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SummaryThis conversation explores the growing trend of cosmetic acupuncture as an alternative to beauty treatments like Botox and fillers. This ep discusses the mechanisms behind cosmetic acupuncture, its benefits, and how it compares to other cosmetic procedures. It emphasizes the holistic approach of acupuncture, its safety, and the expected treatment frequency and costs, providing a comprehensive understanding.

Takeaways* Cosmetic acupuncture is gaining popularity as an alternative to fillers and Botox.

* It involves using needles primarily on the face, neck, and scalp to enhance beauty.

* The treatment increases blood flow, reduces muscle tension, and boosts collagen production.

* Cosmetic acupuncture has no downtime, unlike many other cosmetic procedures.

* Patients often see immediate results in terms of brightness and firmness of the skin.

* A typical treatment plan involves 10 sessions over five weeks for optimal results.

* Cosmetic acupuncture is a treatment that addresses the body from head to toe.

* The treatment is generally safe, with bruising being the most common side effect.

* Costs vary widely based on location and practitioner. We go into specifics for big cities.

* Patients should communicate any recent cosmetic procedures to their acupuncturist.

Chapters00:00 Introduction to Cosmetic Acupuncture

04:55 Mechanisms and Benefits of Cosmetic Acupuncture

10:00 Comparing Cosmetic Acupuncture to Botox and Fillers

19:45 Treatment Frequency and Expectations

30:01 Safety, Pain, and Cost of Cosmetic Acupuncture

TranscriptOkay, let's talk about cosmetic acupuncture today and all of the questions surrounding it. I still get questions all the time, whether it's from people who have had cosmetic acupuncture before or have only had body acupuncture and have seen cosmetic acupuncture. And then there's also people who have just never heard about it. And cosmetic acupuncture is not a new thing. It's been around for many years.

but I do feel like it is coming more into the mainstream. I guess because of how much it's in my world, I am surprised that people haven't heard about it before because it is seen as an alternative to fillers or Botox. But I guess, you know, we all see what we're being pushed. So it's hard to tell. But I wanted to make one

for all of the commonly asked questions so that it's easy to run through. So let's start with the first question, broad overview of what is cosmetic acupuncture.

Cosmetic acupuncture is using needles mostly concentrated from the decollete upward. And there's a lot of variance with techniques in cosmetic acupuncture, but I will speak for myself and what I personally do. So I use probably 12 to 13 different types of needles, where I at least have that many in my toolbox specifically for

cosmetic acupuncture. And then the body, I probably use up to maybe four or five different types of needles. For the body, you can go up to whatever needle number you want, but I would say most of the time, body acupuncture for other ailments or conditions that you have, usually you use less needles for that than you would for cosmetic acupuncture.

So the two things that I think are the most different about acupuncture used for conditions that are internal versus cosmetic acupuncture is the amount of needles used and the types of needles that are used. So all the needles that I use for the body, I don't use any of them for the face.

I will sometimes use one type of them for the scalp because cosmetic acupuncture involves not just the face, but it can involve the chest, the neck, and then the scalp. It depends on what your goals are and who's administering it, but it can involve all of that. So for the scalp, I do use the same needles most of the time that I would use on the body.

However, anywhere else, they are not the same needles. So my gauges are much smaller and it depends what you're using for your gauge on the body. Some people use smaller diameters of needles for body acupuncture just so that they can reach a wider audience without getting complaints about how much it hurts.

and that's still very effective and it still works. There's nothing wrong with it. I tend to go a little bit thicker on the body, so I tend not to use those needles in facial acupuncture because I do think they're too painful. My range for the face in terms of diameter is 0.12, so 0.12 up to 0.18.

Sometimes I'll do point 20 on myself or my partner because I feel like I can get away with more there. And then this scalp, I will go up to like point 25 because I use that on the body. But it's not a bad thing if you go to someone and they only use one type of needle on your face. That's not inherently a bad thing. It's all about how deep they're going and at what angle they're going.

what your specific problems are. So unfortunately this is one of those things that's like well it depends but hopefully that makes sense as to what could make it different than just getting regular acupuncture.

Okay, so what is it doing? Is it actually accomplishing anything? it a waste of money? This is more from a Western or, you know, science-backed way of thinking of things because unfortunately that's the only way that people receive information usually and I get it because I, half of my brain definitely

is all about that and so that's why I try to concentrate on this sort of stuff in a lot of my posts because I do think that way as well and it makes sense. You just want to make sure that you're safe and it's actually going to be worth your time and money. So I totally understand. So the three things that it's generally doing are increasing blood flow to the face,

It is helping to reduce any muscle tension, so it's relaxing muscles, and it's also increasing the production of collagen and helping to lay more of that down, and that's being concentrated, obviously, in the face.

I always say that we use our face and those muscles every day, all day. We're constantly in and out of making faces, whether it's disgust, anger, joy, whatever. And we never ever stretch those muscles and we rarely massage them. So if you think about it, your face is part of the rest of your body and the rest of your body

intuitively you're like, okay, let me stretch a little before I run, whatever. But then with our face, we never think to do that. And so this is just a side note, but I find that for the first treatment that most people get, probably the first like two to three, honestly, people find that the forehead when I needled there and like around the mouth is so

tender, even just pressing on it is tender. So the main thing that we want to do is increase blood flow to the face because if you don't have adequate, when I say adequate, I'm not talking about you're not having the blood flow at all to the face. Obviously then your tissue would die. So you don't have dead tissue on your face. You are getting technically.

blood flow and adequate blood flow for your cells to survive. But I'm talking about releasing muscles and decreasing the agitation in those muscles, relaxing them so that blood flow is more optimally brought up to the head and face. So those are two things. Botox as we

All-know is used for relaxing the muscles. It paralyzes them. The thought behind that is that once your muscles are overworked and overused, as most of the muscles on our face are from eating, expressing, all the things, that tightness can lead to the lumps, the bumps, the sagging, the wrinkles, all the things.

So the whole mechanism of action behind Botox is to stop that from happening. It just paralyzes your muscles so that they basically relax. They're forced into a state of relaxation so that it kind of smooths out any area that you put it in. So cosmetic acupuncture is also doing that. It is relaxing the muscle and we'll go into later more of the

like how many times you should get it done sort of thing, but high level blood flow and relaxing those muscles. The buzzword of collagen is also important to add in here. So it is helping to increase that collagen production at sites of micro trauma, which the needles are. So

That is definitely happening. I don't have perfect research or how I feel about oral collagen that people take these days. That's been a thing for many years and I actually used to take collagen like powers probably like in college. I don't even know like how old I was but I do remember taking like that.

vital proteins, it like a blue container. And I have not taken it since I stopped because it was a waste of money to me at the time. And then since then I've been in school, I have loads of other things that I could be spending money on. So I've not taken collagen in many years. I don't really notice a difference. There is conflicting research on it, so I'm not sure.

who can give us a direct response. If anyone knows, please inform me. So the reason I bring that up is because people always ask, if I take collagen powders through the mouth and I digest them, are they doing anything for my skin? I've heard that there's like a camp of people who think, well, if you're already deficient, then your body is going to use that.

protein for what it's deficient in and to build up the body. So maybe it will go to joints instead. The thought is that if you have everything else taken care of, then your body can send it to more extraneous places like the skin. I don't know.

If that's true or not, I mean, it makes sense to me, but there is another, you know, side of this that says...