in, but you would have to discuss a treatment plan with them.
And it may be that you have to treat them for the condition for a while before you start the cosmic. Acupuncture, cosmetic acupuncture can make Botox wear off. You cannot do cosmetic, or you should not do cosmetic acupuncture on individuals who were pregnant. And just because of the way cosmetic acupuncture brings energy up to the head, it can bring on.
Migrants as far as documentation, of course, I’ve mentioned notes, how and when to take photos is important. We don’t have time for that here, but it’s an important conversation. You can visit my webinar for the expanded version, but I do recommend strongly that you take before photos. And then privacy.
Any previous procedures, how to know if they’ve had certain things done and then how to talk to your patients about it regarding touch when you’re working on the face Lillian bridges have. Said that treating the face is trauma work. And whenever you’re working on someone’s space, there is because all of our emotions are stored in our face.
There is the possibility that things will get released at sometimes resolved, but there’s the emotional aspects of the face. And then any sort of. Deformity scars, acne scars. If they’ve had skin cancer, car accidents, these types of things are shown that we don’t cover our faces up. So when you’re touching someone’s face, when you’re working with their face, be mindful of all of these things.
And I always do a follow-up after the first time I meet with a patient. I contact them within the next day or so. Although bruises are in my experience, fairly uncommon they can happen. So you want to find out how they’re feeling, how the experience was. Did they get any bruises? And I always talk to them about that ahead of time.
So there’s no surprises. So you have to prepare your patients upfront for any Contra indications. And always screen them for the precautions. And here is a list of all of the courses that I offer. They are all offered as recorded webinars. And I also have live hands on training throughout the us, Canada, the UK and Austria.
So I hope that was beneficial. And let’s see. I can see who we have next time. Ah, next time is Sam Collins and thank you so much. And thank you to the AAC for this opportunity to present.
Disclaimer: The following is an actual transcript. We do our best to make sure the transcript is as accurate as possible, however, it may contain spelling or grammatical errors.Due to the unique language of acupuncture, there will be errors, so we suggest you watch the video while reading the transcript.
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Contact the American Acupuncture Council today at (800) 838-0383.
Disclaimer: The following is an actual transcript. We do our best to make sure the transcript is as accurate as possible, however, it may contain spelling or grammatical errors.Due to the unique language of acupuncture, there will be errors, so we suggest you watch the video while reading the transcript.
Hello everyone. Thank you very much for coming to our presentation. Thank you very much to the American Acupuncture Council for having us. My name is Matt Callison. I’m here with my dear friend and colleague Brian Lau. Thanks for having us. Brian. And I were talking the other day and we were discussing our topic for this particular presentation.
We’ve got the module one presentation coming up for the smack program and it has a lot to do with the T-bar fixations and sacral fixation. How they can contribute to patient’s pain. And this particular one with the occiput and the Atlas is a very important one for acupuncturist to know.
So we wanted to be able to shed some light on this particular fixation and how it can contribute to a number of different injuries. So with without further ado, we’ve got quite a bit to get through. So why don’t we go to the next slide there?
All right. So in the certification program, sports medicine, acupuncture certification program in module one, we look at the role that fatigue and sacral fixations play in the patient’s complaints, including musculoskeletal conditions, but also food. When there’s a table fixations in the thoracic region in this particular presentation.
As I mentioned before, we’re going to introduce the occiput and see one fixation. That’s going to be taking place at the Atlanta occipital. Now this fixation could cause many patient complaints, such as cervicogenic, headaches, muddled, or cloudy thinking neck pain. And, for that matter also it can contribute to job pain, low back pain, and a very interesting so as strain because of the association that this fixation has with bilateral.
So as is that we’re going to touch upon here and just a little bit. So why don’t we get started about what is of the tibial fixation with the next slide? So if a fixation complex is going to be the compression and torquing of one vertebra on top of the other and the locking of the vertebrae together, creating creates a hype boat, mobile, it just fixate those two vertebraes or even three vertebraes that lock together.
Have a lack of mobility within that segment of the spine, which is going to be further restricted with Maya. And also ligamentous adaptations, holding that fixation in place. Now the Fossette choice can be locked into a compression into rotation. It can be tilted to the left and right sides in the sports medicine acupuncture program.
We also discuss how the thoracic vertebrae can be stuck in flat. And also into extension. So if you can take a look here is as if the vertebrae, when it has a compression and torquing, it just locks one on top of the other. And it may not actually look like it’s out of alignment. Many times the vertebraes actually feel like they’re in place, but they end up.
Moving very well. They get stuck with one another that causes a barren motion within the region. And the more chronic that fixation is going to be in place, it starts to then affect the spinal nerves itself. So acupuncture, manual techniques work extremely well to be able to open up these fixations and get more energy to the Zong Fu and also the innervated tissue.
So skeletal system. So what’s on, then let’s go right into that Oxford C1 here. All right. So we’re going to focus on this particular fixation. We’re going to call it the joint from now on just cause it’s a lot easier than saying atlanto occipital joint from the entire presentation. So the skull or the head, it sits right on the superior articular Fossette via the occipital condyles.
Brian, would you be able to show. Where those condos are on the skull and the image on the right. You can see those blue images there that’s on that skull. So then those particular articular areas are going to then fit right into the articulate areas of the Atlas. And you can see there in the cost services, superior articular surface of the lateral mass.
So it’s really quite interesting. The headsets, basically balancing on this very small area on that Atlas. So let’s go to the next slide then.
Now this joint is a small range of motion. That’s going to be approximately 10 to 15 degrees of flection and extension. So that’s going to be the movement of basically nodding. Yes. So it’s the very small movement of 10 to 15 degrees of flection and extension of nodding. Yes. Which is a difference between.
Full cervical flection and full cervical extension. It’s just that small little movement of nodding. Yes. Now some research researchers are going to agree that there’s also a little bit of movement in lateral flection or a lateral tilt of the occiput on the Atlas. And we’re going to discuss that a little bit there too.
When you start to, when we get into the assessment. Now the suboccipital muscles that are located deep to gallbladder 20, and also the semispinalis capitis muscle, especially the superior fibers. They’re going to be primarily responsible for this action. So those are going to be two muscles that we’re going to be definitely treating and linking that with their senior channels.
Let’s go to the next slide. I want to discuss a little bit about how the angle of post. So on the left, you see an image of the four suboccipital muscles that surround Cobb that are 20. So you can see the angle or the line of pull of the suboccipital muscles. They’re going to go ahead and. Tilt the cap or tilt the occiput into extension now on the right, you can see those upper fibers of the semispinalis capitas.
Those will also be tilting the cap or the occiput into extension. So let’s go through that language again. You’ve got cervical extension. But then with that small little movement in the AAO joint, it is capital extension or a little bit of a tilt. If you take your fingers and put them rod over gallbladder 20 on yourself.
And once you’re there, just look to the ceiling, you’re going to have a small little movement of capital extension. So what you’re feeling then is these upper fibers starting to contract. And holding that area in place. So therefore, if you have a posture, let’s go to the next slide there. Brian, we could, if you have a posture where the person’s going to be stuck in capital extension, for example, this image on the far right.
Where the head is basically stuck in the end range of yes or capital extension. Many of our patients who have cervicogenic headaches are clouded thinking low back pain, neck pain, have this particular posture, which on the upper right, that had, is stuck in capital extension. So therefore the AOJ.
Is locked has, and then the soft tissue around that AOL joint actually starts to become adhered and locking that position. But you also have people that we have the end range of. Yes. So you can see on the lower right. That person is going to be more into a flection of that capital. Now that can also be a fixation of the joint and also have muscle and soft tissue balances as well.
So let’s talk about those soft tissue balances, because we’re going to be looking at that for treating with acupuncture. Now, all the tipo fixations, including the fixation of this AOL. It’s going to happen, have the mild fascia imbalances between left and right sides of this, especially apparent with the suboccipital and the semispinalis spinoffs muscles.
So often there’s going to be a lock short muscles, which we can be able to label and treat as an excess on one side of the joint, which is really holding on locking that joint. And then on the opposite side, there’ll be locked long muscles, which we can categorize. As deficient and they’re inhibited their weekend, which is going to predicate needle technique that we’re going to be talking about here in just a little bit.
And that’d be on the opposite side of the choice. Now, this image on the right, this is going to be of the thoracic spine. So you can see there’s going to be locked short Xs on one side and lengthened and deficient on the. For this particular conversation, we’re going to be looking at the upper fibers of the semispinalis capitas and also the suboccipital muscles that we can treat with and also specific needle technique for gallbladder 21 side will be excess and the other side will be deficient.
And this is something that you can often feel just with palpation. And we’ve got a video of this. We can be able to show you here in just a little. So not only are these a local needles that we’re going to be using the extra earn near vessels of small intestine three, and you’ll be 60 to work exception.
To build a help with releasing that occiput and Atlas fixation as well, there’s going to be other muscles that we honestly want to look at and associated channels that we want to look at. That could be actually fixing. The a O joint. And I think we can hand it right over to Brian. So you can get into that.
Brian, are you ready?
Okay I don’t know, Matt, did you mention that inclusion of ? Yeah. At the very end, the extra investors can do my job. Yeah. So we’ll come back to that in a second. Looking at the primary channels associated with it. We have really a combination between the urinary bladder and the small intestine that channel sinew channels.
We’ll go with this new channels. Just to get a quick overview, we’re not going to go through the whole channel for this lecture, but I have it listed here in terms of the myofascial structures that are part of the UV new channel. It’s primarily what you’d expect, running up the posterior part of the body, following the urinary bladder.
But let’s take note of these little branches that sometimes we forget about, if we don’t look at this, the new channels that branch from the primary channel going up and down the back and then wrap around the front and then wrap up to the shoulder. So we’ll get this anatomy in a second, but we can just briefly see this Leticia, this door sigh wrapping around to the PEX and then linking for this lecture.
What’s really important is the Sternocleido mask. And then we have another branch that comes off of this region also and links with the upper trapezius. So that’s one thing. And then the last thing to look at is this binding region that we’ve already discussed at this suboccipital region. So let’s start with the suboccipitals Matt’s already talked about them.
This image is nice because we have a slightly different angle and we can get an appreciation, not only for. The rectus capitis posterior major and minor and the angle they take, but how sharp of an angle. Then we miss out on, when we look at those images that are going straight from the back, we lose track of how much of angle these oblique capitus muscles have.
So that’s nice to see from a slightly different. But collectively, these are going to have a really big influence over the balance of the suboccipital joint and seeing the angle, these muscles take, you can see how imbalances between one side and the next might not just have that extension aspect that Matt’s talking about, but also that ability to sorta have the head not sit on quite straight.
Really key muscles to suboccipitals for the balance of the, of this Atlanta occipital. But also really the balance of the whole urinary bladder send channel. And the tone of that whole urinary bladder send you a channel included also would be the cervical extensors semispinalis capitas.
But then if we go to the the branches that were discussed off the urinary bladder channel, oh, we have the lats into the pecs and then creating a myofascial plane with the sternocleidomastoid is an interesting muscle it’s part of multiple sinew channels. Definitely part of the stomach.
But it has this linkage with the urinary bladder channel. And I’ll give you one indication where you might’ve seen something related to this is when you’ve learned about points and learned about urinary bladder 60. That, that is a common point for headaches. But the description, if you go back and just read the commentary saying Deadman, the description of that often talks about young rising, excess, young, rising up the.
Urinary bladder channel. And the way I interpret that is that tension that rises up to back when people have a lot of St Liberty’s stagnation, a lot of rising liver, young, rising, but it often rises up that urinary bladder channel and everything tenses up, SCM, upper traps, the cervical muscles, the back muscles.
It’s that raising of the shoulders that happens in that scrunching of the neck that happens. So it’s a very typical stress response and these muscles are very involved with. But they’re also because of their mechanical attachments at the mastoid process for the SCM and then the upper traps going all the way up to the EOP, they can also contribute to that capital extension and that discrepancy from left to right.
So their accessory muscles, their muscles, we can also consider as part of a treatment when we’re working with fixations at this region and things that are associated with that. Cervicogenic, headache, cervicogenic. Okay, quickly going through the small intestine, send your channel. We have multiple structures.
We’re not going to get into them all today, but levator scapula is a big one. And that binding region that happens at the upper cervical region, look at an anatomy image of that. Levator scapula actually attaches to C1 through C4 transfers processes. So it has an influence on much of that upper cervical spine, but especially that C1 transverse process.
Be a big contributor to that tilting of the head from side to side, some of the discrepancy in terms of how that’s going to balance, not just a position from a capital extension, but that maybe shortening and raising the shoulders or on one side. And that discrepancy from side to side. So levator scapula is another one that can be a player in this and can be And accessory muscle treating the suboccipitals important.
We’re going to be looking at a technique at gallbladder 20 and semispinalis capitas. Did you be 10, but don’t forget about levator. Scapulae it’s a good one to consider in this whole list. So collectively these two channels are going to meet and have a binding region at that upper cervical spine Atlanta occipital joint region, the suboccipital region.
And collectively are going to be a part of that whole balance of the AAO joint. So here’s a nice image showing that upper fibers of the levator scapula meeting at the transfers per process, and then sharing, communicating mechanical information with the oblique capitus superior and inferior muscles, which are two of the muscles of the suboccipital.
Triangle two of the suboccipital muscles. So they can really work together in terms of balancing, but also become dysfunctional together. All right.
Kind of piety to look at some images. Okay. Yeah, Brian. So let’s get into these and talk about these. I think this is a nice segue into that discussion of the upper trapezius and levator scap as well. So the image on the left, you can see that she’s got a bit of a lateral tilt of her head onto the AOL joint.
You can see how that left ear is slightly lower than right. And this is something also that you see with patients, let’s say, for example, that you’re sitting on a stool and the patient’s sitting on the table right in front of you. Have you ever noticed that it looks like their head’s just not quite on straight.
So there has slightly, just slightly tilted. This is something that you would see on the left and I’ll guarantee you 99 out of a hundred. If you go back and you palpated the gallbladder 20 and the bladder 10. Once I will feel very access and the other side will feel very deficient. Hence something that we’re going to discuss here next is that person will also have bilateral.
So as weakness. So we’ll talk about that here on the next slide, but for right now that image on the left, you can see that they’ve got a little bit that lateral tilt, same thing with the image on the right, this gentleman. You can see his tilt on the right to the levator scapula is going to be in a locked, short position on that right-hand side.
And he most likely has an Oxford C1 fixation as well. So these people could have cervicogenic headaches or any of those aforementioned signs and symptoms that we had. Brian, do you want to talk about the capital extension there on the remaining two? Yeah, I would agree that, the big structures to consider on these ones that Matt talked about would be the suboccipital muscles are so influential on the tone, but it seems to me without having any other information on these patients, you know what they’re coming in with, et cetera, it seems to me like levator scapula would be indicated for those.
Whereas these pictures on the right, I might change my tune if I saw them from the back, but at least from the view, from the side and the success of capitalization, The suboccipitals are going to be involved with that, but I would also be looking at the SCM for both of these these patients.
And it could, it’s going to be the case at one side, it’s going to be shorter and that’s going to contribute to that tilting of the head not being quite on straight. So it would be an accessory muscle to consider along with the suboccipitals and semispinalis capitas, especially if they’re coming in with headaches and it seemed like the SCM was a component of that.
Maybe referring into the frontal region or deep into the occiput STM would likely be involved with that. Maybe even upper traps, all upper traps are in a position where they’re pulled forward. So we’ll be including in this discussion, after looking at some local needle technique, we’ll be including a myofascial technique that you can refer back to those two, right images when we’re talking about that myofascial technique.
And that would be the type of patient that, that the technique we’re going to show with. Yeah, that’s a good point. I would suspect the image on the far left that her left upper fibers of the SCM would also be really quite locked short. The same with the gentlemen on the money. I would think that his SCM on the right.
Yeah, that’s great. Holding this fixation in place. Now you guys, we are zeroing in on the AAO joint for those people that might be looking at the posture on the left images there. Yeah, of course, the elevated ilium and the side bands at the spine and such all of that would have to be addressed.
Which we do in the different modules in the smack program. But right now we’re just zeroing in. Joy joint, how important it is to observe and treat it for different types of signs and symptoms and pain patterns. All right. So the next slide is one is an assessment from applied kinesiology.
So this is George Goodheart’s work, but I’m not exactly sure if it came from him or maybe John PHY in touch for health. I’m not exactly sure which one, but yet with an occiput Atlas fixation at the joint, it will create bilateral. So as weakness. So therefore, if somebody has this muscle that’s in hidden.
And therefore they’re going out and doing extra curricular activity, hiking, doing something above and beyond. You could see how that muscle would be struggling and eventually could actually strengthen. So when somebody has a hip flexor strain, it’s affecting that. So as it’s always a good idea to go up and look at the joint now, since the so as is not going to be stabilizing that lumbar spine as well, being inhibited from a fixation at that AOA joint, it can also create low back.
This is a really great assessment looking at the so as, and then once you correct the AOL joint with acupuncture, and also we’re going to be showing you a little bit of a manual technique that you can use, and also a mild fascia release technique on the upper trapezius that’s affected. You would then go back and check the so as for strength and if it is not bilateral, so as weakness anymore.
So then therefore you’ve done your job with some patients. It might be, then you need lateral weakness, meaning it’s just one. So as that’s weak, that means that the AAO joint is still corrected. Remember with the fixation it’s bilateral. If bilateral weakness turns into unilateral weakness, it then becomes more of a segmental problem or just a localized problem, which we could go ahead and treat the Watteau GS of the high T 12 down to about as well as GB 27 on that particular side in order to be able to turn that.
So as right back on. Cool. All right. So what do we got next here? I will say one quick thing about that. It seems odd, right? The, so as in the occiput C1, there’s not a direct innovation. It’s not like the so has, is getting its innovation from C1. But if you wanted to just look up something called the ocular pelvic reflex it talks about the relationship between the eyes, which have a strong relationship with the suboccipital muscles in terms of turning the head and following eye movement and the pelvic position and really the lower spine position.
So it’s probably a regional. Component that’s communicating between eye movement and stabilization of the spine. And maybe that gets turned off when there’s an occupancy one fixation theory, but it’s really more clinical observation than it is a direct anatomy thing. But that’s what I think it works according to those principles, but that’s something that you teach and demonstrate in the senior channel class.
And it’s really quite interesting. So as fire, when the eyes left or right with that. So that relationship, thanks for bringing that, Brian. That’s good. That’s where it’s like, if there’s somebody seated and you press into the abdomen and you can touch the, so as you often feel that firing slightly, when people look up to the coroner, which suboccipitals will start the fire and you can feel that tone change, like I got my eyes closed and be like, okay, you’re moved.
You moved sometimes you don’t feel it. Maybe those people, you don’t feel it as well. Or you only feel that. Sometimes it’s quite prominent sometimes not so prominent. Maybe the people it’s not really prominent on are the ones with the occiput C1, fixation but you can definitely feel this how, as I’m communicating with that small little eye movement, that’s happening in this small head movement that occurs from that.
All right. Cool. Next.
All right. So when you’re feeling the gallbladder 20 suboccipital region and bladder 10 left versus right. When someone does have an AOL fixation, one side definitely feels more pliable, more deficient. The other side is harder tissue. It’s more dense tissue. It’s usually a bit more painful to palpate.
So with the excess side, what you could do is to go ahead and palpate gallbladder 20, but in three different directions. So from gallbladder 20, if you angle it toward the contralateral gallbladder one, you’re going to be affecting the rectus. Capitis posterior minor and major. If you take your finger from gallbladder 20 and you angle it toward the ipsilateral gall bladder, one is going to be affecting the oblique capita superior.
And then from gallbladder 20, if you angle toward rent 24, you’re putting pressure into the Oakley capitus inferior. So whichever one is actually the most tender or Maven creates a headache is the angle that you want to actually needle from gallbladder 20. If you need a one to 1.1, five inches in any of these directions, it’s going to be totally.
It’s, it is safe to be able to do that. The only one that you want to make sure that you’re definitely kneeling toward the ipsilateral gallbladder. One from gallbladder 22 effectively. Capita superior is one inch to one to 1.5 inches. That’s not an inch and a half. It’s one-to-one. Five suggestible over an inch.
Needling that direction will be very safe. If you do go towards maybe the ear, maybe you’re going too fast. You’re going to be very close to the table, ardor in it’s unprotected region. So we want to make sure that we’re not angling towards or also the ear in that particular case. And then bladder 10, if we can go to the next slide there, which I think it just continues to discuss as go to the next slide.
Yeah, I try to maybe it’s try it again. It’s just stop. Okay. Nope. Here we go. All right. So there we go. So then bladder 10 is going to be the key point for the semispinalis capitas. Now, as we know the way that we were taught as bladder 10 is going to be level with do 15 and gallbladder 20 is level with do 16.
For the last this, so this particular image is from the motor point index that was published and 2000, the year 2000 news I believe was published. And so the information has changed. We have found the actual motor entry point for the semispinalis capitas, the upper fibers at least to be level with deuce 16.
So that means that we’re putting bladder. Level with gallbladder 20 and frankly from my own clinical experience, I think Brian can agree with this as well. Is that treating the upper or the modified bladder 10 level with do 16 and also level with cobbler 20, you get a lot more cheese sensation than you do.
When it’s level with the do 15, but don’t believe me, try that yourself. You guys make sure that you’re needling one soon perpendicular to the table or to the floor going in level with popular 20 and do 16 compared to level with do 15. I think you’ll find, you’ll get a lot more cheese sensation at that particular point.
So the next side is actually showing another view. Semispinalis capitas. You can see how it’s just 20. We’ve modified this and we’re putting it level with gallbladder 20. Everybody got a lot more cheat that way. All right. So the video you’re about to see is going to be needling bladder 10, one inch perpendicular to the floor on one side will be the excess side.
And then on the other side, we’ll end up. Gallbladder 20. So it’s not necessarily going into the three different directions. We’re just needle gallbladder 20 on this particular time, which you can do. But a good idea on the excess side is to palpate those three directions affect that suboccipital triangle.
I think you’ll get better success rate for releasing the AAO joint. This particular video, the audio didn’t turn out very well. So I’m going to go ahead and narrate this as it goes. So Brian, whenever you’re ready, I’m ready.
all right. So we’re going to be looking at, there’s do 16 right there. This is going to be for your a oh, joint fixation do 16. So I’m going to go ahead and palpate on the right-hand side and that feels. Really quite dense there at bladder 10, which we know is going to be about 1.3 soon lateral, that’s going to be the upper trapezius that I’m working my finger through to get to the deeper layer, which is sound mispronounced.
Moving lateral going into gallbladder 20 and feeling the density of gallbladder 20. Now going over to the left-hand side, bladder, 10 more pliable, softer tissue, easier to get in gallbladder 20 more pliable, soft tissue. So there’ll be excess on the right perpendicular to the table of floor going in at bladder.
One inch, you could even go in 1.2, five inches here. I do recommend a deeper needle technique at this particular point to get into that semispinalis capitas and a gallbladder 20 on the right. We’re going to needle just toward the tip of the nose in this case at gallbladder 20. But this would be the area that we could go ahead and pop it to three different directions for the suboccipital triangle in this particular video.
no, on the left-hand side, we want to reinforce this. So this is going to be a shallow needle technique going right into that upper trapezius going in just about a quarter of an inch. No more than a half an inch in that area. A very light CISA station compared to the opposite side, and then a gallbladder 20, the same thing going toward the tip of the nose.
Very light needle sensation here. More of a reinforcing needle technique from clinical experience going in and really wailing on these areas are getting a lot of cheat on areas that are deficient will actually make the person a little bit worse.
So deeper on the right-hand side, more of a reducing needle technique, more superficial on the left hand side, more of a reinforcing needle technique.
This is a video is on our YouTube channel. By the way, I know sometimes streaming the, you can get a little choppy, but if you want it to go back and look at it again, that’s on our channel sports medicine, acute.
All right. This was a really great muscle energy technique for the Suboxone suboccipital triangle muscles. I believe it was developed from Phillip Greenman in the 1940s. He’s a very famous osteopath that has quite a few different books out. It’s a great technique to build. Right after the needling and after the mile fascia work as well you can even use this type of a myofascial technique.
When there isn’t an a O fixation, it just helps to really relax the patient quite a bit. So this is a step-by-step you can see there’s these different slides. That’ll be in your notes here or in this recording here that you guys can be able to check out. It’s basically gently pulling the person’s head into tracks.
And they’re going to look back at you to help to stimulate those suboccipital muscles. And then once they relax, you’re then going to go ahead and just eat a long gait, the head and traction a little bit further. So it is a muscle energy technique where they contract against you. You prevent any kind of movement for about the count of six.
They relax, and then you pull the head chest. Farther. So you’re helping to realign the occiput onto the Atlas. This again, it’s just a, it’s a fantastic mobilization technique.
Here’s the other rest of the instructions. So like Matt said, if you go back and access this recording and you’ll have this, we also have this, I believe in module. Is it module one? Senior channel class or is that going to be module four? It might be module four senior channel class we actually have. Oh yeah.
On a, not a knowledge. Yeah, that’s correct. It’s module four. Okay. All right. So one more technique. And this one will highlight that branch of the urinary bladder send new channel, that’s connecting with the upper traps and the SCM many ways it’s working with the foster. Of that that, that surrounds both the upper traps and the SCM, which are embryologically one muscle, but splits.
So they really have the same fascial compartment, same fascial bag. And this is just taking the fascia and bringing it back. This video has a lot of different steps. We’re going to not watch the whole thing. We’re going to watch just a portion of it. That’s relevant to this discussion. So I’m gonna kinda go a little ways into the video.
Let’s see, that might not be able to, yeah, there we go. Okay.
And same thing. I’m going to be narrating this just for sound aspects. So we’re going to use it as a loose fist and that loose Fest is going to place right on the upper trapezius on that border of the upper trapezius. So we want to put a lot of pressure so much. It’s just enough to get a hook into the two.
And then we’re going to bring the tissue down towards the table back, really bringing the tissue back while the patient rotates their head to the opposite side. It’s like when I learned this technique, I think we use the description of a velvet glove, which kind of is a nice way to think about it.
Do you want a soft pressure? Doesn’t mean it’s not deep. It’s just not pushing into the tissue deep. The next step we can follow up that same fascial compartment up through the. But I’m highlighting is I don’t want to go in front of the SCM with my fist. I want it to be on the SCM. I don’t want to go in front of that border.
Same thing I put in just enough pressure to get ahold of the fascia. If PHP patients are hyperextended like that, I want to use that pull down towards the table to help straighten and elongate the back of the neck. I might even have them bring the chin and a little. And then they rotate while I’m bringing that whole fascial layer back to the almost to the spine as processes as far back as I can reach it while they’re rotating.
So it’s not a lot of pressure into the neck. It’s more about hooking that superficial layer of the cervical fascia and bringing it back. And then I can have them do it again with another pass. When I’m showing there is when they turn, I want them to rotate on an axis and not bend the head to the side.
It’s almost like they have an access or a pole going through the spine that stays straight. So it’s just a very, they should almost feel their hair scraping along the table as they do it. And I’m bringing that whole superficial cervical fascia. So it’s a nice technique to help decompress the back of the neck and elongate that fascia that’s associated with many things, but the occiput C1 area for this lecture let’s create.
So Brian, we’ve got the proverbial hook coming to pull us off the stage right now. We have. Let’s get through this within the next 30 seconds or so. So the new Nepro is forced Mestinon department certification program starting in San Diego here in July. There is the QR code. We’re happy to answer any questions that you guys may have.
And then also in March, end of March of next year, we have a, so as events, the Pacific sports and orthopedic or acupuncture symposium, that is the acronym. So as. And this is going to be based on myofascial pain. We’ve got incredible speakers that are coming, including Dr. Antonio Stecco Dr. Roberta Pratt Rebecca Pratt, our Nielsen, Brian Lau.
I will be there and Bensky, we’ve got a whole, a great list of people that are coming to present. There’s the QR code for? We’ve got a lot of online recordings as well, that we can be able to further your continuing education. That’s going to be through Lhasa OMS here in the United States, Eastern currency in Canada.
And there’s also distributors international for that. You can also follow us. We’ve got YouTube and Facebook and Instagram and Brian, you want to give a shout out for your movement therapy? We’ve been putting together a lot of description of movement associated with the channel sinews. So it’s a not evaluate calisthenics and Qigong Tai Chi, various things, but it’s not about what the exercises are.
It’s really looking at it more from a channel perspective, how you train those channels, wake up those channels and incorporate like really efficient movement, but those channels, and then you can start strengthening. So Jim gen channel sinews movement training a QR code, or you can just do a search for Jim gen movement training, all the other stuff.
We mentioned the sports medicine acupuncture. If you go on YouTube and you don’t have to code with you, just do a search for sports medicine, acupuncture for any of those are fantastic. That’s it. Yeah. Hopefully this was a useful for you. There was some pearls for you guys to be able to crab and help out some patients.
Cause that really is the bottom line. We want to be able to help other people. If you have any questions whatsoever, please reach out to us. We’re happy to be able to answer those questions. Next week. Cholon Moya, who’s going to be coming. I was really happy to be able to hear that she’s actually going to be presenting chose a fantastic speaker and an incredible practitioner.
She’s one of Kiko, Kiku Matsumoto is top students. She took the sports medicine, acupuncture certification. Twice and she’s blending the two things together and she’s just a ball to listen to. She is just a walking dictionary, amazing Tsao-Lin Moy for next week. Thank you very much, everybody. Thank you so much for the American Acupuncture Council.
Happiness. Brian’s always great to hang out with you, buddy, and we’ll see you again soon.
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