Here are My Top Seven Things from Last Week

1. Upgrading the Directories

Since we have been an organization for 16 years, the internet fashions/styles have changed. So, to keep up, we are upgrading the look and function of the directories.  The Vampire Facelift® directory was the first to get the new look. You can see it here<–

Notice that it’s faster than before. Also, it only pulls up names when someone searches one of the fields or gives the software permission to know their location. 

If you go to the Priapus Shot® directory (which has not yet been upgraded), you can see the old version.

As always, to update your listing, log in to the membership site and look in the upper right corner. You can change your contact information and photo at any time.

2. Most Important Research I Read Last Week (from our Journal Club)

As usual, a HUGE number of papers came out last week about the use of PRP for a variety of problems, but my two favorites (and topics in this week’s Journal Club included a strong prospective study showing that shock wave combined with our P-Shot® works better than either therapy alone.^[1] 

Even though the improvement in function for men after the P-Shot® was less than what other studies have shown,^[2] they still saw improvement with both therapies, and they got the main parts right: they did the shock wave first, activated with CaCl, and did the P-Shot® afterwards (it can be on the same visit).

The other important paper last week discussed once again how microneedling with insulin offers more improvement than our Vampire Facial® (a way of microneedling with PRP) for acne scars.^[3]

In practice, I think alternating works best (Vampire Facial®; wait six weeks and repeat with insulin; wait six weeks and repeat with 5% TCA). This way, you approach things from every proven mechanism for synergy. Combine it with the techniques described in the Cell Doctor Forum, and you can work miracles.

You can see the meeting video and the other topics covered here. <–

3. The Most Important Warning from This Week

This one is strange: a case of cutaneous and lymph node sarcoidosis after injecting the face with PRP.

This would be an estimated one in one hundred million. But it happened, and we should know about it and what they did to make it disappear.^[4] 

I also cover this one in the latest Journal Club.

4. Most Helpful Book I Read Last Week

When I teach my workshops, I do my best to convince people that (for most physicians) nothing beats an email for marketing their practice—if it’s done the proper way. In his book, Do open: how a simple newsletter can transform your business (and it can)^[5], David Hieatt explains how he launched a very successful clothing line with the primary tool of email (which is also exactly what launched our CMA).

He suggests using social media primarily to add people to your email list so that you can have a more extended, more meaningful conversation with them using email. Remember, email is all you have left other than web pages, that is not censored (meaning you can’t talk about sexual medicine at all on most social media platforms).

In my 5-Notes Expert Marketing System for Physicians, I will show you how creating content for your email will bring you patients and make you a better doctor. But this book by Hieatt is a great complement to my 5-Notes System.

5. Review of Methods for Treating Scars

In our weekly Cell Doctor Forum, we focus primarily on the techniques of the procedures: briefing the new members and updating the long-standing members. This past week, we reviewed the treatment of scars.

I hope you find the review helpful. It helped me to prepare it for you.

6. Quote I Pondered Most Last Week

“Great advances of the most successful sciences—astronomy, physics, chemistry—were, and are, achieved without probability sampling. Statistical inference in these researches is based on subjective judgment about the presence of adequate, automatic, and natural randomization in the population . . . No clear rule exists for deciding exactly when probability sampling is necessary, and what price should be paid for it . . . Probability sampling for randomization is not a dogma, but a strategy, especially for large numbers.”

—A quote from Kish, 1965, in the article by Baker, et al^[6]

7. Next Conferences & Workshops

I made the final arrangements to travel with my wife, Dr. Alex Runnels, to Marrakesh, Morocco, to speak at Dr. Alex Bader’s European Society of Aesthetic Gynecology meeting. If you attend, I hope you will say hello.

Alex and I will present a prospective analysis of over 10 years of data from our group (2,004 patients, 245 providers).

I hope the data is well received. We don’t claim to “prove” anything, but the data is so very strong that it cannot be ignored. Hopefully, we will have a new published paper to share with you soon.

We will see.

Finally, I also announced a new hands-on workshop with live models where I teach all of the procedures and a marketing cram course. 

These workshops always fill. If you’ve not yet attended one, I hope you can make it (I cut it off at five people to allow for more time with each attendee).

As a reminder, we also always feature a variety of excellent courses worldwide from our outstanding faculty. 

I hope this was helpful.

Let me know what you think.

Have a great week!

Charles

Charles Runels, MD

Cellular Medicine Association
1-888-920-5311

Botulinum Blastoff Course <–
5-Notes System
Procedure Training

References

Baker, R., J. M. Brick, N. A. Bates, et al. “Summary Report of the AAPOR Task Force on Non-Probability Sampling.” Journal of Survey Statistics and Methodology 1, no. 2 (2013): 90–143. https://doi.org/10.1093/jssam/smt008.

Dogan, Kazim, and Gökhan Cil. “Erectile Function Recovery Using Shockwave and Platelet-Rich Plasma: A Single-Centre Prospective Comparative Study.” Archivos Españoles de Urología 78, no. 8 (2025): 1029. https://doi.org/10.56434/j.arch.esp.urol.20257808.135.

Gahlot, Shivani, and Seeba Hussain. “Comparative Study on the Efficacy and Safety of Insulin versus Autologous Platelet-Rich Plasma (PRP) with Microneedling in the Treatment of Atrophic Post-Acne Scars.” Indian Journal of Dermatology, Venereology and Leprology 0 (September 2025): 1–4. https://doi.org/10.25259/IJDVL_191_2025.

Hieatt, David. Do open: how a simple newsletter can transform your business (and it can). The Do Book Company, 2017.

Latsaheb, Rhonda, Shambhavi Gudi, Sravya Chandana Thota, and Sudharani Chintagunta. “Facial Platelet Rich Plasma Injections Inducing Cutaneous and Lymph Node Sarcoidosis.” Indian Journal of Dermatology, Venereology and Leprology 0 (September 2025): 1–3. https://doi.org/10.25259/IJDVL_896_2025.

Poulios, Evangelos, Ioannis Mykoniatis, Nikolaos Pyrgidis, et al. “Platelet-Rich Plasma (PRP) Improves Erectile Function: A Double-Blind, Randomized, Placebo-Controlled Clinical Trial.” Journal of Sexual Medicine 18, no. 5 (2021): 926–35. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsxm.2021.03.008.