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Microneedling for Acne and Acne Scars – Michelle Gellis

So why microneedling for acne? Microneedling is something that is historically been used for cosmetic concerns and when you’re thinking about acne and acne scars microneedling, the only thing that it’s been FDA approved for is for treating acne scars.

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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.

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My name’s Michelle Gellis, and I am an acupuncture physician. Hi, my name’s I specialize in facial and cosmetic acupuncture, and today I am going to be doing a presentation, a short presentation, which is part of a longer class that I teach on microneedling for acne and acne scars. So you can go to the first slide.

A portion of this webinar is taken from my book. Let’s see if I can get in the middle. It’s called, thank you. It’s called Treating the Face, and it is a comprehensive guide on treating the face for health professionals. Everything from cosmetic and neuromuscular acupuncture to facial cupping and gua sha.

And there is a chapter on microneedling. So many of the images today are from that. And this is just some photos from the inside of the book. So why microneedling for acne? Microneedling is something that is historically been used for cosmetic concerns and when you’re thinking about acne and acne scars microneedling, the only thing that it’s been FDA approved for is for treating acne scars.

And I’m going to explain that in a moment, but it can also help with acne itself. So what are some of the benefits for microneedling for acne and acne scars? So microneedling can help with the scar itself, it can help with the discoloration, and it can also help with the skin texture. Microneedling will break down the scar tissue.

for the acne scars and it encourages healthy skin regeneration and it helps with the hyperpigmentation, which is a darkening of the skin that can happen when you have had acne. And overall, it will improve the skin tone and the texture making the scars less noticeable. A little bit about acne and there’s different types of acne.

So here is a normal sebaceous gland and hair follicle. And what can happen is the pore of the follicle gets infected with bacteria, and if the skin is healed over it, then you have a white head. If it’s open and oxygen gets to the bacteria, then it becomes a black head. If it gets infected, then you can get this redness around the white head, and If it is inflamed and infected, then you can get a large area of redness, and this is called pustule.

There are also different types of acne scars and boxcar scars. Scars are more of a square shape, ice pick scars are round and deep, keloid scars are raised, and rolling scars are when you have scars that run into one another. What microneedling does is it controls So the little injuries that are, cause when you do microneedling, it stimulates collagen production.

stimulates the skin’s wound healing responses, activating these fibroblasts, and these fibroblasts produce collagen, elastin, and to repair the skin. Microneedling. Also creates little microchannels in the skin, so whatever products you may be using get better absorbed. Here is a picture of a cross section of skin.

Here is the and this is just the epidermis, so the outer layer of the skin. These are all the dead cells on the top. And this is called the stratum corneum, and down here at the bottom, this is the stratum basal, and these are where all the new skin cells are produced. And so when you microneedle, you are both helping the stratum corneum to be exfoliated and you’re reaching down past the keratinocytes down into the stratum basal where the new fibroblast cells create healthy collagen.

So there were many different microneedling devices. There are a dermaroller, which is a non mechanical device where you just roll these little needles on the skin. There’s also a Dermastamp which you stamp onto the skin and you can fill this with serum or different products. And these are really meant for in home use to treat the skin at home.

This is a microneedle pen and this microneedle pen has different speeds for working on different areas of the skin. And it also has different depths. These are little needle cartridges. that connect onto the pen that go into the skin and I offer a four hour training on using a microneedle pen for wrinkles, hair loss and also for acne and acne scars, so how to actually use a microneedle pen.

the pen. So here are some before and after photos of acne and acne scars. This one was microneedling and this one was just using a derma roller. So some of the contraindications are if someone has actual acne. active pustule acne, you don’t want to be microneedling over that. If there’s any sort of infection going on, you don’t want to microneedle over that.

If the person is pregnant, you don’t want to be using a microneedle pen. You could do some derma rolling, but the biggest concern is infection and introducing any sort of infection. So you would want to make You were microneedling with a derma roller or a derma stamp that your device was clean and sterile.

With a microneedle pen, the cartridges are thrown out, but since you’re going deeper, you do run more of a risk of infection. Other contraindications are keloid scars, any sort of bleeding disorder, any sort of skin condition. or if the person is using Retin A or Tretinonin this thins the skin and can be a contraindication.

Other contraindications are if the person has open wounds or cuts, any allergies to any of the ingredients in the numbing agent that you might use or the serum any sort of autoimmune disorder. And, or if they have active cancer or they’re going through radiation therapy.

Some precautions that you would use are to make sure, as I mentioned, that your tools are sterile. And you might also want to do some patch testing, especially if the person has darker skin. And you want to avoid any overly sensitive areas, especially areas where the skin is very thin, the red part of the lips.

inside the orbital rim. As I mentioned do a patch test and avoid any areas where there’s pustule apnea, rosacea, or broken skin. When you’re thinking about different types of skin that might be better suited to microneedling, you want to think about the Fitzpatrick scale. So that’s how dark someone’s skin is.

So darker skin types are more prone to Inflammation sorry, post inflammatory pigmentation. So you would want a patch test if someone has dark skin. And then you would adjust the needle depth and frequency for sensitive or any reactive skin types. So what this boils down to is really doing a thorough consultation to meet the person’s individual needs.

As far as results, typically people come once a month and results are typically seen within three to six treatments. And during the time the person is getting treated, they should avoid using any retinoids, exfoliants, whether it’s a physical exfoliant like a scrub or a chemical exfoliant like alpha or a beta hydroxy acid.

They should not have any exposure to direct sunlight for 48 hours after the treatment. When you’re doing, whether it’s microneedling or dermal rolling, you want to use some sort of a serum when you’re doing your treatment. And then post treatment you want to have something such as aloe, arnica, something that will soothe the skin.

And when you’re treating the skin during the treatment, having something with Peptides, hyaluronic acid, vitamin C, collagen, these are all good ingredients to have when you’re doing the micrometaling. So the hyaluronic acid will hydrate the skin, and it also helps post procedure. The vitamin C helps to brighten the skin, and as I mentioned, you want to avoid any kind of harsh chemicals.

So the first thing that you do is you clean the skin, and then you have to prepare the skin. That might mean putting on a numbing cream if the person wants numbing cream. And then you are going to start in the less sensitive areas. Possibly on the forehead and then work your way down work in different sections.

And this will give, so instead of trying to do the whole face at once, you work in a small area and you don’t wait for the skin to get pink before you go to the next area. Okay. You would treat the area like four times in each direction and then move on to the next area. You can always go back. It is a light to moderate pressure and really the device itself will do the work.

You don’t have to press too hard because that can cause trauma to the skin. And I’m sorry for my slide, really formatted it looks like. Some of the words got cut off.

Typically for acne scars, superficial scars will respond well to depths between 5 to 1. 0 millimeters. Deeper scars like those ice pick scars or the boxcar scars require 1. 5 to 2. 0 millimeter especially if they’re on the chest or the back. I would probably say more 1. 0 to 1. 5 and see how that works when you’re working on the face.

As far as the frequency for active acne, you are going to work every four to six weeks, very shallow depth, and again, don’t treat any active pustules or you don’t want to spread the bacteria. and you want to use an anti inflammatory serum and acne targeted serums and treatments afterwards. If it’s a scar, same thing every four to six weeks, you’re going to go a little deeper depending on how severe the scar is.

And as I mentioned, they should notice a difference within three to six weeks. months of treatment. Once the desired results are achieved, they can come in for maintenance every three to six months to maintain the skin health and they should be doing care at home with products. After the treatment, gentle cleansers, avoid sun exposure, use your serums.

They should cleanse with a mild non fragrance cleanser, and a hydrating serum. So some of the things that might occur afterwards and so redness, swelling, peeling or normal infection is very rare, but it is certainly a possibility. But typically, you get mild redness, peeling, swelling, which subside within 24 to 48 hours.

Something that’s great is if you can combine the microneedling with other therapies, either within the treatment or in the case of acupuncture, you would alternate. So what I do with my patients with acupuncture, is I will give them three weekly acupuncture treatments during the month, facial acupuncture.

Then on the fourth treatment, I will do microneedling. And so I work the microneedling in. Red light therapy can be used or LED therapy can be used, especially the blue light because that helps to kill the bacteria. of the acne and putting these things in combination can really yield the greatest benefits.

It’s very important that you document everything, keep a record of all the treatments, including the needle depth, what products were used, and the client’s symptoms. responses or reactions, and make sure to schedule the follow up so you can monitor the progress. Always use before and after photos so you can document the changes because people don’t always notice the changes.

And then by doing the patient education, you can ensure the best safest outcome for your patient. So this is my social my website is FacialAcupunctureClasses. com. I’m on Instagram and Facebook under my name Michelle Gellis and I hope to see you in class sometime.

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Choosing Safe and Effective Cosmetic Tools Part 2

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Hi, my name’s Michelle Gellis. I am an acupuncture physician and I teach facial and cosmetic acupuncture classes internationally. Before I get started with today’s lecture, I wanted to talk really quickly about book that I’ve just written and the name of the book is Treating the Face and it is a 500 page hardcover book with over 350 color illustrations all about treating the face Everything from neurological conditions to some five element and also cosmetic.

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So, if you can go to the first slide.

Today I am going to be doing part two of a two part lecture. on how to choose safe and effective cosmetic tools for your treatment space. So last time I did an overview of some tools and I went through some safety. And today I am going to talk about some Practical considerations, things like ease of use and functionality, how to match tools to different skin types, and then how to set treatment goals, and also how to integrate different technologies using these different tools into your treatment space in order to get the best results.

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So the first thing I’m going to talk about are microneedle pens. And I have a microneedle pen here. And the microneedle pens when you’re thinking about ease of use microneedle pens are great. They typically you want to look for ones that have both a, like a Battery that you can use or a plug that you can use.

And also you want to be able to adjust the depth of the needles. So you might wanna go to me for this. So these needle cartridges click on and then there is a little adjustment ring here where you can adjust. The depth, these numbers signify the depth of the needles on the, how deep the needles will go.

And then on this particular model, this is an AccuLift micro pen. On this one, the This end shows you how fast. It says number four. Sorry, trying to catch the light here. You just adjust, you push the, whoops, this way, you push the button on the top, and then it lets you know how fast The needles are going up and down.

You can go back to the slides. So you want a pen that has an easy to use dial for your depth adjustment. And that way, when you’re working in different areas of the face, neck, chest, hands, back any parts of the body. You can adjust the needle depth and then having it either recorded or cordless gives you some versatility and lightweight pens.

If you’re doing a lot of microneedling, you don’t want something that’s too heavy in your hand and a really simple cartridge adjustment. So the needle cartridge, you should be able to click it in, snap it on and make sure that it’s something that will stay securely attached. And replacement parts should be easy to get as well.

Just like with any. electronic device batteries can wear out on these over time, over years, and being able to get replacement batteries, cords, things of that nature is very helpful. So derma rollers, you can go to me again. This is a derma roller and they have this head. You want to get one with a smaller head that’ll fit in smaller areas.

And I like the ones that have needles that are shaped like little pyramids. They tend to not bend as easily. And these are actually integrated right into the head of the Dermaroller. And the handle has a design that makes it easy and comfortable to grip, to get a good grip on it and to hold in your hand.

And these have 540 microneedles on them, and they come in different lengths. These are also made by AccuLift. You want to make sure that any microneedle device that you have comes in a nice case to keep it clean, and that it’s protected. Pre sterilized. You can go back to the slide. The nice thing about derma rollers is they perform a lot of the same functions as a microneedle pen, but they don’t require any batteries.

You just take it out of its case and you don’t require any numbing cream. You just roll it on the face and you can rinse it after you use it. They are for single person use. But you can use them over and over again, and then you can sanitize them once a week just to make sure there’s no bacteria or anything on them.

Go to the next slide. Let’s see. I can do that. Hydra needles and Hydra rollers are very similar. Can you go back to me again? And these are great because, so this is a hydra needle, you can see, let me see if I can get those needles up here, tiny little needles right in the tip. and it has a plunger and when the plunger is depressed, serum comes out of this glass vial.

So you press it on the skin and it’s infused into the skin, whereas the HydroRoller, which is very similar, has these gold needles on it also, but this one you roll onto the skin. So these are great. They’re very versatile. You can build them. They cap, keep the contents from evaporating and you can travel with them, which is really nice.

Okay, go back to the slide. Just make certain whichever products you choose have steps and instructions. And again they don’t require a lot of pressure. The needles are very short. And they travel well.

Facial cupping sets are also wonderful. Oh, I’m using mine to hold my computer up. Hold on one second. Let me let me grab the cups. This is funny. I’m just gonna grab these out. And so this particular set comes with two cups. of two different sizes and two, so two cups and a large one and a smaller one and then two jade gua sha tools and the facial cups are really I like the ones that are glass and They’re easy to use.

They’re easy to clean because they’re glass. They glide well. And so these are things you want to look for. Also, they should be easy to squeeze. You don’t want to get facial cups that are too stiff or too hard to squeeze. And these smaller glass cups fit well on the face. With the Gua Sha tools jade is certainly preferable to a lot of times they’ll be plastic or synthetic or I’ve even seen metal ones.

Really not designed to be used on the face. They can cause injury. You don’t want to cause any redness. or Payne when you’re working on the face. You don’t want to leave any cupping marks when you’re working with the cups and that’s where the glass is really unique because it will collide and it will work well.

You can go back to the slide. Instructions are important. The the set that I used has instructions in the box and on the box and it really makes it wonderful because you can refer to it yourself and you can also sell them to your patients and they can do some self care at home, which is nice.

So the shape you can see here in the slide, the shape of these Gua Sha tools is very versatile, has notches for around the jawline. These flat sides work underneath the jaw, around the temporalis, across the forehead. And then these rounded edges are really nice for stimulating acupuncture points, for massaging the temples, and for working in between the eyebrows.

And Fosha is wonderful for releasing any fascial adhesions, stimulating blood flow, really getting that Qi moving into the face, and it’s very calming and relaxing at the end of a treatment.

Red light devices tend to come in two general categories. There are the tabletop ones which are nice. You can easily just move them from room to room and they typically have an easy setup. They’re lightweight, easy to store, Get them out of the way. They do have some limitations though over the floor models.

Of course, the floor models, you can easily move them all around a patient and depending on the size of your treatment room would determine whether or not it makes sense for you to have one of these. They Usually are the same power. They come in different powers. Some of them will go as far as a pain setting.

Some of them are really just for cosmetic. But when you’re looking, you want to get one that has really simple controls, a built in timer, that has an automatic shutoff. So if you can’t get back in the room to shut the lamp off, it’ll shut itself off and it should come with some sort of eye protection. So microneedle pens are best for really aging skin deeper scars, discoloration, also for fine lines.

They’re good for normal skin combination oily skin. You certainly don’t want to use it over any inflamed or pustule acne, a very sensitive skin, and it’s great for stimulating collagen in the long term. Dermarollers are better for not quite as severe signs of aging, home maintenance, and again, if someone has very sensitive skin, they’re probably not the best choice.

You don’t want to use them over active acne as well. And that’s it. So more advanced signs of aging, the micro and scarring microneedle pens, derma rollers for less. The hydro rollers are like the hydro roller and hydro needle. are just like a dermaroller, but they will infuse serum right into the skin, and again, you don’t want to use those with very sensitive skin.

So the HydroRoller, you can work quickly over a larger area, whereas with the HydroNeedle, it’s better for spot treatments. fine lines, dark spots just little areas. You certainly can use it all over. And it’s, you can actually take a hydroneedle and put, if you have a hair loss product that you’re using, you can put it right into the hydroneedle and use it for that.

Facial cups are great for puffiness, tension contouring the face. Pretty good with any skin type, but you want to stay away from any broken capitals. capillaries, or any active raised, inflamed, or pustule skin conditions, really good for enhancing the circulation, lymphatic drainage, and giving that healthy glow.

The facial gua sha tools will help with any tension in the face. Relaxes your patient, improves the skin texture, and it’s pretty much good for any skin type, except for any active wounds or infections. The red light device is wonderful for almost every type of skin, anti aging, redness, acne, and the only, there are some contraindications if someone is on a medication that’s sensitive to the light.

And you can use it with some of the other tools, but I don’t usually recommend using red light before or after microneedling just because I like the skin, unless you’re using just the white light, the blue light to clear the bacteria.

So for microneedle pens, you want to optimize your results. You want to clean the skin, disinfect the skin, adjust, adjust the depth of the needles, use good high quality serums, keep the speed and the movement consistent, and then the cartridges. have got to be discarded in your sharps container every time.

For the microneedle derma rollers, you want to choose the right length for your patient’s particular skin. You can either, this should say or before or after, but you can either use the serum before or after. I guess you could do both, but If you put serum on first and then you roll, you’re really going to have to be diligent about cleaning that roller and make sure that when you’re rolling, you work in multiple directions, gentle, consistent pressure, and you’re going to be replacing those rollers about every three as much as six months, depending on how often you use them.

And with the HydroRollers and the HydroNeedles, you’re going to want to use good quality serum and pretty much the same as a DermaRollers. You’re going to work in sections. You don’t want to press too hard. And if you’re doing a deeper treatment, you don’t want to treat more than every two to four weeks weeks.

The same thing with the hydroneedles, and you do want to keep them clean. You clean the head of the device after you use it. With the cups, make sure you’re using a high quality oil and Be careful not to use too much suction. You’re going to follow the lymphatic system and you can do cupping as much as three times a week and you want to choose the right cup size for the person’s face.

With the gua sha tools, again, make sure there’s Good high quality oil and use proper techniques. You’re going to be doing more of an upward and outward movement and you can work on different acupuncture points. I always tell my students you can go for the Gua but not the Sha. And red light devices, you’re going to choose the right wavelength depending on your patient, make sure their skin doesn’t have any product on it, and you can use it as three to five times a week, um, for the best effectiveness.

Bringing these, this all together you really want to tailor combinations of treatments. Depending on your patient you can layer your treatments. So you could do some dermarolling and then some red light. What I do is I sit down with my patient and I am going to adjust my treatment plan depending on their needs.

I might do acupuncture and put the red light over it. I always do. cupping and gua sha after a facial acupuncture treatment. And I educate my patient about what it is I’m going to be doing and A lot of these tools, not the microneedle pen, a lot of these other tools you can sell to your patients for at home care in between treatments and make sure that you take before pictures and really track their care.

progress, speak to them about their goals ahead of time, and then check in with them and see how they’re doing. Again, my name is Michelle Gellis. If you would like to reach me, you can go to my website. FacialAcupunctureClasses. com. You can learn about my classes and any of the products that I spoke about today.

And you can also find me on social media under my name. And I want to thank the American Acupuncture Council for this opportunity today.

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Choosing Safe and Effective Cosmetic Tools – Michelle Gellis

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Hi, my name’s Michelle Gellis. I am an acupuncture physician, and I am going to be doing this short presentation for the American Acupuncture Council on choosing safe and effective cosmetic tools. For your treatment space and this will be part one of a two part lecture. So go to the first slide, please.

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So a little bit about me I have been teaching cosmetic acupuncture for a little over 20 years. I’m on faculty. at Yosan University, and I have recently published a book which let’s see, you can, let’s see, this way you can see what the book looks like. It’s a hardcover book and it is called Treating the Face.

Oh, thank you. It is over 500 pages of color, Images and information about treating the face, 5L Lumen acupuncture, cosmetic acupuncture, neuromuscular acupuncture, facial motor points, scalp acupuncture, submuscular needling, facial cupping, facial gua sha, microneedling, red light therapy, skincare, and more.

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And self care and you can get the book from my website facialacupunctureclasses. com. I know a little bit about buying tools for treating the face because when I am treating patients, I have a few different tools that I use. And I have a where I actually have designed and sell tools. But I have spent a lot of time looking into different tools and devices and their efficacy and their safety.

And in order to save all of you a lot of time, I thought I would just put together some really good information on what you should look for when you’re deciding what sort of tools to bring into your treatment space. Some of the tools that I use in my treatment space that are very popular are microneedle pens, dermarollers, hydrorollers, hydroneedles, facial cups, Facial Gua Sha tools, and red light devices.

For today’s lecture, I am going to talk a little bit about each one of the tools, their benefits, some considerations that you might have when you’re looking into these tools, and then also safety concerns. So first is microneedle pens. These are relatively new devices. They’ve Been around for 20, maybe 30 years, but essentially they are it.

They call them pens because they look like a pen, and at the tip of the pen are tiny little needles that vibrate in and out, and they puncture the skin, and they cause microtrauma to the skin, and they cause microtrauma to the skin. When this microtrauma happens, it causes the skin to remodel to produce collagen, and it can be really effective for things like fine lines and wrinkles.

And the treatments are very fast. They, it doesn’t take very long, about 20 minutes to treat the entire face. You can also use these on the neck, the chest, the back of the hands, pretty much any part of the body. But you do need to be trained in how to use them. It’s not intuitive how to do microneedling.

And, They’re really just treating skin level concerns. Another concern with these is sterilization. So when we talk about safety, we’ll talk about that. Another device is derma rollers, and derma rollers are similar to microneedle pens in the way that they work. However, these are manual. Microneedle pens either run on battery or you plug them in, or some of them are both.

And these devices, you just hold them in your hand and you roll them on the skin. And they have tiny needles which penetrate the skin, which help to stimulate collagen. And, will also help to exfoliate and increase the absorption of any products that you might put on the skin. They’re not going to be as precise as a microneedle pen and they can’t always be sanitized as well.

With the microneedle pens you throw the tips out after you use them, the tip, but with the derma roller you tend to use it over and over again, not from patient to patient, but If you’re doing these as in office treatments, you can use the same device on a treatment on a patient multiple times. A HydroRoller is very similar to a DermaRoller.

As you can see here, there are tiny little needles. on this device and this glass container at the bottom gets filled with serum and you roll it on the skin and it infuses the serum right into the skin. So the benefit is you’re really combining two treatments into one. You’re getting the stimulation of collagen and you’re getting the absorption of the product but It’s really going to be limited as far as how much serum it can hold.

A hydroneedle is very similar to a hydroroller, but this is more of a stamping device, so it has these tiny little needles with a little plunger. And you feel, you fill the reservoir with serum and then you would stamp it into the skin. So it’s very precise delivery and, but you just want to use it in specific.

areas.

Facial cups are wonderful. They’re a great add on to cosmetic acupuncture treatments. They help to stimulate blood flow and qi to the face. They’re non invasive. They don’t hurt and but you do want to Make sure you get trained in using them. You don’t want to leave any bruises or cause any injury to your patient’s face.

Facial gua sha tools are made, I like the ones that are made out of jade. Jade is very much a part of our medicine but they can be made out of various different materials and they can also be made in different shapes and The benefit to using them is they can help with lymphatic drainage and they can break up fascial adhesions and they can really sculpt the face if someone has like puffiness under their eyes.

If their jawline is sagging, you can use a gua sha tool for this. Again, you want to make certain that You are properly trained.

Red light devices are Again, something that are a little bit more modern than let’s say our acupuncture needles, and they come in different forms. Here we have one that just sits on the table, and then this one is a freestanding device, and each one has its Benefits. These tend to be the ones that just go on the table tend to be less expensive.

The freestanding ones are more flexible. You can move them anywhere around and it’s just the important things to look for. We’ll talk about in a little bit, but they are pain free, they’re non invasive, and they can heal with a lot of skin level issues. And some of them even have settings for pain.

Safety first. Most importantly, when you’re looking at devices, you really want to take into account, are these devices safe as well as effective, because there are a lot of devices for sale in many places, online, on TV, at your local store. cosmetics shop or uh, wherever you shop, it seems that they have all different types of devices.

So you really want to make certain that what you’re getting is safe. So first I want to talk about microneedle pens and the things that are important. With a microneedle pen are the needles themselves, because those are the real powerhouse of the device. So the microneedle pen needle cartridge, which is disposable, The needle should be made out of stainless steel or titanium, and then so the stainless steel keeps them stainless steel keeps them strong, and the titanium keeps them strong, and very few people are allergic to it.

Check. to titanium. So it’s good if the needles are made out of that. And also the motor of the pen itself, you want to make certain those needles are going up and down at least 16, 000, preferably 18, 000 RPM, because you don’t want The device to be dragging on the skin. You want to make sure that these cartridges get firmly attached into the pen.

And also make certain your pen is CE certified for safety and reliability. And you can even check with the American Acupuncture Council. The American Acupuncture Council has approved the AcuLift Micro Needle Pen for use in the treatment room. Also, anti backflow technology means that not only do you have three connectors on the tip, But also on the inside of the pen, there’s three places where it connects and that the cartridge itself clicks on and stays in very tightly.

For Dermarollers, again, titanium, stainless steel, very important for durability and safety. And you want to make sure these needles are lined up. and that there are enough needles on the roller so that your patient doesn’t have a lot of pain. If there’s too few needles on the roller head, then they can have pain when they’re being The handle should be well constructed, should fit well, feel well in your hand, and you want to make sure that it rolls smoothly.

It shouldn’t be dragging on the skin. With the hydro rollers, there’s a lot of concerns as well, especially since you’re using these devices over and over again. So you want to make sure once you put the serum in, that it This reservoir is sealed well. Again, needles that are either stainless or titanium.

And with the HydroRollers, having them gold plated can add an additional layer of it being hypoallergenic, microbial, added durability wonderful for conducting serums and Making sure that your device has well made needles for precision and for comfort. And gold can help with the healing response. So these are all things to look for.

And then when you’re buying one of these devices, you want to make sure that it’s packaged properly, that it’s sealed and that it’s sterilized. Many of the same concerns that we have with hydro rollers, we’re going to have with hydro needles. So the material and that the. Top screws on tightly, sterile packaging, easy to clean so the top should be able to come off, you can throw it in with some sanitizing tablets, and again, the gold over titanium needles.

For facial cups, The cups that I like are the glass cups. You don’t want them to be plastic or silicone. They can drag on the face. You want to make certain that everything that’s involved here is non toxic. And cupping sets that have at least two different sized cups, because these are small smaller cups.

They’re only just for comparison, the larger cup, the opening is about the size of a dime, so they’re pretty small. With the Gua Sha tools I already mentioned, I love Jade. If you’re using Gua Sha tools that look like this, make sure they’re actually made out of jade and not green glass. They should have a smooth finish.

They should feel cool in your hand, be chip resistant. And if you can find out where they’re sourced, ethical sourcing is also a nice bonus. For the red light devices, when you’re looking at quality and safety, you want to make sure that they have a minimum of 630 nanometers. 850 is where you’re going to be getting into those pain settings consistent power.

And it should have some sort of heat management. If the device itself does get warm, which it shouldn’t, you should still be safe to touch it. And look for something that’s durable, that’s sturdy, that’s not a flimsy device. Okay, so we’ve talked a little bit about the different devices and safety.

And next time we are going to talk about some more practical considerations. ease of use, matching the tools to different skin types and different treatments, and also integrating different technologies. How do you integrate all of these different devices? So thank you so much, and I want to thank the American Acupuncture Council for this opportunity.

Again, my book is available right now only through my website in the US. If somehow you’re catching this in another country, check with your local booksellers online. We have some distribution going on internationally. Thank you so much.

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Benefits of Microneedling versus Cosmetic Acupuncture – Michelle Gellis

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NanoNeedling Self-Care – Michelle Gellis

So I’m going to do a little demo today of how I do nanoneedling on myself. But first, a little bit about me.

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Hi, my name’s Michelle Gellis, and today I am going to do a demonstration of nanoneedling with a microneedle pen, so you can go ahead and go to the first slide.

I teach facial acupuncture classes, and part of that is Micro needling and nano needling and one of the questions I get asked a lot is do I do these things on myself? And the answer is yes, I do. So I’m going to do a little demo today of how I do nanoneedling on myself. But first, a little bit about me.

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I, as I mentioned, teach facial and cosmetic neuromuscular acupuncture classes internationally, and I have for about 20 years now. I’m currently on the doctoral faculty at Yosan University, and prior to that, I was on faculty at the Maryland University of Integrative Health, and I also worked as a clinical supervisor there.

And I’ve just completed my very first book. It is a 500 page hardcover book on treating the face, and the reviews have been great. I’m I’ve opened it up for pre sale and you can get more information about the book at facialacupunctureclasses. com and then the products that I am going to be demonstrating today can be, you can learn more about those at aculiftskincare.com

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Okay, I am done with the slides. So let me move these slides out of the way. Okay, so the pen I am using today is made by, everything’s backwards the pen I’m using today is made by AccuLift and it comes in a metal case. And the pen itself when it arrives, everything is wrapped up like this. I’m not going to be using this pen.

This is a brand new pen. But it comes with two batteries, and the If you want to plug it in, it comes with a charging cord and also a plug in adapter, which is on the pen right now. And the pen also comes with a really nice set of very large instructions for those old people like me who have trouble reading instructions from time to time.

These are just instructions on the pen itself. If You want to know how to do microneedling on a patient. The purchase of a pen comes with a four hour continuing education webinar that is included. So let’s just hop into it. So before I record before this webinar, I did microneedling on one side of my face.

So if you see my face is a little red, that’s why. But I am going to be doing nanoneedling on this side of my face, and the difference between microneedling and nanoneedling is a microneedle cartridge has These on this particular one, there’s 16 needles, and what happens is when you do microneedling, the needles go like this, and they make little, teeny, tiny, microscopic puncture wounds into your face, and as you can see, I’ve already done it to my face, and it’s, it shouldn’t cause anything too traumatic but So it builds collagen.

Nano needling, on the other hand, uses these nano needle cartridges, and they look different. They’re more like, if you can see this, they are more like a, almost like sandpaper. It’s a really great way to exfoliate, like the dead skin. And it’s something you can do a couple of times a week, whereas microneedling you can only do once a month, nanoneedling you can do a couple of times a week, and you can also do nanoneedling inside the orbital rim and on your lips.

What you need to do, and you don’t need any numbing cream for nano needling. What you need to do is make sure your hands and your face are clean. I like to do a little pre exfoliation before I start. And then just to make sure my face is extra clean, I take a makeup remover wipe and I spray it with rubbing alcohol and I rub I’ll go ahead and even though I just did it, I’ll do it again.

But I spray it with rubbing alcohol and then just make sure if there’s any makeup or anything on your face that. If you don’t have any issues with that, yeah, I’m gonna, everything done.

Once you’ve done that if you don’t like the alcohol, you can also use witch hazel, which is good for cleansing the skin as well. And then with nano needling, I like to grab one of my serums. I brought a couple with me. I have a superb serum, which is Vitamin C, hyaluronic acid, and collagen. I also have my peptide serum and you can use one or the other or you can mix them together.

And since my hands are clean, I’m just going to put a little of the nourish right in the palm of my hand and I’m just going to work on half of my face. So I’m going to work on this half since I micro needled the other half. We’re ready. Put a little serum on. The nanoneedle cartridges come in a sealed pouch like this and then you just tear it open.

You put the nanoneedle right on the pen, this particular pen, and there are a lot of great pens out there. And this one’s made by AccuLift and it has a triple locking mechanism. You take the, Little cap off. Don’t forget to do that. And then the way you determine the proper length for the nanoneedles on this pen is you turn it on and then you are going to dial it up just until you can just see the top of those nanoneedles coming out.

And once you can see them coming out, then you can do your nano needling, and you don’t have to press very hard, the nano needles will do all the work. And this is just a really great way to give your skin a nice refresh when I’m working around my eye area. I actually use my eye cream. Because you’re not needling anything into your skin, you’re just working on the stratum corneum layer.

You can put your eye cream on and just work right inside the orbital rim. Just make sure you’re pointing the pen towards the orbital rim and you’re gentle. You’re not pointing towards your eyeball. And it looks just like this, just like that. And then right inside, just like that. Gentle. And this is great for Those little lines we get under our eyes from smiling and it’s a great way to just stimulate blood flow and real nice healthy qi in that area.

Moving along to the cheeks,

you can do your nose, your cheeks, you just want to go right in there, left to right,

all the way down

and then you’re going to go up and down.

And right around your lips. Again, I’m only doing half of my face. And make sure you do along the jawline. Get your chin.

Oh, and I forgot to say this in my other video, but make sure you pull your hair back. That’s why my hair is back. You don’t want to get your hair tangled up in your device. So a headband or a ponytail, whatever you need. If you have hair that hangs in your face. Now I’m going to do my neck. and my chest area.

And even though I’ve done microneedling across my neck and down my chest, it’s okay to do the microneedling, the nanoneedling. I was pretty gentle when I did the microneedling. You can see I’m just a little red in this area, so I’m good for the So you’re going to go underneath your chin.

And up and down on the neck. Actually feels really nice. It’s not painful at all. And then you’re going to go down on your chest

and back and forth.

So I’m not recommending that you do nano needling over the microneedling. I’m just saying if you did for some reason it cause any harm. It might be a little painful for you. You or your patient, but for the purpose of this demo, that’s what I did. If you want, if you would like, when you’re all done doing your nano needling, you can you can go ahead and put on whatever creams or lotions you would be using.

I happen to have some of my calm aftercare, and I’m just going to use that. And I realize I forgot to do my lips, so I’m going to go back and do that. So for my lips, I usually use some serum, and if you have any kind of serum for nano needling is fine.

And you can just nano needle the whole red part of your lip. It really helps to exfoliate them and plump them up. You don’t want to nano needle, you don’t want to micro needle the red part of your lips, but you can nano needle them

and you can see, makes them look really nice afterwards. Helps to bring that blood flow out and helps with the pleating, lip pleating. That is an entire nanoneedling session for half of my face. And you can see it’s quick and it’s easy. And if you are interested in learning more, you can go to my website, aculipskincare.

com. You don’t have to buy a pen. You can just There’s plenty of demos on there, and the four hour CEU training is on there as well. And my 20 I’m not supposed to say dates anyway. My teaching schedule is on the website as well. And you can also find me on social under my name or facialacupunctureclasses.com. And that’s it. Thank you for joining me.

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Microneedling Your Own Face – Michelle Gellis

And today, I am going to talk about something else that I teach, which is microneedling. So you can go to the first slide. So the microneedling topic that I am going to cover today is microneedling self care.

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Hi, my name’s Michelle Gellis. I am an acupuncture physician. And I teach cosmetic and facial acupuncture classes. And today, I am going to talk about something else that I teach, which is microneedling. So you can go to the first slide. So the microneedling topic that I am going to cover today is microneedling self care.

Many of you have purchased a microneedling pen, either from AccuLift or from another company, and you’re using the microneedle pen on your patients, but I’ve gotten many questions about how do you microneedle? yourself. How do I microneedle myself? So today I am going to do a live demo of microneedling.

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A little bit about me. As I mentioned, I teach cosmetic and facial acupuncture classes internationally and have been doing that for about 20 years now. Before that, I was on faculty at the Maryland University of Integrative Health. I’m currently on the doctoral faculty at Yosan University. And recently, my book, Treating the Face, which is a comprehensive manual for acupuncturists and allied health professionals, is available for pre sale.

It is a 500 page hardcover book, so you might want to check that out. Information on my classes can be found at FacialAcupunctureClasses. com and information on products in my book can be found at AculiveSkincare. com. dot com. So that is my last slide and I’m just going to jump right into this demo. So most microneedle, let’s say this way, most microneedle pens come in a case and you open the case up and hopefully whatever microneedle pen you purchase comes with instructions.

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I’ll open this in a second. And then inside of the case are batteries and a cord, the pen itself, and then the charger. So I have a pen that, this is a brand new one, I have the pen that I’m gonna use, and the AccuLive pen comes with a really nice set of instructions. And these are just pen usage instructions.

These are not. Microneedling directions. The microneedling directions come in the form of a CEU, a four hour CEU. So you can check all that out. So the first thing you have to do before you microneedle yourself you have the choice. If you would like, you can put numbing cream on, but when I do microneedling on myself, I don’t use numbing cream, but I do make certain that my face is clean.

I use a scrub on my face to make sure it’s nice and clean. And I make sure my hands are nice and clean. Again, it’s optional if you want to use gloves. And then the Microneedle cartridge should, your microneedle cartridges should come in a sealed pouch and then you just peel the pouch open and you are going to take the cartridge and put it into the pen and these particular cartridges have a triple locking mechanism so they lock on nice and tight and don’t forget to take the cap off.

So I’m going to put this down for a second because just to make certain that my face is extra clean, I take a makeup remover wipe and I spray it with some rubbing alcohol. You can use witch hazel if you like. And I’m just going to work on one side of my face so that we can get through this.

rather quickly. And let’s see, I think I’m just going to work on this side of my face. So I’m going to make sure everything’s extra clean. I’m going to do my neck, a little bit of my chest, forehead, and make sure there’s no makeup or anything going on the areas that I am going to microneedle. So I’m going to let that dry.

Use a little alcohol on my hands, get them extra clean. The next thing that What I do is I’m going to look at the pen and I, when I work on myself, I tend to work most of my face at 5. You can see there’s numbers on the pen that go from zero all the way up to 2. 5. For the purposes of this demonstration, I’m going to have it on 0.

5 the whole time. You can dial it down a little bit on more sensitive areas or dial it up if you need to on, like your chin, your cheeks, areas that are a little bit thicker. The other thing is, The speed of the pen, when you purchase a microneedle pen, I do recommend you purchase a professional device, not an inexpensive device that you might get on, in a store or at Amazon.

These pens should be professional, which means they go up to 18, 000 RPMs and everything is the cartridges are sterile and proper training is included. So I’m going to set this. You can set it at different speeds and this right now is at five. It can go up to six. But, I’m going to just start around 5 is a good speed.

And,

there we go. Just start. This particular pen has memory, so if it’s on 5 when I turn it off, when I turn it back on, it’s still on 5, so I’m turning it off, putting it down, and I am going to get some serum. I have hyaluronic acid, vitamin C, and collagen serum, and I’m gonna put a little of that, and I’m also gonna mix in another peptide serum.

Let’s see, peptide serum that I have. Everything is reversed in this video. Peptide serum that I have that I really like for my aging skin. And I am just going to put a little bit on my forehead. I’m going to take my glasses off so hopefully I’ll be able to see what I’m doing. And I’m going to go ahead, and what I do is I just start off going left to just like this.

And then I’m going to go up and down, and I’m not pressing very hard at all. I’m letting the needles do all the work. And then if you have any wrinkles, like I have a wrinkle here. I’m just going to work back and forth. If you have a wrinkle here, you can work back and forth there. And the clinical endpoint is some pink.

You want to have some pink. But what I tell my students is you don’t wait until the skin is pink. You don’t keep Needling until the skin is pink. What you do is you do an area and then you move on to the next area. And if this area has not pinked up you can go back to it. But so i’m going to move on.

It’s a little pink here, but i’m just going to move on and if it hasn’t pinked up a little more I can always go back to it. Next area that i’m going to do Is on the outside of my orbital rim and I hit up my eyebrow too, but the outside of my orbital rim and my cheek. So I turn the pen on again and I’m gonna go right around making sure to get my crow’s feet.

And you want to make sure to build up the perimeter of your face. Same thing, back and forth, just like this. Aerating your lawn, up and down. Make sure you get along the perimeter. Just like this, and then any areas where you might have some wrinkles, you just work back and forth just like that.

If there were any dark spots, you just, or if there’s any scars, acne scars, any type of dark spots, Atrophic score, not a hypertrophic score. You can just dot at it, and I’m going to do my forehead a little bit more, because it’s not really getting that pink. So just get in there, and while I’m at it, I’m gonna do my nose.

It’s great for large pores. So I’m gonna do my forehead one more time, just getting in there back and forth, up and down. If you’re worried about missing areas, you can do little circles as well. It’s all good. I’m getting some nice pink there, so I’m going to move on to my nose. I’m going to go like this, and up and down, just like that.

And the next area I’m going to do is around my lips. So I’m just using one or two little squirts of serum in my hand, mixing it up. And the other thing you can use, I just don’t have one with me, is one of those fan brushes. They’re wonderful. And so now I’m going to be working around my mouth and along my jawline.

I’m really going to get those lip wrinkles. And I’m going to work around my entire mouth because I have not microneedled myself in a while. I want to make sure I get those lip wrinkles. So back and forth, up and down, getting in that Cupid’s bow. And if you have really deep lip wrinkles, make sure you spread them.

Otherwise, just back and forth, get underneath your chin, really build up that collagen in there. Up and down, just like that. Work all along your jawline, just like that.

And the next area I’m going to do is, I’m going to work on my neck.

Now the neck tends to be very sensitive, The skin is very thin, so I am going to dial it down just a little, but of course I can’t see. So I’m putting my trusty glasses on. So I’m going from 5 to 25 and now that I’m not working on my face, I can use my glasses. So I’m going up and down. I’m going to go left to right.

Really get underneath the neck

and anywhere where I have those neckless lines, I’m really getting in there, just

like that, getting up in that jawline.

And then, the next area is going to be I’m going to get on my chest. I have a lot of sun damage which is really noticeable on the computer. Hopefully it doesn’t look that bad in real life. But do my chest area.

I’m just going to do my whole chest area.

I’m going to dial it up a little more. I’m going to go so there’s a little marker here that you can see that shows you where you are. So I’m going to Right up to about 0. 5, and I’m just going to work back, forward, all the way down, my chest, all the way down, and then all the areas where I have sun damage.

And I’m going to go up and down. I already went left to so really getting my entire chest area

and then anywhere where I might have like a dark spot, like right here, I’m just going to stab at it. I’m going to dab this a little bit. And sometimes you might have some pinpoint bleeding. But just make sure, you leave it and then you can always clean it with soap and water or alcohol, but it’s nothing to be concerned about.

And then the last thing I like to do is, I do this with my patients and I do this with myself. When I’m all done,

I give it one final pass. unless I’m very red, which looks like I’m just a little pink. So I’m going to give it one final pass and I’m going to make sure that it’s on 0. 5 again.

Make sure to get any spots that I might have missed

all along. Definitely getting those nasolabial folds around the mouth and I need a little more serum. Sometimes. I’ll take the serum, and I will mix it into a little dish, and I will add a little water to it because the hyaluronic acid will attract water, and it prevents it from evaporating so quickly on your face.

Get my eyebrow, get those eyebrows growing, and that’s it. It’s very quick and simple, so you can either start at the top and work down or you could do one side of your face and then the other. When you’re done, take the cartridge and you put this in the sharps container. The very last thing I do is I have some aftercare spray, and this has aloe, arnica, CBD, and a lot of other.

Wonderful ingredients. It’s very cooling because your skin when you’re done is going to feel like you have a little sunburn and it can really cool the skin. I use it on my face, my neck, all over my chest, and this stuff is great to have around. You ever get a little sunburn, anything like that you can just use it.

So that’s it. Again, if you want more information on the class, you can go to facialacupunctureclasses. com and I hope this was useful for you. You can follow me on social. My name’s Michelle Gellis and I have a lot of useful demos on my website as well. Thank you.