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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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 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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So what is Submuscular needling of the face and why would we use it?

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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 is Michelle Gellis. I am an acupuncture educator and author, and today I would like to thank the. American Acupuncture Council for this opportunity to speak to you today about submuscular needling of the face. So I last year I published a book, hardcover book on treating the Face, and it is a comprehensive 500 page book and one of the chapters of the book.

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Is all about submuscular needling. So some of the images that, or most of the images we’ll be working with today come from my book. So go ahead and go to the first slide please. So what is Submuscular needling of the face and why would we use it? Submuscular needling. Involves taking acupuncture needles and placing them underneath, or in some instances through different muscles on the face and the head, and even around the underneath the chin area.

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In order to help the face to function better, and in some instances we can use this same technique to help with wrinkles on the face and sagging and. Essentially what we’re doing is we’re taking needles and putting them in areas that are prone to muscular disharmony and can, this can be very beneficial for things like Bell’s Palsy.

And if someone has had a stroke or forehead, wrinkles sagging under the neck. So muscles like the corrugator and the frontals can help the forehead area. The processis, also the temporalis can help with migraines. Tinnitus other neuromuscular conditions of the face, the masseter can help with things like TMJ.

The auricular muscles can help also with tinnitus and helping to lift the face, and one that’s not listed. The anterior digastric can help with sagging under the chin area. So here’s a couple of images from my book of muscles on the face. And as you can see, there are quite a few. Some of them are superficial, some of them are deep.

And these are the images of the muscles on the side of the face and head. And so first we’re gonna talk a little bit. About muscles involved in raising the eyebrows and the eyelids bringing the eyebrows together from a cosmetic standpoint, these three muscles can cause wrinkles and deep furrows between the eyebrows from a neuro and a wrinkle across the bridge of the nose.

From a neuromuscular standpoint, these. Muscles can be involved with like for example, if someone has Bell’s palsy and the upper part of their face is drooping, and what we would do is insert needles. Doesn’t really matter when you’re doing submuscular needling, which direction you go, but you would take a half inch needle and insert them.

Underneath the muscles. So this right here these muscles right here are the corrugator muscles. And this will help to, and the corrugator inserts right into the braceis here and. This helps to bring chi and blood to this area. And also if there’s any fossil adhesions, it can help to break those up.

And by doing that, it helps to nourish the muscle, to bring the muscle into better functioning. This, these can be combined with facial motor points, which is another lecture, another chapter in the book. And to help so that there’s more symmetry in the face and also less drooping and fewer wrinkles, and this is what it looks like when you would do that.

And I have a little video. I need to move this over so I can click on it.

So as you can see in the video, I took a very thin gauge. I used cen needles. They’re like half inch. I think those are 0.1 fours. And I went right underneath the corrugator muscle. And you can just use one from the top if you choose. But in that example I was using too, so the frontals is another muscle.

So there’s two heads to the frontalis, and that is another muscle that we can do submuscular needling with. So we would put several needles underneath the frontalis muscle and it would look something like this. This can help with droopy eyelids. And also with forehead wrinkles. I’m going to skip the videos.

This is just a brief summary of what Submuscular Needling is. If you want more information, you can either visit. My book, which you can get@facialacupunctureclasses.com, or you can watch one of my recorded webinars at the same website, facial acupuncture classes.com. This is the braceis muscle which you would needle from the top down if you were doing submuscular needling.

It’s like a triangle. This is the temporalis muscle and using a series of needles all around the temporalis can really help to relax this temporalis muscle, which can become very tight. And as you can see, the auricular muscles are also attached to it. And these can, you can use submuscular needling under these and the temporalis.

A lot of the facial and neck muscles are connected to it, either directly or indirectly through the occipital frontals or through the coming back here through the trapezius and. By treating this muscle you can help to affect a lot of conditions on the face, and this is what it looks like when it’s needled.

The masseter is the big strong muscle that if you clench your jaw, you can feel it. And needling underneath that can really help patients that have TMJ and it looks like this, and the auricular muscles. I use these in all of my cosmetic treatments. Needling, underneath those auricular muscles is something that can help to lift the face area.

And I have helped, I have found it has helped my patients who have ear pain and tinnitus and so that is my. Presentation about Submuscular needling. Again, it was very brief, but I wanted to give you guys an overview If you are. I’m interested in learning more. You can visit my website, facial acupuncture classes.com, and I am also available on social media at my name, Michelle Gilles, or at Facial Acupuncture.

Classes. Once again, I want to thank the American Acupuncture Council for this opportunity to speak to you today about Submuscular needling of the faith.

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Click here to download the transcript.

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 is Michelle Gellis. I am an acupuncture physician and an author, and today I will be doing a presentation on my top 10 favorite facial acupuncture points, some of which will surprise you, and I would like to thank the American Acupuncture Council for giving me this opportunity. So I got the idea for today’s.

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Presentation when I was doing a book signing at the Pacific Symposium two weekends ago I gave out these little cards and on one side were my top 10 favorite facial acupuncture points. And on the other side were all of my upcoming classes and. Sold a lot. Sold and signed a lot of books, and inspired me for today’s presentation.

So let’s get started.

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The first I. Acupuncture point that I use every time when I am treating one of my cosmetic acupuncture patients is large intestine four joining of the valleys, and this is a command point for the face, and it also allows the body to release any impurities that. Might exist because it is a large intestine point, so it helps to clear the face, farm acne oily skin, any kind of congestion.

And it also. Helps with all of the muscles in the face as well. Release tension and so it’s a really great point. It is one of my mandatory points when treating the face. And these are in no particular order, small intestine. Six. And that point is nourishing the old and it helps to the spirit of the point.

So I’m a classically trained Worly five element acupuncturist, so I’m always very interested in the spirit of the point. And the spirit of this point is it helps to nourish us in the face of old pain and empowers us to assimilate life’s lessons. From past traumas and on a more physical level, it helps.

If you think about where the small Intestine channel runs, it helps with sagging neck and chin area, right? ’cause the small intestine channel runs up the neck and the, through the side of the neck and then up. The side of the face, and I chose this image, so a lot of the images are from my book, but this particular image I chose because I find that a lot of people play small intestine six almost in the San Jiao channel, and I’m always reminding.

My students that small intestine six should really be right along the small intestine channel. My next favorite facial acupuncture point is gall gallbladder 18. And the way you find gallbladder 18 is you start right at the gallbladder channel and you follow it right. Straight back along the head until you come in line with due 20.

And that is where the point is. The name of the point is receiving spirit and. It is on the gall epi erotica, right on the occipital frontals, and it helps to, the nerve actually goes right along the channel. It helps to benefit the eyes, the forehead, and it has a direct action on the supraorbital nerve, and as I mentioned, the gall up erotica.

My next favorite facial acupuncture point is stomach four, receive nourishment, and this treats the mouth area so it can help with the lip lines, and it also helps to relax the DAO or the depressor anguli Aus, which could pull the corners of the mouth down. Small intestine 18, which is referred to sometimes as cheekbone, helps to treat the mouth area because the way that I needle it is I needle it straight up, as you can see in this picture, so it helps to treat the mouth area, lip lines, nasal labial, folds.

It also. Relaxes. So nasal labial folds go from the nose to the lips, so nasal labial. It relaxes the DAO also, and it helps to lift up the cheek area.

Helps to lift the eyebrows. And the way that I needle this is I go in line with the pupil. I go right underneath the eyebrow and I needle it straight up yin tongue. I I chose this picture this. Last picture. This was one of my students. This is from my book, as is the one before it. But this one I found online this morning.

I liked it because it showed not only the muscle, but so it shows the braceis muscle, which Yong is right. In the center of this ProsperUS muscle, but it also shows some of the wrinkles that people can get. That yin tongue helps to treat the bunny line that goes horizontally. And then these two lines here, which can come from frowning.

And Yong is right in the center. And the way I like to needle it is actually. Against the flow, not with the flow of energy. So I needle it up or I’ll needle it straight in if I’m using it as a motor point. And this helps to move the energy up as opposed to down. It helps to relax the mind and calm the mind and the spirit.

Leg three miles, which is stomach 36, helps to infuse the spirit of, the point is it helps to infuse the gifts of the earth within all of the meridians. It is a point on the sea of nourishment and it helps to tonify the Q and the blood of the entire body, and it fortifies the spleen, which holds everything up, and it also calms the spirit.

So if you are calm and your face is calm and relaxed, then you won’t have all of those contracted muscles in your face, which give you a lot of the expression lines and wrinkles that we get. Chen Men is another one of my mandatory points. I love this for cosmetic acupuncture. It helps to relax the face and it calms your patient.

Gallbladder 41. This image is a little blurry, but it was, an image that I thought was important because it really shows where gallbladder 41 is. A lot of people will put it on the wrong side of this, or even both of these tendons because they’ll follow the gallbladder channel. Then instead of hopping over this tendon, they stay on this side and the energy is really right up in this crevice right here.

So the name of the point is Foot Above Tears. It allows your patient to have an emotional release if they’re frustrated or angry, and it very strongly grounds your patient. So in my protocol, this. This is the first point that we put in the body. And it helps to spread stagnant liver chi in the, or chi rather in the liver, in the gallbladder channel.

So it helps again with anger and frustration and everything that’s going on below the neck is going to show up above the neck. So all that emotional stuff, frustration that we’re feeling is going to show up. Right here. So we wanna release that and it can also help to a lesser degree with some of the dark spots and other signs of liver cheese stagnation.

So those are my 10. Favorite acupuncture points on the face, and I want to again thank the American Acupuncture Council for giving me this opportunity to present to you today. If you would like more information on my classes, you can go to facial acupuncture classes.com. And if you’re watching this on your computer, there is a QR code take you right to the website and you can also get information about my book there as well.

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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 speak to you today about microneedling for hair loss. Go to the first slide.

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A little bit about me. I am an acupuncture physician. I am the author of this book called Treating the Face. It is a comprehensive guide. Wait this way and back a little bit. Okay. It is a hardcover 500 page full color book with over 350 images in it, on treating the face and. There’s an entire chapter in this book on micro needling, so you might wanna check that out.

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And I teach cosmetic and facial acupuncture classes internationally, and I am currently on faculty at Yoan University in Los Angeles, California. So what is microneedling? Microneedling creates micro channels in the skin, and these micro channels will trigger cellular repair and regeneration. It helps to stimulate collagen and elastin and growth factors in the skin, improves the blood flow to the skin, and therefore nutrient delivery.

It enhances the absorption of any topical products that are put on the skin. And. Therefore it is used for skin rejuvenation, for things like wrinkles, scars, pigmentation issues, and what we’re gonna talk about today, hair growth. This is what a micro natal pen looks like. This particular one is made by AccuLift and you can see the website on the slide there, acif skincare.com.

And these have a dial here, and this determines. How deep the little needles on this cartridge will go into the skin. And this little window here it determines the speed, how fast those needles are going in and out of the skin. And this is what the needle cartridges look like. These are the 16 pin or 16 needle cartridges that would be used for microneedling the scalp.

And I did wanna talk to you a little bit today about hair loss, different types of hair loss. There are a lot of different reasons why we lose our hair. And this quick 10 minute lecture I’m giving you today is part a much longer one hour CEU lecture that I give. Which goes into all of this in much more depth.

So this is an overview, but some of the more common types of hair loss are androgenetic. Alopecia, which is commonly referred to as male pattern or female pattern baldness or hair loss. Intelligent effluvium, which is typically from stress or illness if your hair falls out. Alopecia areata, which is an autoimmune disease, scarring up.

Alopecia, which is an irrevocable follicle loss. There are other hair shaft abnormalities. Enogen Effluvium, which is a rapid hair loss resulting from some sort of a medical treatment like radiation or chemo. Tinia capita, which is ringworm in the scalp. And hypo psychosis, which is just naturally sparse hair or reduced hair growth.

Now micro noodling is good for some of these and not for others, but I just wanted for to purposes of today. I just wanted to give you an overview on some of the different types of hair loss within the TCM framework, hair loss. Can mean reduced follicles, whereas hair thinning is the reduced shaft, the caliber of the hair shaft, and we have several patterns that we look for.

So chi and blood deficiency, damp heat, liver, kidney deficiency. These are all different patterns that can show up with hair loss, just microneedling. I’m sorry for hair loss that microneedling can be effective for. So you want to address the root with body points and then do some local scalp therapy with the microneedling.

So you do your acupuncture body points, and then you would do the microneedling locally and. Blood heat generating wind pattern might show up as itching, headache, red tongue, and the treatment. Would be to clear the heat, extinguish the wind chi and blood deficiency frequently, or post illness or postpartum.

And your patient may have fatigue, palor, weak pulse, thin hair. And the treatment would be to tonify the cheek, nourish the blood for damp heat. This is often diet related. They might have a greasy scalp, loose roots, itching, red tongue, so you wanna clear the heat, resolve the dampness. And for a liver and kidney deficiency, this can happen in middle aged individuals.

They might have dull or graying hair, so microneedling can actually help the hair to not be as gray as well. They might have sore back knees, dizziness. Red tongue thin coat. Thin rapid pulse. So you wanna nourish the liver and the kidney. And of course, within Chinese medicine, mental and emotional factors can play a role in hair loss.

So stress, grief and worry can cause hair loss. So how does microneedling support the hair growth? Microneedling, as I said, stimulates the collagen production. Also, when you create these little micro injuries, it triggers cytokine and regenerative cycling in the skin. And this can help with the hair regrowth.

It enhances blood circulation. It, as I mentioned, improves the absorption. And trans epidermal delivery, how any topicals that you would put on your scalp, whether it’s a medical topical, like something like Minoxidil or some sort of a peptide or a growth serum, it can thicken the existing hair. And enhance the overall scalp health, making a more more, better, more fertile place for the hair to grow.

And it can activate some if the person has a hair follicle, it can activate the dormant follicles promoting new growth. It also releases growth factors and in my longer lecture, I get into what all of these different growth factors are, and these can help with all of the above concerns. So within Chinese medicine, the way we think of it is microneedling promotes qi blood.

And collagen renewal and stimulating the scalp works with microcirculation for the follicle vitality.

So again, activating stem cells, enhancing the microcirculation and creating collagen production can help to thicken the hair and enhance the overall scalp health. The equipment that you need is a professional microneedling pen. Especially if you’re working in your office, you don’t want to get a commercially available pen.

You want to get a professional microneedle pen because the speed. Will be calibrated properly. The pen itself should have anti backflow technology. The needle should come in single use cartridges and then serums that are appropriate for hair growth. Things that. Contain growth factors or peptides.

Botanicals, and you will prep the scalp with witch hazel or alcohol to cleanse it. You’re going to need gloves. You’re going to section the hair. And you could put topical anesthetic on and then put on a disposable, like a shower cap for 15 minutes. You can even use blue light if you have a blue light device.

So you want, the basic treatment flow is you meet with your patient. You’re going to prescreen them for any contraindications and go through a treatment plan. Typically, you’re going to see them once every two weeks or so, and. You’re going to cleanse the skin, apply numbing cream. Then that has to come off and you would section the hair, whatever hair is there, and you’re going to apply serum.

You’re gonna set the depth on the pen, depending on where in the scalp. And other factors, it’s either gonna be 0.25 to 1.0 millimeter, and then you’ll either do a linear or a stamping motion. You could use red light afterwards to help to increase the blood flow, and then you would set up aftercare with the patient, tell them what needs to be done, and then you could see them again in two to four weeks.

Typically improvement is seen within eight to 12 weeks. And that usually looks like enhanced density and reduced shedding. And you want to make sure that. You are following clean needle techniques. You’re going to use gloves. Your hands are gonna be clean. You would have a clean field set up. You definitely want to use single use cartridges, and they’re put into the sharps afterwards and you want to record the.

Of the needle, how many passes you did, if you used an LED light, how much time and what the response was. And then of course, document with before and after photos. So here are a couple of before and after photos from patients over about 12 weeks. And as you can see the density. Was quite significant density change in this patient’s hair.

And the first one was taken. If you’re wondering why the hair color was different this was taken. In the beginning of the autumn after the summer, and then this was taken 12 weeks later and after some haircuts, all of the blonde had grown out after a few months. And this is another before and after, again, significant changes in this bald area.

So if you want to learn more on my website, facial acupuncture classes.com, you can get a copy of my ebook on microneedling. And I also offer several different classes on microneedling for anti-aging acne. Hair loss. And I also teach live hands-on classes around the country and around the world.

But the online classes do have live they have demos and they’re all approved for continuing education. So you can visit facial acupuncture classes.com. And if you wanna learn more about the products, go to Alife Skincare. Com.

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So the first thing you want to look at when you are considering purchasing a device and you’re looking at safety features is the weight.

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Hi, my name is Michelle Gellis. I am an acupuncture physician and an author, and I want to thank the American Acupuncture Council for giving me this opportunity to speak to you about safety concerns when purchasing a microneedling device. So there are a lot of microneedling devices out. On the market now, and I’m not here to try to sell you one, but the American Acupuncture Council is an insurance agency, and so safety is very important to them, and it should be very important to us as practitioners, both the safety of our patients and Our peace of mind when we are taking on a practice, whether it’s acupuncture, needling, or in this case, if we are doing microneedling.

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So the first thing you want to look at when you are considering purchasing a device and you’re looking at safety features is the weight. Of the pen itself and the reason why this is important, if you are doing a lot of microneedling, then if your pen is too heavy, your hand will get tired, and you may not have the consistency across the face, neck, chest, hands, wherever you’re going to be microneedling that you would have with a lighter device.

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Now that said, you don’t want to buy a product that is merely made out of aluminum, which is very lightweight, but it’s not going to be durable, and then you can run it into other problems with the product. Breaking or just not lasting very long. Something that is aluminum and stainless steel will give you the durability and also the lightness that you are looking for.

The next important thing when you’re looking at safety in a device is how easy is it for it to use and to adjust? So there should be two adjustments on any microneedle pen. And the first one, which is also a safety feature, is the speed. So in this particular pen, the. Speed, which is indicated by these different numbers is easily visible.

And so you know exactly what speed the pen is operating at. What does speed mean? The speed is how quickly the needles go up and down. So if they’re going too slowly. So we refer to this as RPMs. If it’s going too slowly, it can actually tear at the skin, and so you don’t want a pen that isn’t at least 16,000 RPMs with 18,000 being the kind of gold standard for professional microneedle devices.

The next feature. Setting is, if you look at the pen here, there’s numbers on the. Pen and these numbers indicate how deep the needles will penetrate into the skin. Professional micro noodle devices typically will adjust from zero. To 2.5 millimeters and usually when you are using a microneedle pen, you’re going to start out around 0.25 and you really, when you’re working on the phase, really don’t wanna go over 1.0 millimeters.

The next important safety feature that we’re looking at. So these numbers should be easy to read even if you have a protective sleeve over the pen, and it should be easy to adjust without any confusion about. What number you’re at. Next is the actual cartridges themselves and the cartridges you purchased should be pre sterilized.

And this is usually done through a gas process and. The package itself should be sealed. It should be dated, and it should be easy to open. So heal them open and. The cartridge itself should not be a screw type, and the reason is screw type cartridges can pop off the pen. You want something that has a bayonet.

Tight, and you’ll see this is a three prong bayonet. You want a bayonet type, which when you put it into the pen, it will click on nice and tight, and you don’t have to worry about the cartridge popping off. So another. Important feature of buying a professional pen should be some sort of anti backflow technology.

So let’s break this down. What does that mean, anti backflow technology? The prongs when they go into the pen should. Fit into sorry, my camera’s reversed, so you can actually see right inside there. There are three little holes inside the pen and there are three. Places where the pen connects and then there are three hall.

Let me do it this way. Let’s see, trying to get the right light. You can see, almost see there’s three holes here on the cartridge itself. So these three prongs go into the hu inside the pen, and they fit like this, and then you push it on. And once it’s connected, it stays connected. Also, the needles should be protected with a tip so that when you open the package up, if you put the cartridge down, the needles aren’t exposed.

But don’t forget to take the tip off before you do your microneedling. Then as you adjust the pen, you can see the needles will come out over the top, just like that. You see that? So that’s adjusted. Right now I am all the way up at 2.5, but you would never, so that’s how deep those needles would be going into the skin.

Perhaps you could use that on acne scar on the back or the chest, or stretch marks on a leg, but you would never have the needles out that far for working on the face. So we’ve talked about some of the actual safety fit features of a pen. So lightweight, easy to read display, easy to read, and easily adjustable numbers, the cartridge, pre sterilized, and individual packets.

And good connection, no backflow, so that when you’re microneedling any serums that are on the face you really shouldn’t have any body fluids coming out. But any serums that are on the face do not go back into the pen itself. And lastly your device should have, should come with a couple of rechargeable batteries.

And that way if you are in the middle of microneedling and your battery dies, you have a backup. And just as an extra backup, should you have a really busy day and you. Forget to charge your batteries or you just completely use up the batteries, both of them having a cord that you can plug in. Sorry, mine is in a case.

Having a nice long cord that you can plug in. To the same sort of instead of a battery, this would be something that shows you the speed and controls the pen just like the battery does, except this plugs into the wall. Having a nice long cord so that if your treatment table is not anywhere near a, an outlet, you have plenty room to work with.

So last but not least, having good instruction manual, something that is also easy to read, very important having. Nice pretty pictures and what each one of the parts does and all the contraindications and precautions. And this will ensure that you don’t that you actually know what you’re doing or what each one of the parts or four.

So I just wanted to give you that. Quick overview on safety and kind of what to look for when you’re purchasing a microneedle device. There are a lot of knockoff products and multifunctional devices that maybe or not. Designed just to do microneedling, and I would caution you that these devices probably are not very good.

If you try to do too much in one tool, you’re not really going to be very good at any one thing. So if your pen has red light or if your pen does microcurrent. It’s not going to be as good as a dedicated red light device or a dedicated microcurrent device, or as a dedicated microneedle pen. Wanna thank you again and.

I look forward to speaking to you next time. We will be. I also will be talking a little bit about marketing and so stay tuned for that. Thank you so much.

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