JCPM2025.09.02

The following is an edited transcript of the Journal Club with Pearls & Marketing (JCPM) of September 2, 2025, with Charles Runels, MD.  

>-> The PDF of this live journal club can be seen here <-<

Topics Covered

• Androgenic Alopecia – Can 2,783 Studies be Wrong?
• Can 3,660 Research Papers be Wrong about Helping Women with GYN Problems with PRP?
• Clinical Application and Research Progress of Platelet-rich Plasma
• Female Genital Mutilation Helped by O-Shot® Procedure
• Explode Your Practice with BoNT Strategies
• References
• Helpful Links

Charles Runels, MD
Author, researcher, and inventor of the Vampire Facelift®, Orchid Shot® (O-Shot®), Priapus Shot® (P-Shot®), Priapus Toxin®, Vampire Breast Lift®, and Vampire Wing Lift®, & Clitoxin® procedures.

Transcript

Welcome to our journal club. I think three papers would be helpful to you this week, and I’ll start with this one.

Androgenic Alopecia – Can 2,783 Studies be Wrong?

I love this picture.^[1] This is a great one to show people, especially your colleagues who may still think PRP is just voodoo medicine. It’s incredible how many of them out there still believe that. This is also a great one to send to your patients. 

Look at the bibliometric analysis from 2003 to 2023, 20 years of analysis. They found 2,783 studies of androgenic alopecia using PRP, and then they narrowed it down. They give you this overwhelming look at the growing body of research.

We had an article two weeks ago in the journal club in which someone just said, “Hey, why are we even talking about whether this works or not? If you have androgenic alopecia, this should be your first line.”

And this is not all the PRP universe; this is just androgenic alopecia. That’s amazing. Over 10 years ago, when I was around, just after 2010, when I was doing this and was lucky enough for the name Vampire Facelift® to go viral, Greg Keller, amazing plastic surgeon at UCLA, invited me to do a presentation there in Los Angeles. He asked some of his colleagues, and we had about 35 people in a hotel room.

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I realize this is 15 years ago. One was a world-renowned hair transplant surgeon who talked about how fast he drove across the desert in his supercar to get to California, which was impressive. He struck me with this profound statement.

He said, “I no longer think it’s ethical to do a hair transplant on a female. If you inject their scalp with PRP, and if they are patient, they all grow it back.”

He would not do a hair transplant for women. But he thought that for the full effect, it took about a year. And at that time, of course, our procedures, I talked about the O-Shot® during that visit, and it was a sideline sort of dubious idea at the moment, but it made sense scientifically; we just didn’t have much research to talk about.

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This first study we put out in 2014,^[2] we’ve been doing the O-Shot for a while but hadn’t published anything yet. So we put this out and showed a significant improvement in the female sexual distress score.

That leads to the following paper: I want to review three today.

Can 3,660 Research Papers be Wrong about Helping Women with GYN Problems with PRP?

This one is a scoping review of the use of platelet-rich plasma in gynecological disease.^[3] It really is a beautiful organization. You can see it just came out in the past week or so.

To create this paper, they reviewed 3,660 papers. That’s a shocking number. If you review the numbers we’ve discussed, this is a summary of what we were doing in the journal club before I started using this app. But here’s 2022, and here’s 2023. If you click into them, you’ll see that we’re talking about… (see video).

And we’ve been doing this journal club for about four years now. I knew it was accumulating, but I didn’t realize that we were up to now, 3,660 research papers that they could identify regarding platelet-rich plasma for gynecology indications.

And you can see they organize them for you. They give you a lovely review, you know that already, but they organize them for you. I think the results in these two beautiful charts are what your patients would love to see. This one, they have a condition, and then they have representative studies that they reference and some of what was seen.

And so they have in there, vulvovaginal atrophy, sexual dysfunction, genital mutilation. This one was late to come on, these were late to appear. And realize that these representative papers represent hundreds of papers because they found 3,660 of them. And of course, lichen sclerosus (yes, it is spelled with a “u”), IC, recurrent UTIs, abnormal urinary bleeding, and you start to get into some of the incontinence. And of course, stress incontinence and pelvic floor. Dysfunction, there you go.

So beautiful little summary and they reached these conclusions, which says, “Across the 13 conditions they reviewed, it demonstrated varying efficacy with notable improvements in sexual dysfunction, lichen sclerosis, and stress incontinence.”

And I love this sentence, “While conventional vaginal reconstructive surgery has been performed for decades, PRP may represent a potential non-surgical alternative or adjunct for pre-intra and post-operative management.“ 

And I think that’s what’s going to happen. Increasingly, it’s going to be within the delivery suite and a part of every female surgery. I know my wife already includes an O-Shot in pretty much all of her surgeries or some variation of, and a decade ago, we had studies, one study showing you could recover more quickly from a hysterectomy and the other branches.

This is just gynecology, 3,660 papers.

And of course, they list some of the kits that we’ve used, but some of the studies use no kit at all. Some are activating, some are not, and they tell you which studies do those things.

So what do you do with this?

How does this really make your life better?

One thing, there’s just this nice soul satisfaction to know you’re on the right path. I know as a child, I grew up in an interesting spot. My dad‘s job put him in the city of Birmingham, but on the edge of the city, where he planted our house, and we actually had a quarter horse, and we had bird dogs or English setters. And I could walk all day and leave my house and walk all day one way and never cross a paved road. And go the other way, and I would literally be under the smokestacks of the steel mills back when they used to make steel in Birmingham in the 1960s.

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And it was the 1960s, so people didn’t worry that you had a two-ton TV on a little coffee stand that could fall over and kill the kids, and safety meant you sat down in the back of the pickup truck when your dad drove down the highway. And, along those same safetly guidelines, I would go as a child and just see if I could get lost in the woods, knowing that I felt like I was some Daniel Boone sort of guy, even in probably third grade, second grade.

I would try to get lost, but I knew if I walked downhill, I could get to a stream and follow it. There was a railroad track. I could hear and see all those little simple things that if you grew up in the woods, it would be hard for me to get lost for long even when I tried.

But if I got lost for a short time and I’m disoriented, and as you know, sometimes people die in these national forests. They’re not that far from a road, but they didn’t have my dad for a dad, who was a fantastic father and taught me how not to stay lost for long, but I could make myself lost for a little while and it’s an uncomfortable feeling.

It’s a little bit thrilling to be lost in the woods, but it’s even more painful if you think you’re on the wrong path and lost, and you are lost, and you have a patient sitting in front of you, and you’re wondering if what you’re doing is the right thing to do. And papers like this tell us that we are on, it’s not even a small path anymore. It’s well-beaten, it’s almost a paved road. It’s a dirt road now, 3,660 papers is insufficient to change medicine for women, but we are on the way.

Remember, the great mathematician, Max Planck, said, “Science advances one funeral at a time.”

It will take some of the old school to die off literally, and more of the new school people that are reading these studies and still in medical school, for this to become paid for by insurance, which is what it will take for it to become standard of care. It will be hard for PRP for gyn indications to become standard of care until insurance pays for it. But you can get wound care covered now with very good reimbursement. And I think it will come to the place to where if you want to wrestle insurance carriers and be paid for our studies, it will eventually happen. Anyway, what can you do with this study?

First, I think it gives you good soul satisfaction that you’re not lost in the forest, you’re on the road. And also, you can send this to your patients and they will get it.

By the way, I’ve been to Adelaide, it’s a fantastic place. Amazing, I love Australia. They’ve been ahead of us in the endocrinology world, so far ahead. Susan Davis, from Australia, was publishing the benefits of testosterone. And women, years before Suzanne Sommers did her book, when I started, opened my practice in 2020, 26 years ago, she had already published multiple studies about testosterone downregulating the autoimmune response and helping women with multiple sorts of problems, including sexual dysfunction.

I love the Australians; we have some beautiful, excellent providers there.

This paper is strong, so you should take it. It’s also open source. I put a copy in your handout section.

You send out a little email to your people and say, “Hey, we’re over 3,000 papers supporting what we’re doing here with our O-Shot® procedure.”

Some of these papers are doing things that are not what we do. For example, you may not do infertility as part of your practice. And if you’re looking, there is some variability in response. But you have now, papers supporting recurrent UTI.

Have you ever seen someone with that problem? Recurrent UTI and genital mutilation.

Genital Mutilation Helped by O-Shot® Procedure

Please do not forget female genital mutilation (FGM). Millions of women have suffered FGM. For example, 80% of the women in Egypt have their clitoris chopped off, 80%. 80, eight out of 10. And they come here to the US, the women do, and often they want help.

And if you start talking about it, I don’t mean advertising it; that’s not some ad you put on Facebook.

You almost must talk about it in hushed tones. But you can put it in an email to your people, you can link it to this if you want to treat. And we do not have a lot, but we have a handful of providers in our group that, just by word of mouth, have a really strong following and help change lives, and they get paid well for it. If you want to see or listen to an interview of someone who does it extremely well, I’ll put a link to that journal club in the email that goes out at the end of when that comes out for this one. Okay, one last study and then let’s call it a day. Not that one. This is more of a scientific review study of PRP.

I’m not going to say much more about it except that it gives you strong backup for a couple of things that we don’t talk much about.

Clinical Application and Research Progress of Platelet-Rich Plasma

Finally, this third paper provides a beautiful overview of the progression of research regarding PRP.^[4]

One strong indication they mention that is often forgotten is periorbital hyperpigmentation, and those in our group who do talk about it see a lot of it. Mediterranean, African, and Indian descent. I like it. I think it looks like you have eye shadow, but many people who suffer from it don’t like it at all, and we have multiple journal clubs. You will find detailed instructions if you put periorbital hyperpigmentation or dark circles under the eyes, or anything like that, into the search bar on our membership websites.

But, in summary, most of us inject 2.5 cc under each eye (for a total of five CCs combined) every six weeks for two to three treatments, and it gets amazingly better.

Explode Your Practice with BoNT Strategies

Okay, so I think with that, I have one other thing just to mention that’s coming up. I’ve had people recurrently ask me for a decade, I’ve been teaching my hands-on Vampire Procedures workshop now for 15 years, and I’ve had people ask me to do a course just on botulinum toxin. Leave out the PRP part, just focus for two days on nothing but botulinum toxin. And of course, we will also cover how to treat depression, bruxism, and migraines.

And for those who haven’t seen it yet, how to treat erectile dysfunction is part of the class. That’s coming up at the end of this month. If you don’t want to or you can’t attend the hands-on because of some travel, it is in a beautiful place. It’s going to be at the Grand Marriott. This is a picture of it. That’s the swimming pool, and the mobile bay is just on the other side of those live oak trees.

When you step out of the door of our room, where we’ll be teaching, it won’t be in my office, it’ll be at the Marriott. When you step out of the door, you’re on a little beach on the bay, it will be an inspiring spot. We’ll talk about marketing and using botulinum toxin to grow your whole practice. And keep the group small enough that everybody gets hands-on experience with botulinum toxin. And if you want to bring your model with you, that’s a good idea, and we’ll also treat each other.

And with that, let’s see if there are any questions, and if not, we’ll call it a night.

Remember, people will come to you when you talk about something. A better way, the way David Ogilvie put it, is that if you teach people about their disease, they will trust you to treat their disease. So you have three articles, one about androgenic alopecia, the other about just PRP in general, which I think is less useful. But then you have one about an overview of the use of platelet-rich plasma for gynecological problems. ‘

And I love the one. There was one mention of the levator ani muscle; someone was injecting it, and it is making things better postpartum. That’s the one that’s like having chiggers. I would get chiggers as a kid when I walked through the forest. And if you’ve had chiggers in your genitals, you know it’s just miserable. And to me, this is as miserable as chiggers, that we’re not treating every woman who does a vaginal delivery with platelet-rich plasma.

We would never not treat a $10 million, $100 million professional athlete with a torn muscle. You just delivered a baby, you just pushed your baby out of the vaginal canal, the space where it’s still mind-boggling to me that a baby can come out of that space. You have muscle, you’ve strained your muscle. So why does Tom Brady, back in the day, get platelet-rich plasma and everybody’s mother does not? That to me is worse than chiggers. And I hope you’ll use that article to let people know that even if they delivered their baby 10 years ago, you’ve got something that can make things happier down there.

Okay, I think we’ll call it a night with that. Thank you for being on the call. It’s always an honor when smart people show up. Have a good night.

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Here’s an Email You Could Send if You are a Licensed O-Shot® Provider

1. Copy and paste the following message into a new Word document.
2. Then edit it so that it sounds like you.
3. Add a story or a personal observation if you have time.
4. Then, fill in the information with your phone number, etc., and send it to your patients.

Hello [First Name],

Female intimacy, research has shown, is essential for the health and psychological well-being of the woman and her whole family.

Sixteen years after the conception of the O-Shot® procedure, this “Scoping Review” came out showing all the ways the O-Shot® may be helpful (including orgasm).

The protocols used vary (as mentioned in the studies reviewed). But our providers have been using and evolving our O-Shot protocol for over a decade. Finding one of our providers will not guarantee a cure, but we think it gives the best chance of improvement.

Here’s where to read the research<-

Here’s where to find my explanation of the O-Shot® procedure🡨(but a link to the web address for your page about the O-Shot or put the address to the main O-Shot page, https://Oshot.info)

I hope this helps you or someone you love.

Best regards,

(your name)

(your web page about the O-Shot®)
(your phone)
(your email)

_______________________________________

References

Runels, Charles. “A Pilot Study of the Effect of Localized Injections of Autologous Platelet Rich Plasma (PRP) for the Treatment of Female Sexual Dysfunction.” Journal of Women’s Health Care 03, no. 04 (2014). https://doi.org/10.4172/2167-0420.1000169.

“Who Tells the Story of the Treatment of Androgenetic Alopecia?—A Bibliometric Analysis From 2003 to 2023 – Sun – 2025 – Journal of Cosmetic Dermatology – Wiley Online Library.” Accessed September 2, 2025. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jocd.70370.

Willison, Nadia, Fariba Behnia-Willison, Pouria Aryan, et al. “Application of Platelet-Rich Plasma in Gynaecologic Disorders: A Scoping Review.” Journal of Clinical Medicine 14, no. 16 (2025): 5832. https://doi.org/10.3390/jcm14165832.

Zhang, Guomei, Yuning Song, Tongsheng Zhuang, Yu Zhao, Zemin Pan, and Zhenzhen Pan. “Clinical Application and Research Progress of Platelet-Rich Plasma.” Hematology 30, no. 1 (2025): 2549159. https://doi.org/10.1080/16078454.2025.2549159.

Tags

PRP, platelet-rich plasma, regenerative medicine, journal club, bibliometric analysis, androgenic alopecia, hair restoration, Vampire Facelift, O-Shot, female sexual dysfunction, gynecology, vulvovaginal atrophy, genital mutilation, lichen sclerosus, interstitial cystitis, recurrent urinary tract infections, urinary bleeding, urinary incontinence, stress incontinence, pelvic floor dysfunction, vaginal reconstructive surgery, wound healing, hysterectomy recovery, sexual health, testosterone therapy, Australia endocrinology, periorbital hyperpigmentation, dark circles, botulinum toxin, Botox workshop, depression treatment, bruxism, migraines, erectile dysfunction, medical marketing, regenerative aesthetics

Helpful Links

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=> Dr. Runels Online Botulinum Blastoff Course <=

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=> Apply for Online Training for Multiple PRP Procedures <=

=> FSFI Online Administrator and Calculator <=

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=> The software I use to send emails: ONTRAPORT (free trial) <= 

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