The Buzz Over Electric Wrinkle Remover
For about eight years, the Electro-Acuscope, a device the size of a large briefcase that emits a low-level electrical current, has been quietly used by physical therapists, acupuncturists, MDs and other health professionals largely to treat pain and athletic injuries.
But recently, L.A. medical doctors, acupuncturists, cosmetologists and physical therapists report they are seeing growing numbers of clients, including more than a few celebrities, who ask for facial treatments with the Electro-Acuscope and similar machines. Though the treatments, which are frequently billed as “non-surgical face lifts,” are dismissed by some medical professionals as only temporary solutions to the physical effects of aging, other practitioners are recommending the procedures for both facial rejuvenation and overall health benefits.
Several times a week, actress Cloris Leachman travels to Laurel Canyon for such treatment, which she claims reduces her wrinkles, increases calmness and boosts her energy so dramatically that her major problem is “suffering from overthrill.”
Typically, Leachman is treated at her physical therapist’s office with one of three similar machines: the Electro-Acuscope, the Myopulse or the Myopulse Renaissance, which was developed specifically for the face. Whatever device is used, two probes are generally placed at various points on the client’s skin.
As Los Angeles acupuncturist Steven Rosenblatt explains the process, “All of our bodily processes are based on electrical activity.
“These instruments read information from electrical points on a patient’s skin,” says Rosenblatt, who was the first staff acupuncturist at the UCLA School of Medicine and tested all three instruments before they were labeled by the FDA in 1983. “The machine gets the information and gives a numerical value to it. Then it corrects the body’s ‘short circuits’ by feeding electricity back in if it’s needed. By emitting the proper amount of low-level electrical current though the probes, the machine corrects electrical imbalances, and stimulates the body’s healing properties.”
One of the effects, Rosenblatt adds, is that stimulating nerves in the face causes capillaries to expand, increasing blood circulation to the area, carrying more oxygen to surrounding tissues that speeds the elimination of toxins, making the skin look better and promoting healing if there is inflammation.
Leachman says she feels no pain in her sessions, only a mild tingling sensation if that. In fact, the star of television’s “Facts of Life” insists she has such a good time during the treatments that “we laugh so hard in there that they pound on the walls.”
“People tell me I look 10 to 15 years younger, maybe even 11 to 16 years younger and I myself don’t feel so bad,” Leachman exults. The 61-year-old actress best known as Mary Tyler Moore’s next-door neighbor Phyllis, says she has had two to three treatments a week for the last four months, mostly to achieve an overall sense of well-being. But Leachman is not discounting the cosmetic effect of the treatments.
Owns Two Machines
Leachman now owns two machines (the Electro-Acuscope and the Renaissance machine, which sell for about $7,000 each) and says she’s considering investing another $7,000 in the Myopulse as well. Actress Susan Blakely and her husband, producer Steve Jaffe, say they lease an Electro-Acuscope and use it regularly for deep relaxation and muscle regeneration. And 60-year-old hair care expert Vidal Sassoon is considering purchasing a device; he says he’s been treated with the Electro-Acuscope repeatedly by his physician for “pulled shoulder muscles and anything for an arthritic nature” as often as every other day when he’s in pain.
5,000 Devices Sold
All three instruments are distributed by Electro-Medical Inc. in Fountain Valley. According to founder Jerry Fisher, about 5,000 of the devices have been sold around the world since they went on the market in 1980.
Not all health professionals, however, welcome the machines to the medical market. Dr. Stephen Genender, a Los Angeles board-certified plastic surgeon, believes whatever rejuvenating result is achieved with Electro-Acuscopes and similar instruments is temporary at best.
“The face becomes swollen either from electrical stimulation or from a needle as in acupuncture or from a low-energy laser,” he says. “All these things plump up wrinkles. They’re gimmicks. They give the appearance of having a regeneration. After the initial swelling goes down, you’re pretty well back to where you started. The saving grace of all these procedures is they don’t cause any amount of permanent harm.”
Considered Safe
Though the American Medical Assn. has not evaluated the Electro-Acuscope or other similar machines, an AMA spokesperson says the devices are considered TENS (transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation) instruments. A 1984 report prepared by Ernest Feigenbaum MD for the U.S. Office of Health Technology Assesment (a division of the Public Health Service) states, “TENS is considered a safe and effective method for controlling pain and reducing the use of narcotic analgesics. It is widely accepted for this use.”
But Santa Monica acupuncturist Margot Jordan says numerous health professionals, herself included, have witnessed the side effect of facial rejuvenation in the course of treating pain and have experimented with the devices for the precise purpose of increasing relaxation and softening wrinkles. Jordan has been so impressed with the results that her practice is now devoted exclusively to rejuvenation procedures and she prefers the machines to acupuncture needles.
Other health professionals who specialize in treating pain say they won’t consider using the machines for facial rejuvenation until acceptable research has been conducted and published.
‘More Hype Than Hope’
Dr. Robert Swezey, a clinical professor of medicine at the UCLA School of Medicine, says he “looked at it (the Electro-Acuscope) about a year ago and my impression is that . . . there’s a lot more hype and hope than good solid documentation about what’s going on in the tissues . . .
“All kinds of statements about healing potential and pain control have been made, but to my knowledge, there have been no definitive studies to support that,” adds Swezey who’s also director of the Arthritis and Back Pain Center at the Swezey Institute in Santa Monica. “They may be onto something but the burden of proof is on them. Until they’ve taken the trouble to establish by acceptable clinical scientific criteria, such that would be published in a peer review journal, then one has to assume it’s hype and hope. Period.”
(Limited research on the Electro-Acuscope has been published in such periodicals as Physical Therapy Forum and the Journal of Ultramolecular Medicine, but Fisher acknowledges that as yet there have been no larger, controlled research studies conducted or published in major peer review journals. He says, however, that there are hospital studies currently in the planning stages.)
Many physicians and health professionals are not even aware of the machines’ existence. Says Dr. Nicholas Lowe, a professor of dermatology at the UCLA School of Medicine, “I doubt if you’ll find any dermatologists who’ve using this at the moment. That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not effective. It may mean we haven’t looked at it.”
But the main complaint by detractors is that treatments offer only short-term results for those seeking facial improvement. “The effect is very temporary . . . it lasts maybe a month or six weeks,” says Genender, “ . . . you can get the same effect if you smack your face a few times. You’ll plump up your wrinkles.”
‘Remarkable Energizing Effect’
“I would agree, but I would add one thing. There’s a remarkable energizing effect. But the (facial) treatments do have to be repeated,” advises Dr. Pearl McBroom, a Marina del Rey cardiologist/internist who uses the Electro-Acuscope and the Myopulse for medical treatment of diseases from shingles to herpes and also employs a cosmetologist to provide facials with the Renaissance.
For facial treatment, McBroom and her cosmetologist usually recommend that a client have a dozen sessions over a period of a few weeks and then be treated for maintenance “at least twice a month.” Prices are $65 for a one-hour session and $100 for a 1 1/2-hour treatment. McBroom’s treatment schedule and price scale are typical of those at offices of other health professionals in the L.A. area.
All facialists and other practitioners offering rejuvenation treatments interviewed by The Times agreed that regular maintenance sessions are necessary to maintain the reduced-wrinkle effect. And while many claim that wrinkles typically soften, they may not be fully erased, they say. In addition, practitioners point out that treatments with the machine cannot create facial restructuring in the manner that plastic surgery can.
“The Renaissance (machine and its treatment) is by no means a substitute for plastic surgery. We use it more as an adjunct,” McBroom emphasizes, adding that her patients are also counseled on nutrition, exercise and stress reduction in addition to receiving medical diagnoses and treatment.
McBroom recalls that she was given an Electro-Acuscope in 1980 by a fellow physician who’d purchased it but was “too involved in other research to use it. I was amazed to find many aches and pains were alleviated in a short period. Since then, I’ve used it on hundreds of patients.”
Dr. Valentine Birds, a North Hollywood internist, also works with the Electro-Acuscope and Myopulse instruments for medical purposes. And a supervised nursing assistant gives facial treatments in his office with the Renaissance machine.
“I had used the Electro-Acuscope for muscle spasm and found the facial condition to be a side effect,” he says. “My theory is that if it won’t hurt the patients and it can help them, I’m willing to use it. It’s one thing to treat disease and another to normalize the physiology and make the person healthy, which the machines help the body to do.
“I’m not satisfied with only diagnosing and treating the disease. I’d rather improve the basic physiology, that way you don’t have the disease problem. If you feel good, you’re going to look good. And if you’re hurting, it’s going to show up in the face.”
