So for today, I would like to start out with contraindications. And this is a big subject because it takes into account.
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Hi, this is Michelle Gellis. I would like to thank the American Acupuncture Council for giving me this opportunity to speak to you today. This is part two of the top 10 questions that I get asked about cosmetic acupuncture. A lot of the answers to these questions came from my book, treating the Face. It is a comprehensive guide for acupuncturists and health professionals.
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It is a hardcover book and it is about 500 pages, full color book, and I talk in the book extensively. About how to set realistic expectations with a patient and how to answer their questions, whether it’s a potential patient or whether it’s a current patient. And during my training that I offer to acupuncturists and people who are trained and licensed to perform acupuncture.
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Is marketing information that they can hand out to their patients or put on their websites because a lot of these questions are questions that I get over and over again. And in my almost 25 years in practice and teaching I have found one of the top 10 questions that. People ask me. So last time in part one I talked about how does it work and how many treatments will I need before I get or before I see results?
How much does it cost last? How long do the treatments take? How long do they last? So if you miss part one, you can check that out as well. So for today, I would like to start out with contraindications. And this is a big subject because it takes into account. Two things. One is physical contraindications that patients might have that can be major red flags or maybe minor warnings before you treat them.
And then the other is things that your patients may have. Had done to themselves as far as any sort of treatments or procedures that can be either a minor or a major contraindication for your treating them. So let’s talk about physical. Contraindications to treatment with cosmetic acupuncture.
And the first one is I break it down into two parts. So it’s high blood pressure and you might be thinking a lot of my patients have high blood pressure. A lot of elderly patients have high blood pressure. How am I ever going to do this if high blood pressure is a contraindication? And what I say to you is this, if someone has treated, medicated or untreated high blood pressure, do not make this person or these people your first patient or patients.
You definitely want to treat a few. Healthy patients before you take on patients who have any sort of health conditions. And the reasons for this are you want to build up your confidence, your skills, your knowledge, and really get an idea of how powerful your treatments are before, you dive into someone who maybe has high blood pressure, it’s well controlled with medication, but you do a treatment on them and your treatment causes their blood pressure to shoot up and why would this happen?
The reason is. Cosmetic acupuncture by nature is designed to open the channels up to the face and head and really increase the blood flow, the flow of qi up to the face and head and left unchecked. If you don’t really have good skills or if you do too much, or if your patient’s blood pressure is a little high that day, you could give your patient a headache or worse.
So let’s assume you’ve been doing this for a while. You’ve done many treatments on many patients, and someone calls you and they say. They have high blood pressure. It wasn’t very high to begin with. It was maybe borderline. They’re on medication. It’s very well controlled In that situation, you could start out very slowly, very few points and check their blood pressure before and after.
Treatment and see how they do. They might be a better candidate for more intradermal needles or microneedling rather than treating a lot of chest, neck, face body points. That are designed to bring all this energy up to the head. In my protocol, I specifically have designed. The point structure so that it will bring that energy up.
But you could potentially leave some of those points out. And I talk about this in my classes. My classes are available, recorded and live throughout throughout the world. I, I taught classes all over the world, and you can check out my schedule on facial acupuncture classes.com and look into some of these concepts and some of the theories behind them.
So that, that is high blood pressure, a big conversation Also, pregnancy. You do not want to be bringing all this energy up to the face, head and neck when someone is pregnant. Also, there are points in my protocol that are designed like large intestine four to release things like impurities that would not be good for someone who’s pregnant.
So pregnancy is a contraindication. People who are just generally unwell you don’t want to be doing cosmetic acupuncture on them. People who are diabetic have seizure disorders. People who are very sensitive to needles. As far as contraindications. In my book, in my classes I have a release form and in it are all the different contraindications and all the reasons for them.
So there definitely are some physical contraindications and you would wanna check those out. Additionally, if someone has had Botox recently, you would not want to treat them for about three weeks after the Botox treatments ’cause they take about two weeks to settle in. I like to err on the side of caution and when I say Botox, any neurotoxin.
Dysport. Xeomin I don’t know the brand names of all of them. And then after that, they need to find out from whoever injected them exactly where the neurotoxin was injected. People sometimes forget, or they’re not quite sure, and you wanna avoid that area completely because. Doing cosmetic acupuncture in that area can cause the neurotoxin to wear off.
As far as other treatments such as fillers, peels, lasers any other surgeries on the face. I would direct my patient to the person who did the treatment, and have your patient ask that person. When is it safe for me to have cosmetic acupuncture? There are so many treatments out there now. It’s impossible for us as practitioners to know for each.
Level of chemical peel or laser specific laser treatment, and their practitioner should know the answer to that question. As far as a facelift, cosmetic acupuncture can make facelifts last longer, but because the face is going to continue to age after the facelift, but the cosmetic acupuncture can help.
So that it happens more slowly. And you definitely want to wait about a year after a full facelift before doing cosmetic acupuncture, mainly because of.
Issues that they might have with vascular issues, neuropathy swelling, those types of things. Okay. The next question that people ask me is do I need any specialized training before I do cosmetic acupuncture? I’m an acupuncturist. I know where the acupuncture points in the face are. And the answer is unequivocably.
Yes. In fact, the American Acupuncture Council does ask on whenever you go to renew your license, if you’re doing anything that is outside of the norm for acupuncture and you’re doing specialized treatments. And if the answer is yes, then they do require you to have specialized. Training.
And there are just a few of us in the US that are registered and certified to do cosmetic acupuncture training. I am one of them, and you can check out my classes@facialacupunctureclasses.com. But the reason for this is understanding safety. Around treating the face and neck and head, understanding all of the myriad of contraindications and precautions.
Also their underlying conditions, needle placement, these, and then having a protocol that you can follow that. Doesn’t require so many needles. I go on social media and people that have so many needles in their face, and it’s so not necessary. So specialized training is a must.
Bruising is another question that I get. If you are trained properly. If you are getting using high quality needles and precautionary techniques, such as using arnica gel and really understanding the anatomy of the face, my book has a whole anatomy chapter. The unique nature of treating the face, because the face is so heavily vascularized and the muscles are layered.
Some are thick, some are thin, some are tiny, some are large. Some are deep, some are superficial. Really understanding how to needle the face, understanding good. Precision needling techniques will really reduce the chance of bruising. I rarely bruise a patient, if ever anymore. And the last thing is, can cosmetic acupuncture help with other conditions?
And the answer is yes. When you know how to treat the face and in my classes I teach about facial motor points, submuscular needling, some scalp acupuncture. For treating the face, you can help with things like TMJ, Bell’s Palsy, trigeminal neuralgia. Stroke ms. Myasthenia gravis even facial herpes and a lot of different skin conditions that affect the face, like acne, rosacea, hyper and hypo pigmentation.
So this all, is included in a really good comprehensive facial and cosmetic acupuncture training. And you can be the facial acupuncture specialist in your area because it is a highly specialized training. I hope that answers some of your questions. Again, if you didn’t see part one, you can check it out.
This concludes part two and I want to again thank the American Acupuncture Council for giving me this opportunity to speak to you, and I hope to see you in class soon.