I’m going to do a presentation, which is part two on the importance of clearing blocks before treating the face.

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, and I would like to thank the American Acupuncture Council for giving me this opportunity to talk to you today. I’m going to do a presentation, which is part two on the importance of clearing blocks before treating the face. You can go to the first slide.

So last time I did a presentation on the importance of clearing blocks before treating the face, part one. And you can find that at the AAC website. And it is also available on my website, Facial Acupuncture Classes.

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So a little bit about me quickly before I get started. I am currently on the doctoral faculty at Yosan University in Los Angeles, and I’m a former faculty member and clinic supervisor at the Maryland University of Integrative Health. I was there from 2003 until 2021 and I teach facial and cosmetic acupuncture classes internationally.

So last time I talked about what an energetic block is, and I would just like to do a review of that quickly. So an energetic block essentially is a break in or an impediment to the smooth flow of chi. and blocks can prevent treatments from being effective or can prevent treatments from holding. And in the Lingxu we are taught that only when stagnation is cleared away, the channels can be vented and yin and yang can be harmonized.

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So When you’re performing acupuncture, whether you’re doing facial acupuncture for cosmetic or neuromuscular conditions, there is a lot of chi and blood brought up to the face. To help with the circulation of the face. And if that chi cannot flow smoothly through the meridians, through the channels, to the points, then your treatment will not be as effective.

So last time the blocks that I talked about were a possession and aggressive energy. This time, I am going to talk about husband wife imbalances, or an HW, and also entry exit blocks.

A husband wife imbalance is probably of all the blocks that I covered today. Last time, or of all the blocks that can exist that we treat, an HW is probably the most serious of the blocks and If someone has an HW, it is a sign that their health is declining, their natural healing resources have been depleted, and Yin and Yang.

are losing their their functions, their functional contact. So left untreated over time, the person’s health will deteriorate to the point of them being beyond health.

Due to the severity and the nature of this type of block, the and the number of needles usually used during facial acupuncture treatment, it’s imperative to clear this block, if it is present, before doing any sort of cosmetic treatment on your patient. Otherwise, you could further deplete your patient, leaving them weak.

and at risk of serious physical or emotional deterioration. So how do we determine if someone has a husband white imbalance or an HW? So what you will notice is, so normally the left hand pulses, the pulses on the left side, are stronger than the pulses on the right. But if someone has a husband wife imbalance, then the right side pulses are going to be stronger in quantity, so they’re going to be bigger, stronger pulses, and they will have a different quality, sharp fighting quality to them.

So the right side pulses will be stronger than the left side. So the right side pulses are considered to be the wife’s side pulses and the left are considered to be the So you’re, you have this imbalance where the, Wife pulses are bigger.

So what it looks like is this. Normally these pulses here are your wife pulses. These are the husband pulses. So these are the pulses that are on your right side. So we’re going to have the right side of fire. So we’ll have

your fire, and we’re going to have your earth pulses and your metal pulses. So this energy goes like this. The part of fire on the right side says Sanjiao. And So your Sanjiao pulses and your pericardium pulses will be bigger than the left side of fire, which is heart and small intestine.

So your right side pulses are all going to be larger. And so you’ve got all this process. But there’s a block right here. And the energy is not making it over to the water and the wood, which is all about growth and expansion. So we’ve got all this process, but there’s no growth. So how do you treat it?

You are going to go, first thing you do is you’re going to start down here and you’re going to tonify the metal points. in water. So you’re going to go to bladder 67 and kidney 7. So you’re pulling, you’re trying to break this block here by pulling the both sides of the yin and yang of water. So bladder 67 and kidney seven, you’re pulling that energy over and you’re going to tonify.

And then you are going to pull the energy from earth down to water. So kidney three, Then you are going to bring the metal to wood, and that point is liver four, and again these are all tonification. And then you are going to tonify the source points of small intestine and heart to bring the energy to heart four.

and small intestine with heart being last. So between each set of points you’re going to check pulses to see where the where the block existed.

Sorry. Okay.

The next block that I’m going to talk about is an entry exit block. And the reason why these are really important when you’re working on the face is because there is either an entry or exit point for each one of the zong on the face. So here we have the exit for small intestine, the entry for bladder, we have the exit for Sanjiao, the entry of gallbladder.

the exit for large intestine and the entry for stomach. So if this is the Chinese clock and energy moves around from one, from liver to lungs, the large intestine to stomach right around the Chinese clock, if there is a block while the energy is moving around through the meridian system, through the Chinese clock, then there is a place where the chi is not getting through.

I’m a J. R. Worsley trained five element acupuncturist, and one of the things that J. R. did was he set up the meridian system. So for each meridian, he gave it a Roman numeral, and part of the reason why he did that was it makes it easier to talk about To while your patient’s in the room. Let’s say you’re supervising in clinic and you have a student and you wanna talk about the patient, but you don’t wanna alarm them, you could say, do you feel this quality on one?

So they are numbered according to the flow of energy through the body, according to the Chinese clock. And we always start. with heart as one, and so heart is Roman numeral one, small intestine is two, bladder is three, kidney is four, pericardium is five, sangio is six, gallbladder is seven, liver is eight, lung is nine, large intestine is ten, stomach is eleven, and spleen is twelve.

And do note that the entry exit points are not always the first and last point on the meridian I have marked out. You can see here, for example, Large Intestine 4 is the entry point on Large Intestine. And Gallbladder 41 is the exit point on Gallbladder. Lung 7 is the exit point on Lung. So it’s not always the last point on the meridian.

So if you don’t remember where the exit, what the exit and entry points are. You can refer to this chart. So again, the energy goes from heart to small intestine, to bladder, to kidney, to pericardium, et cetera, et cetera. And then once it gets to spleen, once it gets to 12, it goes back to one again, right around the clock.

So I used a highlighter to show the different pairs. So if this is a pericardium, pulse chart. When you’re feeling the pulses, what you’re looking for are going to be breaks between, so you’d be looking for a break between the paired meridians, so small intestine, to bladder, right? So this would be a 2 3 block.

So if these pulses are larger than these pulses, then you have a block. So small intestine to bladder, Would be a 2, 2, 3 block. Then you go again in order, you go from kidney to pericardium. Then we go from sanja to gallbladder, from liver to lung, from large intestine to stomach and from spleen to heart. So you can see.

the way the the blocks could occur. The ones we’re most concerned about are going to be the ones on the face. So between small intestine and bladder, between large intestine and stomach, and between sand jaw and gallbladder. Those are the ones that have either an entry or an exit point. on the fifth.

So again, we identify them on the pulse, and if the pulse of the lower numbered meridian is stronger than the pulse on the higher numbered meridian, according to the Chinese clock on that chart I showed you, then we have what we call an entry exit block. Some people call them exit entry blocks, but it’s just semantics.

In my book, I changed the, this is from one of my PowerPoint presentations, but in my book, I I changed it to exit. entry block because it’s an exit entry block, which you’ll see in the next slide. So the treatment is you’re going to tonify the exit point of the lower numbered meridian, which is the stronger pulse.

Then you’re going to tonify the entry point of the next meridian. And by tonify, the way that we do it is you’re going to insert the needle, And in the flow of energy, in the direction of the flow of the energy, and you’re going to turn it 180 degrees clockwise, and then take it out.

There are entry exit blocks that exist. on the chest, and these would be between spleen and heart, kidney and pericardium, and large intestine and stomach. And these have to do more with the heart and the lung functions. Here we have, again, the entry exit blocks on the face, and these are going to be closer to our senses.

So I already went through all of this. So this is what I was trying to explain. If this it’s like a kink in a garden hose. If the energy of the smaller numbered meridian, let’s say small intestine, bigger then the energy on the next numbered meridian, so bladder, then we have an exit entry block.

And so when I feel pulses, I put my hands on both wrists and I go around and I feel two to three, And then I go 4, to 5, to 6, to 7, to 8, to 9, to 10, to 11, to 12. And then back around again.

And I already said this. The last block is a CBGB block. And that is a less common block. It is between Ren and Do. And REN and DEW are like the seas that feed the rivers. So the rivers and are the meridians, but the repository for all of our all of our energy is through REN and DEW and REN and DEW.

If there is a block between rent and due, then that energy is not going to be able to get out to the meridians. And what you will feel on the pulses is all of the pulses will be very low. And this can happen due to sexual abuse, trauma, or if a husband wife imbalance goes too long without being treated.

The treatment is you’re going to tonify CV1. And you’ll tonify, so you there’s special draping that you’ll have to do, and you’ll have to have gloves, and you talk to the patient ahead of time about what it is you’re going to do, but you are going to tonify CB1, you take the needle out, change your gloves, our new gloves, you’re going to tonify CB24, then you would tonify CB1.

Take off your gloves, put on new gloves, and then you would tonify GV28 and you check the pulses again.

My book is hopefully going to be out the first week in September or thereabouts, maybe the second week in September. And it will be called Treating the Face. It’s a comprehensive manual for acupuncturists and allied health professionals, and it’s going to cover everything from cosmetic and neuromuscular facial acupuncture, cupping, gua sha, Red Light Therapy, Microneedling, The Anatomy of Expression, Self Care, Skin Care, Nutrition.

Everything involved with treating from the clavicle. And if you are interested in getting on the waitlist to pre order, you can go to my website, facialacupunctureclasses. com, and there is a place where you can pre order. Sign up to be in my waiting list. So thank you again to the AAC for this opportunity, and I look forward to seeing you next time.

 

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…speak to you today about the importance of clearing blocks before facial acupuncture treatment.

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’s Michelle Gellis and I would like to thank the American Acupuncture Council for giving me this opportunity to speak to you today about the importance of clearing blocks before facial acupuncture treatment.

I am an acupuncture physician. And I am on faculty at Yosan University in California. I’m on the doctoral faculty and I taught at the Maryland University of Integrative Health from 2003 until 2021. And I teach facial acupuncture classes internationally. So the first The thing I want to discuss is what is an energetic block?

So energetic blocks are a break or an impediment to the smooth flow of qi in the body. And left untreated, they can prevent treatments from being effective, or if they are effective, they can prevent the treatment from holding so your patient may get better and then they get sick again. According to the Ling Xu says that only when the stagnation is cleared away, can the channels be vented and yin and yang can be harmonized.

And when we’re thinking about facial acupuncture treatments, whether it’s for a cosmetic purpose or functional purposes, Some sort of neuromuscular condition. The purpose of doing these treatments is to send blood and chi. to the face and neck and head. And if there are blocks to treatment, then the energy cannot flow up to where it needs to go. I’m a classically trained Worsley five element acupuncturist. And one of the first things that we do when we start treating a patient is to clear blocks. And today I’m going to talk to you about possession. which is internal and external demons. And I am also going to talk to you about aggressive energy.

And this is part one of a two part lecture. Next time, we are going to talk about husband wife imbalances and entry exit blocks.

The reason why clearing blocks to treatment is so important when we’re talking about treating the face is typically when you perform a treatment. Cosmetic acupuncture, you are using a lot of needles and there can be a risk, an increased risk of needle shock, which can manifest as your patient not feeling well, breaking out in a cold sweat, nausea.

And in very extreme situations, a loss of consciousness. By clearing the blocks prior to doing your facial acupuncture treatment, it allows the chi and the blood to flow through the channels and prevent any Sudden shifts in energy and therefore reducing the risk of needle shock.

So what I’m, the first thing I’m going to talk about is how we diagnose blocks to treatment.

And the very first block that you would want to check for is possession. And possession, the diagnosing and treating of possession dates all the way back to the Siu Wen. And the only way that you can know if your patient is possessed is through a lack of Shen in the eyes. You might suspect it based on their life history, stories they tell you the way they look, but really if you are looking at your patient and the lights are on but no one’s home, it’s like you’re looking right through them.

Think of maybe someone who has been in jail for a period of time, or a drug addict they’re, the, these kind of demons take over them to keep them alive, and what we have to do is we do what’s called a dragon treatment, and I’m going to go over that, but we’re going to do some points to help to release these demons.

So here’s an example of a couple of them. individuals who are possessed. This for those of you who don’t remember Charlie Manson, this is Charlie Manson. And someone else famous, Billie Eilish, I think. So you can just see their eyes are dead and they may be able to function, but they’re not functioning very well.

So there’s two different types. of demons. There’s internal and external. So when you’re maybe listening to someone’s story and you’re wondering, should I be suspecting if they’re possessed? Look at, as I mentioned, do they have a history of drug or alcohol abuse? Have they been incarcerated? Have they seen some sort of horrible atrocity?

People that witnessed 9 11. It’s I like to think of it. like shock and you’re just like night of the living dead just walking around and you’re not really in control of yourself. You’re just going through the motions and your patients may say things like, I don’t know what made me do that.

I wasn’t myself. I haven’t been the same since that happened. Those types of things would maybe make you suspect possession.

So I actually just covered all of this. You may feel uncomfortable in their presence and so there’s internal demons and external demons. So internal demons typically happen from something that is going on internally, some sort of an emotional thing. It, it’s going on within the person and the way you would treat it is you would do the, there’s a master point, a quarter inch below Ren 15, then Stomach 25, Stomach 32, Stomach 41, and you’re going to go from right to left, top to bottom, straight in.

and no needle action. You’re going to put the needles in for about 15 minutes and it’s a good idea to leave the room, maybe open a window a little, burn a candle, because when this energy gets released, it could potentially come to you. If they, if you come back in the room and it looks like it hasn’t cleared, you can turn the needle like 180 degrees clockwise and this can help to get that energy out of them.

For external demons, this is usually something externally that happens, a car accident, extreme weather conditions, maybe they had surgery, something like that, and the treatment is well, do 20. Bladder 11, Bladder 23, Bladder 61, right to left, top to bottom, the needles go straight in, no needle action. You’re going to leave them in for 15 minutes and then you’re going to take them out top to bottom, right to left.

The next so once you have cleared possession, if it exists, you’re going to leave them in for 15 minutes and then you’re the next treatment that you would do, and I do this on every single cosmetic patient that I treat, and it really helps to prevent any like weird sensations lightheadedness some minor things that can happen with cosmetic acupuncture, but aggressive energy, or A.

E. is a way to give a nice clean slate when you’re treating your patient. So you’re going to put these needles in and it helps to get rid of any contaminated, polluted chi. And I do this on every patient. If they’re not possessed, I do it the first time I treat them. If they are possessed, you do that, you do the possession treatment, and then you would follow it up with an A.

E. treatment. And that’s it. The way, if someone has the ae, there’s really no way to know. That’s why you just do it on everyone because the test is a treatment and the treatment is a test. Another term for AE is weight chi. And this is the evil influence or an unhealthy trend or some sort of pathology. You want to be able to direct as much energy up to the face as possible. And if the person has AE, it is going to block that energy from going up to the face and it can inadvertently cause that toxic polluted chi to go other places in the body. So what you do is you are going to put needles in.

You’re going to put the needles in the back shoe points, all of them. This is just a photograph of someone that had AA. But you’re going to put needles in the back shoe points, bladder 13, 14, 15, 18, 20, and 23. And then you’re going to leave the needles in along with these test needles. You’ll put in three test needles, one on the upper jowl, one on the middle jowl.

one on the lower jaw. And if the redness, and they can go anywhere that’s not an acupuncture point. So here you can see the redness around bladder 13, 14, and 15. And if you follow this needle all the way down, you can see that the test needle, there was no redness. So this person had a lot of rising heat. In their upper jowl, there was nothing on the test needle, and you leave the needles in until the redness clears. So here are some other pictures of people with AE. So this is their neck and you can see the redness around the needles and no redness around the test needle. Same thing here. Here’s their neck, and you can see the redness here, but nothing on the test needle.

So again, the protocol. is bladder 13, 14, 15, and then you put in a test needle and then bladder 18, 20, and another test needle and bladder 23. And you can you should needle this bilaterally from top to bottom and right to left. You don’t put the needles in very deep. You just tap them in so they hang.

And if there is AE, you’re going to see redness around the needle, which is different than any change you’re going to see near the test needles. That concludes part one of why it’s important to clear blocks to facial acupuncture. I do have one slide at the end of giving you a sneak peek of next time. My book, Treating the Face is going to be coming out soon. If you go to my website, facialacupunctureclasses. com, you can sign up to be on my mailing list and I am going to be taking pre orders sometime in the next, probably by the end of August, I’ll be taking pre orders.

So I, again, I want to thank the American Acupuncture Council for this opportunity. And I will see you next time.

 

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So there are a lot of different facets to marketing facial acupuncture. And some of them are very similar to marketing any acupuncture practice. Some of them are very unique.

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’s Michelle Gilles. I am an acupuncture physician practicing in Florida, and I want to thank the American Acupuncture Council for this opportunity to speak to you today about marketing your facial acupuncture practice. Now, last time I spoke in part one, I did an introduction to marketing your facial acupuncture practice, and if you missed it, you can check it out.

And today, I am going to pick up where we left off last time, so if you can go to the first slide.

So there are a lot of different facets to marketing facial acupuncture. And some of them are very similar to marketing any acupuncture practice. Some of them are very unique. So today we’re going to talk about mailing and newsletters. blog posts, community engagement, workshops and seminars, and collaboration with other wellness practitioners.

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So when we think about marketing, one of the things, one of the terms that is used is lead magnets. And what that means is ways that you can bring people into your practice, things that will attract more business. So podcasts are a great idea. Things like we’re doing right now, where you either through a short or a long version of a podcast, give some information about a particular topic.

Doing happy hours is a great way to bring business into your facial acupuncture practice. Now, these do not have to involve alcohol. You can do a happy hour where you maybe teach your clients something. And you would have refreshments. And then you can provide Maybe something small like a serum or a little takeaway for them and you would educate them as to the benefits of facial acupuncture.

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You could offer free treatment. Red light treatment or maybe a quick hand microneedling. That’s another way to attract more people into your practice. Creating a book like an actual physical book or an online book with information about facial acupuncture, tips for self care at home. Also, on your website and in your social media, you can do surveys and quizzes.

People love to answer those things and that can bring more business in that way. Additionally, having A webinar where you do something longer online or a workshop where you might perhaps teach your patients how to dermaroll or do facial cupping and gua sha. Those types of things where it’s self care and you’re giving them a useful tool.

Also, going to health fairs is a wonderful way to attract more patients, because you can have people fill something out for a prize, you can do a skin assessment, you can do a health assessment, feel their pulses, look at their tongue, and talk to them about skin care for their particular. constitution type.

For the health fairs, as I mentioned, you can do a skin assessment. You can do little promo cards, and on the promo card you might give a discount on maybe a product that you sell, and then also list the benefits of facial acupuncture. You could give those away. You can have. Other promotional items, little collagen eye masks, massage pens, the one in this picture, where people can roll it on their face, and then the name of your practice would be on there.

You could do a spin the wheel, have one of those wheels, and people spin the wheel, and they get some sort of a prize for winning. Next slide.

Additionally, use your website. On your website, you can have all of your blog posts, testimonials, before and after photos, an ebook. So on your social, you would have a link to your website where people can see on your social. If I click here, it’ll take me to the website and I can see the testimonials, the before and afters, read the blog posts, etc.

Also, you can do mailings. Now, these can be actual in the mail mailings, or you can do mailing through email, and there are several different elements to mailing. You want to have a hook, and the hook might be a question, such as you why do people go to facial acupuncture? That might be the hook, and then people will open it, And maybe on the second line, it’ll say, click here to learn more.

And then once they’re opened, the logo should be on the top. And then in the body of the email, you might want to ask a question, state how you will solve their problem, maybe how they’ll feel after they’ve had a treatment, but always have a call to action. Don’t just provide information. and not tell them what to do.

So the what to do might say call our office, go to my website. Those types of things would be a call to action and always have a link to your website and any social in the email.

So here are some examples of marketing hooks that you might have in your email, like in the subject. So examples are three smart, three things smart people do when trying to, and then you would put in the outcome, tighten their skin, three things smart people do when trying to lose dark spots, or three mistakes people often make when trying to.

And then you put in the outcome. And also magic keys. Giving them like some kind of magical key to fix whatever their problem is. The one thing that I finally did to And then the outcome. Get rid of my dark spots. Tighten my loose skin. This is one thing my patients do on a regular basis. So these are the types of things that are going to cause people to want to click on your email.

Some other ones for your Maybe your blogs or your website or some promotional material that you might hand out. So reveal your natural beauty, rediscover radiance, unlock your skin’s potential. And all of these types of hooks will have a first part and a second part. So goodbye to fine lines and wrinkles Embrace, embrace youthful skin through facial acupuncture.

Shorter hooks can be helpful. Not everyone wants to read a very long hook. So having something shorter, unlock the secret to glowing skin today. And if someone sees that in their email, they’re more likely to click on something that sparks their interest. Your key to radiant beauty awaits. Revitalize your appearance.

Just one click.

When you’re working on your newsletter, there are a lot of different ways to put one together. Many mailing things like Constant Contact or MailChimp have their own way to design a mailing or you can just design it in Word or in Canva and it’s You want to include either part of a blog post or a link to a blog post that will take them to your website.

Have the testimonials in there. Do the before and afters. Write in your newsletter. You can have a contest. You can have famous quotes. These are all things that can, when put together, can really make for a really nice newsletter that you send out. Blog posts should be short. People should be able to read it.

in less than five minutes and sometimes if you put at the top how long it’s going to take to read it that helps as well. You can embed it right into your website and make certain that there is an image and that the image has attributes to it and says what it is. And these are all things that help Google to find your blog post.

Put this in your social and in your emails. So when you take the time to create a blog post, you want to have links to it in as many different places as possible. But the most important thing is that you optimize it for SEO. So don’t just write the blog post and think, Oh, it’s done. You want to make sure that your SEO is optimized so that the when Google is looking for a keyword like melasma, it can find it because you’ve included that in your keywords, but your keywords have to actually represent what’s in the article or it won’t work.

Community engagement is also important. Providing donations to different organizations, advertisements. If there’s local fundraisers going on, join a Rotary Club or any business networking groups in your area. Things like Women’s League. All of these types of organizations can connect you with more people.

And people do business with people that they know and they like. You can also do collaborations with other wellness practitioners. So go to a spa and tell them about what you do. See if they’ll hold on to your business cards. Salons, OBGYNs, they’re all about women’s health and wellness. Massage therapists.

And. You take their cards as well, and cross refer to one another.

This is a list of some of the classes that I teach if you want to learn more about facial acupuncture, and how it can help you to bring more business into your practice. Facial acupuncture is a great way to expand the scope of what it is you do. It’s very popular, and I teach classes. I have a certificate course.

I have an advanced certificate course, and I teach facial cupping in Gua Sha, derma rolling, skincare, microneedling, ethics, safety, neuromuscular treating neuromuscular conditions and even self care for acupuncturists. So once again, I want to thank the American Acupuncture Council for this opportunity, and I look forward to seeing you next time.

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So today’s lecture is going to be part one of a comprehensive lecture on how to market your facial acupuncture practice. And part of this is from my upcoming book on Treating the Face and some of the material I learned from Dr. East Phillips and she can be found@dreast.com.

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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 am a License Board Certified Acupuncture Physician. I will be presenting today on Marketing Your Facial Acupuncture Practice. Can we go to the first slide?

So a little bit about me. I am currently on the doctoral faculty at Yosan University, and I am a former faculty member and clinic supervisor at the Maryland University of Integrative Health. I have been teaching facial and cosmetic acupuncture classes since 2005.

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So today’s lecture is going to be part one of a comprehensive lecture on how to market your facial acupuncture practice. And part of this is from my upcoming book on Treating the Face and some of the material I learned from Dr. East Phillips and she can be found@dreast.com. So the topics today are I’m going to do a quick marketing 101, talk about social media, the power of testimonials the importance of before and after photos, and how to set up some accounts.

programs for your facial acupuncture practice. So the first thing to think about when you’re thinking about marketing your facial acupuncture practice, and this really is not just for a cosmetic acupuncture practice, but this can also be for if you’re doing facial acupuncture for, Neuromuscular facial conditions.

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It really falls under the umbrella of educating your audience. When most people now, nowadays, when they think about aging, there’s more of a push towards holistic aging, and aging in a healthy way. We can’t stop the aging process, but we all want to look and feel as good as possible. And the nice thing about acupuncture and Chinese medicine is that we’re not just treating the outside, we’re treating the inside.

So when you are Putting together your brochures or your online presence, any infographics that you’re putting together to talk about your facial acupuncture practice. You want to not only talk about how effective it is, but also The full range of benefits as far as physical health, emotional health and wellness, relaxation, and how it is a holistic approach, you’re not putting anything into the body or taking anything out of the body, as is frequently the case with Western medicine.

When we’re thinking about our marketing in general, one of the first things that we can be struck with is where do I come up with content? How often do I need to post? How much information does someone want at one time? And for a lot of us, we are healers, we are business owners, but we may not have a marketing department and or a background in marketing.

It’s important to know that consistency is the key. It takes the average person about seven times of seeing your ad before they actually take some sort of action. If you’re consistent, then people know that you’re not going to disappear. They can count on you to be there. And if they can’t buy right in that moment, then They’ll see your post again.

So it really is a matter of being in front of someone often enough so that when the time is right for them, they’ve been educated, they like you, get your message, they understand what you’re selling, and that’s when they’re going to hit the button to either call you or to sign up and make an appointment.

So marketing when you’re trying to think of marketing ideas, it can be overwhelming. Like I am just burnt out, I can’t think of a single other idea of what can I do for my marketing. So one idea is to market by the season, right? So each season you are going to come up with a new idea for marketing. So when we’re talking about the skin, maybe it’s a spring detox for the skin or summer skin.

Is your skin getting. Overcooked by the sun or dried out or is the humidity affecting your skin? Is your skin dry in the fall? And what about your winter skin? How is your, how are you tending to your skin during the winter? So you can set your marketing. by the season. Another way that you can set your marketing is holidays.

There’s so many holidays and for each holiday you can work your marketing around that holiday. Also every month of the year, and sometimes for every week of the month, there’s different awareness. So there’s Domestic Violence Awareness Month and Down Syndrome Awareness Month, Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

Different awareness things that resonate with you, your message. You can look them all up and then you can gear your marketing towards that and offer specials geared towards that.

You can also do your marketing so if you choose a month, or you’re in a month, you’re coming up on a month, let’s say January, you would come up with different discount codes that would relate to January. And then when you’re offering discounts on your services or your products, I strongly recommend if you’re going to be offering cosmetic acupuncture, that you do offer products.

So For example, for January, you could do New Year, or New You, or Beginnings, or New Beginnings, and then that discount code would be worth a certain amount of money. And within the month of January, you can also offer different challenges. This can be on your social media, where you offer a challenge for your patients to to have different activities related to their skin, whether it’s derma rolling or cupping and gua sha at home, or a product maybe that you’re launching.

You could offer a flash sale during the month that only happen during certain times, like if it’s snowing or if the temperature goes below a certain temperature. So this is another way that you can. Set your marketing and come up with different marketing ideas. You can also do it by days of the week.

Motivational Monday, Therapeutic Thursday, Feedback Friday. For example, on Therapeutic Thursday, you would have a discount or a promotion or something related to a specific topic. service that you offer. Maybe it’s red light therapy and Feedback Friday. You can invite people to provide feedback on, the experiences that they’ve had and people love to write and comment.

This also boosts your rankings on social media because the more traffic there is in your website or on your social media, the higher you’re going to rank. And it will also give you an opportunity to gather up testimonials. Something else that is wonderful for your to promote, help to promote your business, to drive people to your website and learn more about you and your practice is to develop a QR code.

And this is actually, Very easy. If your phone is near you right now, you can pick up your phone and scan that QR code and see where it brings you. But a QR code can easily be generated for free if you have Canva. You within Canva there is a QR code generator and Adobe also has a QR code generator.

And then there are a lot of programs and apps that will generate QR codes and you can even, at the bottom, You can even have a, like a little title, the name of your business, so people know when they’re scanning what they’re scanning.

As far as your social media I strongly recommend that you have a presence everywhere. I know a lot of my students say they left Facebook during the pandemic or they just got tired of being on Facebook. However, a lot of your customers, your patients are going to be 45 to 65 and they are on Facebook.

So if you don’t have a presence on Facebook for your business, you really should. And when you design your social media, you don’t want it to always be. the same thing. So it’s good to rotate between something a little more personal because people will like and follow people that they like. So if you make them laugh if they resonate with your message, then they are going, if you’re genuine and authentic people.

are really looking to connect with people that they can relate to on their social media. And so you can have something personal, not too personal. I strongly discourage my students, anyone from complaining on social media. Way back when Facebook was first created if you remember, there was only a like.

So it was really about making people happy. And if you’re complaining, no one, people have enough problems. They don’t want your problems. Keep it personal, not too personal. Educational, teach people something in a short bite within 15 seconds. 30 seconds max. Entertaining is great if you can make people laugh or if you have a skill or a talent and you want to show it to them.

Again, this goes into the personal. Something sales related. It’s okay to promote something that you’re doing. And This is a great place for your before and afters, your testimonials. Always have the closed captions because most people don’t have their sound on their phone when they’re scrolling on their social media.

And then everything that you post on social media has got to link back to your website. Because otherwise people will look at it. They don’t know how to find you. And I actually don’t have my social media on here, but you can find me at facialacupunctureclasses. com. So let’s talk about Instagram and this lecture is part of a much bigger lecture that I do in my masterclass on on marketing and I have my students do exercises and we really go into depth.

We do a deep dive on all of these, but like we’re just going to get some really good ideas now. So for Instagram, you, there is no way for someone to click on a link directly through your Instagram posts. So with Instagram, you have to open up. Linktree account. And in your Linktree account is where you can put links to your websites, your products, anywhere you want to direct your patients.

And that goes up in your bio. And then with your, in your post, you say, go to the link in my bio, and they can click on that. And that will take them to where you want them to go. Stories tend to be seen a lot more than posts, which are just stagnant pictures or reels, because someone has to actually go on to your profile to see that reel, whereas stories get shown.

So I always encourage to, if you’re making a reel, you can also redo it as a story. So having them in both places and having the stories more often. We don’t have time to get into how to make a reel, but reels are a great way to do something that’s a little longer than a story and to really present your message.

Facebook. I like Facebook because in Facebook you can have a conversation. So you can have videos, you can make reels reels. And you can also have direct links to your website, but you can really have conversations with people for better or for worse in Facebook. And it’s a lot more participatory.

There’s a lot of different ways to do you can have a poll where you ask people questions and you can have your personal Facebook and your business Facebook. And for my facial acupuncture classes, I have a group. With over I think we’re at 8, 000 acupuncturists in my Facebook group and it’s called Facial Acupuncture.

And people can ask questions and the nice thing about groups is whenever someone posts something in a group, everyone in the group is going to see it. Whereas posts, you have, they have to be light in order for people to see them. Whenever you’re doing Facebook posts, always have links to your website in there.

TikTok is a little different. You might not think about TikTok for your social media, but a lot of people are using it now. And you just make short, little, videos, you can show something that you’re doing or even something that you have on special. But again, if you make one video, then you can take that same video and show it on your YouTube channel, on your Facebook, on your LinkedIn.

You could just show it across all of your platforms. And the nice thing about TikTok is. It has a huge repertoire of music and the editing is really good within TikTok. And you can also do these things called duets. So you can find like an expert in our field and if they’re doing something like, let’s say I was.

presenting a technique and I allowed for duets in my TikTok video, you could put that up and you don’t even have to make the video. You could just be sitting there pointing to it or commenting on it and you have instant content.

Testimonials you have to check with your the state or area where you’re practicing, not All places allow testimonials. I know they don’t allow them in Canada. But if you’re practicing in a place where you allow them, they are great to have on your website. They’re great to have in your social media and in your waiting room.

If you have a book of articles and information for people to look at. And sometimes people just want to take a break from their phone when they’re sitting and they’re waiting to see you. And if you have a book with letters from patients and testimonials, some before and after pictures, this is wonderful.

But just make certain you have permission and you want to keep the testimonial very specific. What exactly was it that did that person like about the treatment? Did their eyebrows become more raised or their crow’s feet became reduced? If you can get your patients to speak to that, and especially if you have a picture, then that is wonderful.

When you’re taking before and after pictures I always take before pictures. I don’t always remember to take the afters, but it’s great if you can get them. But the important thing, because there’s so much photoshopping going on now, they’re not as credible as they were 20 years ago, but When you’re taking your before and afters, you have to make sure that they’re in a HIPAA compliant app and that the lighting is the same for the before and the after.

So if you’re Treatment spaces, windows, close the curtains. And you have to make sure you’re at the same distance and angle. I always have my patient sit on my treatment table, and if they’re taller, I will raise the camera up so that It’s always at that same angle. And the last thing I’m going to talk about today are programs.

And again, this is a state by state thing. Not every place allows you to sell a program or a package is probably the more common term. But what You can do in many places, you can set up like this is my standard program. With the standard program for this much money you get 12 treatments and Dermaroller for self care.

And then for the silver treatment you get everything in the standard treatment Plus, you get products to use with the roller. And then, you can go a step further, and then the gold treatment. This is everything in the silver, plus red light, etc., etc. And then, You would say to your patient which program interests you, and you can even have a little arrow.

This is our most popular program. And people like to be given choices, not too many choices. And they’re going to choose whichever is in their budget and whichever kind of resonates with them. That is the end of Part 1. And next time in part two of Marketing Your Facial Acupuncture Practice, we are going to talk about direct mailing either through email or through actual mail, and blog posts, community engagement, workshops, and collaborations.

So I look forward to seeing you in part two and thank you for coming today.

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Today’s talk focuses on facial motor points. Last time, if you missed part one, I talked about using facial motor points for cosmetic applications. And today we are gonna be talking about so cosmetic applications like, Crow’s feet or frown lines.

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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 and I am an acupuncture physician who teaches facial acupuncture classes internationally. Today, I will be presenting part. Two of a lecture on using facial motor points for facial concerns, and if you would please go to the first slide.

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This is a list of the different classes that I teach. They are all recorded and on my website, and today we will be going over some of the. Topics that I cover in treating neuromuscular facial conditions and some of the advanced techniques from my facial acupuncture class.

Today’s talk focuses on facial motor points. Last time, if you missed part one, I talked about using facial motor points for cosmetic applications. And today we are gonna be talking about so cosmetic applications like, Crow’s feet or frown lines. But today I am going to be talking about using facial motor points for a couple of different types of neuromuscular facial conditions, and the two that I’m going to discuss today are Bell’s Palsy and Ptosis.

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But first I wanna review quickly. What is a motor point? If a muscle. Is not functioning properly. Using an acupuncture needle and putting it into the motor point of the muscle is like a reset switch and it will bring the muscle back into normal functioning. Because on our face, the skin is attached to the muscle.

Using the motor points on the face can help the face to not only look, differently getting rid of tension and wrinkles and lines and folds, but it can also help the face to function properly so that if someone has some sort of a neuromuscular facial condition, using the motor point can help to resolve that.

A motor point is different than a trigger point. A trigger point is like a knot in a muscle, whereas a motor point is, so if this is your peripheral nerve, you have your sensory nerve, and then you have your motor nerve, and the motor point is where the motor. Attaches into the muscle. It is the most electrically excitable part of the muscle where the motor nerve is attached.

The face has two nerve branches that are in charge of the functioning and the sensory of the face. So we have the trigeminal nerve, which is. The fifth facial nerve CN five, and that takes care of sensation. And also mastication, it connects to your massacre, the facial nerve which is CN seven, cranial nerve seven.

Helps the functioning of the face, so your facial expressions and also taste. So you can see the two different nerves. We have the facial nerve and the trigeminal nerve. And the trigeminal nerve has the ophthalmic branch, the maxillary branch, and the mandibular branch, and the facial nerve has five.

Branches, the temporal zygomatic, bcal, the mandibular branch, and then the cervical branches which go down to the platysma.

The first neuromuscular condition we’re going to talk about is Bell’s Palsy and. Be’s palsy is the most common cause of facial paralysis that you will find in your treatment room, that you’ll see in your treatment room typically, and it’s a disruption of the facial nerves, and it can result in facial paralysis, weakness, drooping, inability to keep the eyelid open or closed.

You can patients can get unusual taste sensations, hearing loss, ear pain and normally the symptoms get at their peak within 48 hours and can last for several weeks up through a lifetime.

Palsy is typically in Western medicine. It’s typically thought of as a result of a virus and, mostly it is seen in individuals between the ages of 15 and 60, although I have seen patients as young as two in my treatment room with Bell’s Palsy, and it usually follows some sort of a viral infection.

It is seen. In a very large number of pregnant women and Western medicine treats it with drugs such as Acyclovir. And also usually so the acyclovir is an antiviral, and then frequently they will give some sort of a steroid to help with any inflammation. So the first thing you would do is an exam protocol, and in order to ascertain which of the muscles is not.

Functioning properly. So you would look at, for example, the frontals. The way you would determine if that is working properly is you’d have your patient raise their eyebrows, close their eyes, and you’re going to be looking for any disparity between the two eyes. Have them smile, and this is going to let you know how the zygomaticus major and minor.

Functioning the orbicularis, orus, the lator muscles, and ZOS. Et cetera, et cetera. So you’re gonna go through the exam of the different facial muscles and you’re going to look for any disparity, and then you will know which muscles to treat, and then within that muscle group. Where the different motor points are, and fortunately for us, the motor points on the face, most of them are either on an acupuncture point or they’re right between a couple of acupuncture points.

So it makes it easier for us to find them because the muscle, the face does have a lot of muscles.

So the first motor point that we would use if someone could not pull their eyebrows together and frown would be the motor point for the corrugator muscle, which is just lateral to bladder two.

The next, as I mentioned the frontals that raises the eyebrows and the motor point for that is gallbladder 14. So you would treat the affected side for the orbicularis oculi. This can help with. Closing the eyelids, and that can sometimes be a problem. People with Bell’s Palsy, they have to take their eyelids shut and the motor points.

There’s two for each eye, and one is between Sania 23 and gallbladder one, and then the other is the extra point Q Hoag, which is right on the orbital Ri. It’s between stomach two and gallbladder one. The next is the motor point for the Zygomaticus major, and that is SI 18, and you’re going to needle into the muscle, but not through the muscle.

The Zygomaticus minor helps to elevate the lip and the motor point for that is between stomach two and stomach three. For the levator Labii Superioris, the motor point is between LI 20 and stomach two, and the levator labii Superioris helps to elevate the lip individually as if snarling the Tallis, is on either side of Ren 24 and it is a half soon lateral to Ren 24, and this helps to elevate and protrude the lower lip.

So in addition to ascertaining which muscles you’re going to treat. If you were treating a condition such as Bell’s Palsy, you also would want to do a full body treatment. And so you would do your TCM diagnosis and look for the pattern and treat the underlying pattern. In the case of Bell’s Palsy, it is either blood stagnation, a lung wind invasion, or a spleen chi deficiency.

And then you would do local points and motor points on the face where the person has the deficiency. In addition to any body points, posis is another neuromuscular facial condition that. You will see commonly in your treatment room, and it can affect one eye or both eyes. It’s when the eye lids are not opening fully.

Everyone has a little bit of ptosis, but it can happen as we age. Some people are born that way and for others it can happen after some sort of an injury or even an illness. And this these are different levels of ptosis. This is slight ptosis, very slight ptosis. And this is due to aging. And then this is more severe ptosis.

I already went through all of this. There are many different causes of ptosis again people, sometimes people get ptosis when they have cluster headaches and, some sort of brain injury as I mentioned injury. A brain injury, spinal cord injury can cause ptosis as well. The motor points that you would use ver posis are the orbicularis oi, and also the frontalis can help the major muscle that’s involved.

Is the levator muscle, but there is no motor point for that. There is a way to treat it with cosmetic threading techniques, but I cover that in my cosmetic classes. When you’re looking at posis of the upper eyelid, it’s either a deficiency of spleen. And kidney or and or spleen deficiency with wind phlegm or oh, I’m sorry.

Let me back up a step. The slide is confusing. The it’s either a spleen deficiency with wind phlegm. Or a deficiency of spleen and kidney. And so the, you would do your differential diagnosis based on what the symptoms are, and then you would treat the underlying symptoms accordingly, as well as using the motor points.

This is information on how to find me if you are interested in. More information. You can follow me on Instagram or join my Facebook group, facial Acupuncture and my website for all of my recorded and live classes I do teach internationally is facial acupuncture classes.com.

I wanted to say thank you for today for coming, and thank you to the American Acupuncture Council for giving me this opportunity to spend some time teaching you.

 

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