Today I am going to be talking about facial acupuncture, what works, what doesn’t work, and, lots of different things that people incorporate into their practice.

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Hi, my name is Michelle Gellis. I am an acupuncture physician and an author, and I would like to thank the American Acupuncture Council for giving me this opportunity to speak to you today. Today I am going to be talking about facial acupuncture, what works, what doesn’t work, and, lots of different things that people incorporate into their practice.

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Some are based on Chinese medicine. Some are more modern things. And a lot of the information that I’m gonna be talking about today comes from my book and it’s called Treating the Face. It is a 500 page. Full color hardcover book. And throughout the book I talk a lot about different tools and techniques that people use that practitioners can use in order to not just for cosmetic purposes, but also for neuromuscular purposes.

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So facial ac. When I say facial acupuncture, I am referring to any treatments that affect the face, whether it’s skin level, muscle level, working with the fascia, working with the nervous system, working with the musculature, and. Knowing how to affect the circulation of the face, the lymphatic system of the face, the skin, the nerves, the muscles will really play into what sort of results you will get when you do your treatments.

So there, there are. Effective ways to layer things into your treatments. I am a big proponent on not just one size fits all treatments. And so if we’re looking at just, we’ll start with cosmetics. So when we’re looking at. Cosmetic concerns with the face. We can be looking at the very superficial dark spots, redness, fine lines, wrinkles sagging, things of that nature.

And some of these are very superficial, so treatments that are more superficial, things like microneedling. Red and blue and yellow light therapy and other hues of LED light therapy can be. Very beneficial. Facial cupping and facial gu sha can help to bring blood and chi out to the face. And so this can be beneficial for the skin as well.

Now, going another layer deeper, if we’re looking at. The circulation of the face and we are looking at the fascia and the musculature of the face, then we would be. Thinking in terms of treatments that go a little deeper, so this is where the facial cupping and the guha come in and techniques that aren’t just let’s say intradermal level, but more working submuscular, working with motor points.

And this can help to lift the face so the face lifts itself. And also looking at our facial expressions. We also wanna think about doing body points, so I didn’t want to neglect to talk about that. So body points can help our emotional body, which will. Ultimately show up on the face. And a lot of our expressions, for better or for worse, are going to, can cause wrinkles in the skin, fossil adhesions and permanent sagging and asymmetry of the face as well.

So. I’m going to also now kind of pivot and talk about neuromuscular facial conditions. So things like Bell’s palsy trigeminal neuralgia, TMJ, stroke ms. There were a lot of neuromuscular facial conditions, and when we’re thinking about treating those, we’re not thinking so much about. Skin level concerns, but more about the nervous system and the musculature of the face.

And this is where submuscular needling facial motor points some scalp acupuncture and in some cases LED therapy, if we’re using a LED light that has near infrared. Settings, which can go down to the muscle level. So how do we kind of layer all of this? When might you use one set of tools versus another?

When I do cosmetic acupuncture on a patient, depending on what their concerns are and how how kind of deep the. Concern is that they’re deep wrinkles. Deep sagging. That will determine what I, how I start to think about what it is I’m going to do. So I’ll give you an example. If someone came to me and they had.

Minor signs of aging on their face, but really deep wrinkles on their forehead. One of the, so I, I’m always going to do my cosmetic acupuncture. And that might involve some mandatory points that I use for lifting the face body points to help, to nourish all of the channels that feed into the face.

And then I always, and every cosmetic acupuncture treatment with facial cupping and facial guha. Now, I might add in some. LED therapy if they have acne or if there were superficial skin concerns. But what I could do either and, and that would happen while the needles are in. But what I could do additionally, either during this treatment or as a standalone treatment, is some microneedling to address.

Just the forehead area, if that is where their concerns are. However, if they don’t want to have microneedling, then I could. Weave into their treatment. Some submuscular needling of the frontals motor points on the frontals. And these will help to bring this will help to balance the muscle function and help to relax the forehead so that it’s, it’s doesn’t, so these lines.

Aren’t embedded in their forehead any longer. And of course the cupping and guha can help with that as well. So that’s one example of cosmetic. Now let’s talk about a potential patient who has Bell’s Palsy. So of course, on Bell’s Palsy, typically it is one side of the face and I would certainly treat any underlying conditions with body points and then locally.

I would incorporate acupuncture points. I would incorporate possibly some submuscular needling of different areas that have been affected. And I could also do some motor points for the muscles that have been affected, and then I would put an LED light over them on the near infrared setting in order to help to nourish the muscles.

To help to bring them back into normal functioning. When all of this was done, I would take the light off, I would take the needles out, and then I would do my cupping and GU shop. So these are more deeper level treatments as opposed to microneedling, which is more of a skin level, superficial level treatment.

So kind of to summarize the submuscular needling is used. Let’s see if I can grab a picture. But Submuscular needling is used when we are. Wanting to deeply nourish and affect particular muscle. And so that might be the frontals, it can be the digastric muscle, it can be the we, we can do some submuscular.

Needling on the corrugator muscle, which brings the eyebrows together. We can also do some submuscular needling around the temporalis. And so these are all, I’m trying to find my my chapter in my book on Submuscular needling. And. Here we go. So let me find a good picture for you guys. So by putting needles underneath the muscle, here we go.

So you can see here in this image here. Down here I’m doing submuscular needling, get that submuscular needling of the frontals. And then below that I’m doing submuscular needling of the Steris, which is right here. So working with the motor points in the face, which affect. Each one of the individual muscles or, and or submuscular needling is going to help not only with neuromuscular things, but also can help with cosmetic concerns.

And all of this has to be framed with you have to be thinking about safety. You have to be thinking about whether or not the patient has had any neurotoxins like Botox or fillers facial fillers, and. So in my classes I teach how to talk to your patient about these and how long they have to wait before you can treat them, and what areas to avoid if they’ve had any facial surgeries.

So, to close I just would like to summarize by saying. When you’re thinking about treating the face, you can layer treatments, but more isn’t always better. Knowing how and when to layer is very important. Using the right tool at the right time and really speaking clearly to your patients about expected outcomes is important as well.

If you’re interested in learning more about treating the face, you can go to my website, facial acupuncture classes.com. I have recorded webinars and live classes that cover all of these topics and, myw, my classes are also listed on my website, all my live classes, and you can also find me on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok and LinkedIn under my name, Michelle Gellis.

So thank you again to the American Acupuncture Council, and I hope to see you soon.

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