Interview with Charles Runels, Vampire Facelift Inventor

Charles-Venice
Dr. Charles Runels in Venice, Italy, to speak at BioBridge conference about the O-Shot®, Sept. 19, 2014. (Picture: Danielle Gautier)

While researching my vampire facials article in August, I had lingering questions about Dr. Charles Runels’ work. Who better to answer them than the man, himself? We had corresponded via email, but I figured an interview could work better. He suggested a phone call to clear things up, which was a great idea—but also quite challenging. Not just because of our time differences (he lives in Alabama; I live in Vancouver), but also because I was scheduled to take a 3 week UK trip with my other half.

Nonetheless, we worked out a date and time—August 27, 3 p.m. Central Time—which was also the day before I had to fly to London. The phone call offer was certainly much more than I planned (we usually conduct interviews via email), but I was super-excited. Due to the length of time I’d be virtually unavailable, the interview became an urgent matter. After all, we didn’t want to leave Dr. Runels’ kind offer hanging.

The night before the interview, Anthony stepped up and helped formulate some questions. I also looked into ways to record the interview on my phone—but wound up sticking with my iPhone’s voice memo app. The following interview is an unabridged transcription of my August 27 phone call to Dr. Runels. I have interspersed certain lines with links to clarify findings I made during my research.

Charles Runels: Hello this is Dr. Runels.

Erin Chapman: Hi Charles, this is Erin Chapman calling. How are you today?

CR: Wonderful!

EC: Did you have a few minutes free?

CR: This is an interesting website you guys have.

EC: [laughs] Yeah it is, we ah, we are very interested in vampires.

CR: How fun. So am I. I’ve always liked vampires.

EC: [laughs] Um, that’s what actually got me into looking at your stuff actually. I was, I saw a lot of media exposure for your vampire facials and then that’s what basically lead me down the trail to find you.

CR: Well, that’s fine. I’m glad you’re interested and I welcome your blogging or whatever you want to do. Just ask away and I’ll tell you whatever I know.

EC: Okay cool. Alright. Um, so I’ve got about 8 questions here. Do you have time to do that many? Is that okay with you?

CR: I’ve got as much, as much time as you need.

EC: So according to Trademarkia.com you have trade marked right now Vampire O-Shot, Vampire M-Shot, and Vampire Facelift. And on other sites it mentions Vampire Facials and Vampire Breast Lift. In your email that you mentioned to me the vampire idea is several layers deep, would you be able to elaborate on that for me?

CR: [takes a breath] Yeah, when I said several layers deep, the biggest thing that I meant by it, is that most people see the name and they think it’s cute, but you’ve researched it enough to realize that it’s actually trademarked and that has a reason. There’s a particular method that we use that, umm, involves rejuvenating the face and the long way of saying it would be that we use a hyaluronic acid filler.

EC: Uh huh.

CR: Restylane and Juvederm, and then we combine that with blood derived growth factors and all those used in the face in concert with uh, some ideas about what creates a younger, but still natural looking face that come from artistry and some of the research that’s been done about shapes in the face. Everything from Leonardo to some recent research that’s been done.

EC: Uh huh.

CR: So there’s no way to put all that into an ad, so unlike something say like Botox or Juvederm the name implies a material. This name implies a particular method of using two different materials.

EC: Okay.

CR: And that’s the obvious if you just look at the website.

EC: Yep.

CR: Even some physicians have made the mistake of thinking if they just use the technology that we use to isolate the blood, squirt that in the face any way they want to that they’re doing the vampire.

EC: Yep.

CR: It’s like if you take Botox and any way you want to use it in the face, their getting Botox, but that’s not true because what we’re using involves a way of using those growth factors. And the way we’re combining them with a natural filler like Juvederm.

EC: Okay.

CR: And then one more layer deep than that is well, why would you want to do that? And the reason we want to do that is because if you think of what happens, if you go to get Botox or Juvederm you don’t really know what you’re going to get because some people are very skilled at it.

EC: Hmmm.

CR: And others are not so some people leave the doctors office and you don’t know they got treated and others look all strange like they came from another planet.

EC: Yeah.

CR: Well, that’s not good and to me that’s exactly as if you were driving down main street in your town and all the signs on the restaurants just said hamburger or vegetable or chicken. Without any way of knowing is this a food restaurant or gourmet restaurant. If you’re just telling ingredients without giving some indication of how it’s prepared. So it’s a new idea in cosmetic medicine to have a trademarked name that means a method and it applies a certain standard of care where actual ingredients can be swapped out. There’s 21 different kits, actually there’s about 26 different FDA approved kits now for preparing that plasma.

EC: Okay.

CR: But there’s only one method for how we like to use it. So it’s the opposite where if you’re advertising Juvederm. It’s just the material and you don’t know what method is going to be used and it depends on the doctor. So that gives a protection to the patient, that he or she may not get. It doesn’t guarantee, nothings a 100% guarantee with any medical procedure, but at least there’s an idea this person knows what they’re doing and um of course that creates value. That makes the physician also attract people that are looking for quality procedures so everybody wins.

EC: Uh huh, as opposed to going to some doctor where you don’t actually know if it’s authenticated or if there’s or if it’s regulated even.

CR: Yep, that’s exactly right.

EC: Okay, um, so looking at the Vampire O-Shot it’s seemingly identical to the O-Shot website, and your Vampire M-Shot is seemingly identical to the M-Shot and both featured on Trademarkia.com. If they are identical why has “vampire” been amended to them?

CR: Yeah, I don’t advertise the M or O shot, I own the names. Sometimes I’ll buy a name just to tie that up so that others don’t um confuse people.

EC: Okay.

CR: So I call it the O-Shot and that’s my invention as well, but I knew that people would try because they both involve using blood. My fear was that people would try to use some combination of names to confuse customers. So I just bought up everything close to what I actually wanted to call it. But the idea of vampire teeth around the vagina is not really appealing so I don’t exactly like using vampire names in association with vaginal rejuvenation procedure. But I think it works with the breast lift so I have a “Vampire Breastlift”, a “Vampire Facelift,” a “Vampire Facial,” and for the female rejuvenation I just call it the “O-Shot” or the orgasm shot.

EC: Okay, okay. And you mentioned just earlier that one of the methods is FDA approved so does that mean all of the procedures that you currently do are all FDA approved, by the US Food and Drug Administration?

CR: Yeah that’s kind of confusing. You kinda faded out, can you hear me?

EC: Yeah, yeah I can hear you.

CR: Okay, um yes and no. I think a better analogy to kind of help you understand it is let’s say that I wanted to start selling needle and thread to doctors, to people in the operating room.

EC: Yeah.

CR: I couldn’t just go to the store and start selling material to the physicians. I’d have to prove to the FDA that the thread is sterile and that it holds skin together obviously.

EC: Uh huh.

CR: And then I could sell it to the physicians. So the material, that has to be FDA approved. Now once the doctor buys that sewing material and the FDA is the Food and Drug Administration.

EC: Uh huh.

CR: How a doctor sews up the wound in the operating room is not a food or a drug so the FDA has nothing to do with what he does with the suture material. You still with me?

EC: Yeah.

CR: Now if it’s a drug that’s different because that’s a drug. So if the doctor writes a prescription for a drug, then uses it in an odd way and it’s not approved by the FDA, then well that’s a food or a drug so it falls under the FDA. Now, if you’re making a kit, or these like 20 something kits for preparing blood, to be put back in the body. Obviously you can’t go down to Walmart and buy some tubes and glassware and start selling it to doctors to prepare blood with.

EC: Yeah.

CR: You have to do it, you have to give them a kit, that actually prepares the blood, and does it in a way that is sterile and can be used in the body and there’s over 20 of those kits that have been proven to the FDA to prepare blood in a way that is sterile and a doctor can use it. Now once the doctor does that, and he’s got the blood in the syringe, just like the suture material, that’s not a food or a drug. So the FDA has nothing to do with what the doctor does with it.

EC: Okay.

CR: So you know, it’s like if you’re waiting for that to be approved, the procedure itself it’s like waiting for the FDA to come in and tell a doctor how to tie a knot in an operating room. It’s just never going to happen. So it’s confusing, and I don’t want to mislead people. The kits we use are FDA approved.

EC: Uh huh.

CR: But the procedure were doing, it would be like asking the FDA to inspect your roof. They don’t look at what doctors do with blood, they aren’t supposed to.

EC: Uh huh, okay. And has the procedures themselves been approved or endorsed by the American Medical Association [AMA] or other similar organizations?

CR: Well, we have research that we’ve done but AMA doesn’t endorse procedures.

EC: Okay.

CR: It’s not their purpose either. The AMA publishes a journal, but it’s not, there is no endorsement of the AMA by any kind of procedure. Again their job is to support research and help people do things. They don’t endorse procedures.

EC: Okay.

CR: The AMA doesn’t endorse taking your gallbladder out. But we have research backing it up and we’re doing more research as we speak. We’re doing research to support the idea. And now there’s like over 11,000 research papers. That’s 11,000 research papers.

EC: Okay.

CR: Showing, using platelet rich plasma to rejuvenate tissue and mostly in wounds, healing skin, joints, and post surgery. So the skin of the vagina is obviously sacred because it has to do with our sexuality, but it responds in the same way as does skin on your leg or your back. It’s all skin.

EC: Uh huh.

CR: And collagen and blood flows. So these procedures work very well in the face, they work very well in the genitalia. They work very well rejuvenating joints and healing wounds, but we have research to back all that up.

EC: Okay, and otherwise mentioned earlier, basically the science behind it, how do you guys measure the effectiveness and besides the fact that you said that there’s 11,000 research papers, uh how do you use evaluate the effectiveness of all the procedures that you’re doing?

CR: You know it depends on which one you’re looking at. With Wincare sometimes a biopsy is done. So there are several studies done with in the last couple of years, where someone injected the plasma, even into healthy tissue and then go back and biopsy it to see if the collagens have multiplied, if new blood flow is coming in. There are procedures where they’ve injected the scalp and come back in to see if hair has grown. With the sexual function there are surveys in the medical literature that are proven to give a good indication of sexuality so we did a study where we injected women and we surveyed them before and after to see what happened. If they were having pain, or trouble with orgasm, and to document a survey and if their sexuality improved. So it’s a little trickier than documenting a wound since you have to ask someone instead of looking at it under a microscope, but most of the studies that involved actual biopsies of tissue itself. But of course that’s not something most people want to have done with their vagina. Although we are doing a study with lichen sclerosus, which is a horrible auto immune disease that causes alters of the vagina, causes ladies to suffer like crazy. It’s hard for them to have sex. They get all scarred up. So in that event we are doing biopsies before they are treated, and we’ll do another biopsy after their treated. To document whether it helps or not. So that study is being down right now.

EC: Okay, and that’s for regarding the O-Shot, now what would you say for regarding the Vampire Facelift?

CR: There’s obviously two components to it. There’s one with the Juvederm part of it. That has been researched up the wazoo about how it restores shape and is very safe, so there’s that research. The confusion is, we’ll have somebody say a very learned scholarly type person, say uh there is no research to back up the vampire facelift.

EC: Uh huh.

CR: Well, that’s true. You won’t see “Vampire Facelift” within the New England Journal. And what that tells me is the person was so closed minded they didn’t even look to see what it is. If you look at the real definition of what the vampire facelift is, it’s like let’s see, you won’t see research to back up. I don’t know pick another drug, Aspirin. Cause in the medical literature it’s doesn’t say Bayer it’s Salicylic Acid and talks about the material.

EC: Uh huh.

CR: So there’s no research that says “Vampire Facelift,” but there is thousands of papers about platelet rich plasma and sex. And there is thousands of papers on hyaluronic acid and what it does and Juvederm and Restylane and those fillers and how safe they are and used in shaping the face. So lots of research out there. So that’s the confusion, and I always laugh when I see somebody say there’s no research to back up the Vampire Facelift. To me they just have a big sign that says I have no idea what I’m talking about.

EC: Okay, okay and as I mentioned before I wanted to go into a little bit more of your medical background and like I said after looking at your profile on LinkedIn I noticed there is a bit of a gap with the experience between the 1999 and 2011 and I just wanted to know if you could elaborate more like what you were doing during that period? Was there projects you were working on? Research?

CR: Yeah, I did some research with hypertension medicine. I did some research with Glucomol, vaccines, pulmonary medicine, and wrote a couple of books. So I mean I just don’t fit everything on LinkedIn. But I haven’t really looked at LinkedIn much in the past 3 months or so.

EC: Okay.

CR: But if you go to my website, my personal website you’ll see a long list of the things that I’ve done.

EC: Okay, and I noticed on Amazon I found the two books that you had done so I already…

CR: Well, that’s only two of many. I actually have about 12 books that I’ve done and I have over 100 websites and but I have only a couple of I only have 3 of them on Amazon. I have like one website for men, I have a book about hormones and another one about sexual function. I have books on weightloss and exercise and recordings on all sorts of things that I don’t put on Amazon. They’re just listed on my various websites.

EC: Would you be able to list some of those titles for me? Then I can have a look up for those?

CR: Yeah, well some of them are sexual so it may be offensive to some of the cosmetic people. There’s one called For Any Time as Long as You Want [sic; Anytime…for as Long as You Want], that has to do with male sexual function.

EC: Okay.

CR: There’s one called the 3-Day Fat Burn, which many people find useful. Those are two pretty popular ones you can look up, the 3-Day Fat Burn.

EC: Okay, alright. Well, this other one here I don’t know if it’s a bit sensitive topic, but it was public information and I just wanted to seek some clarity on it. According to your experience on the Healthgrades website, a number of board actions were taken against you between 2010 and 2011. In 2009 you received a sanction restricting your license and your license was reinstated without restrictions in 2013 with certain conditions imposed by the medical licensure commission.

There seemed to be an FDA investigation into some of your work stemming back to 2004. Specifically a “Notice of Initiation of Disqualification Proceeding and Opportunity to Explain” dated August 27, 2008 where you enrolled “21 indigent persons from a multi-service centre for the homeless” within a list of alleged violations. Would you be able elaborate on all these actions for me? That were taken against you? So I can hear your side?

CR: I will, but I’m curious to why you’re asking me that question? Is this a friendly interview or are you trying to do something that will disallow and hurt my reputation?

EC: No, actually I was just looking it up and through my travels looking at different websites this is what I found. That’s why I was curious about it.

CR: Yeah, I’m happy to explain it. As far as the hormone thing goes I was just too far ahead of my time. Now, everybody in town is doing it. What happened was in 2000 I was doing a growth hormone world wide study with Pharmacia.

EC: Okay.

CR: Some protocols that were just ahead of their time and since some others hadn’t written their first book without an understanding of what I was doing. I never had one patient complain, not one.

EC: Okay.

CR: But it wasn’t in click with the American board of Endocrinology, which I still think is behind the rest of the world. So they asked me to stop doing it. I did, there was no patient complaints at all.

EC: Okay.

CR: I was doing hormone pellets in 2000 and nobody in my area was. I don’t think anyone in the state of Alabama was. In the state of Alabama it is still illegal to sell a vibrator for sex. Did you know that?

EC: No, I didn’t actually.

CR: They still send people to jail if you sell vibrators for sexual purposes.

EC: Interesting, okay.

CR: So that was, that was the deal with that. And then eventually they dropped that and released the license again and you won’t find any patient complaints.

EC: Yeah.

CR: Nobody was hurt, the patients loved me, the board didn’t like it and so yeah we stopped doing it. As far as the research goes, I had enrolled over 200 people.

EC: Okay.

CR: And in that study, it was a study of smallpox vaccine.

EC: Yeah.

CR: Most of the people I enrolled were policemen, and firemen. The reason for the vaccine study was they were afraid of the terrorists attacks in the face of 9/11.

EC: Uh, huh.

CR: Where fatally attacked by biological warfare and so I let it be known to the police department. The health department ran out of smallpox vaccines, they were vaccinating first responders.

EC: Okay.

CR: So I was involved with this research and I let the health department know that I had vaccines and was actually paying people $500 to be vaccinated for something they wanted anyway.

EC: Yeah.

CR: So the policemen came, and the firemen came and the paramedics came and the doctors came and college students came. And somehow the word got out at the shelter that they could vaccinated too. And these were not homeless or dying people. Actually the shelter was across the street from one of these work for hire places where people carry furniture and such.

EC: Oh, okay.

CR: And so what happened was some very hearty and healthy people lied and said they had an address and they didn’t. They weren’t hurt and they got the same vaccination as all the paramedics and what everyone else got. And they got paid for it, which probably helped them out and got the same vaccine that I got. So, but the FDA came in to see why we enrolled so many people. And I wasn’t going in and tricking a bunch of homeless people and coming to be experimented on. It was because I was smart enough to offer it to the civic people in my town who wanted it. And they found out, came and found out, people decided that they’d rather go get vaccinated cause they were probably worried cause this was 9/11 people were worried about this sort of attack. They would rather go get $500 for getting vaccinated instead of moving furniture that day.

EC: Yeah.

CR: So they just lied to me and the person that was supposed to be checking addresses who obviously worked for me didn’t check.

EC: Yeah.

CR: And he got fired, and since I was his supervisor I got blamed. The whole thing disgusted me so much, and again nobody was hurt and everybody got what they wanted, but I wound up taking the wrap for it. So I was so discouraged and I said the heck with it and I’m not even going to play this game no more. I just never even responded to their ideas.

EC: And so basically by the sounds of it, the whole thing that kind of started it stemmed from their lack of physical address? So they basically told you they did have an address and they didn’t.

CR: Yeah they lied, but what are you gonna blame them? They wanted to get vaccinated and it’s like the policemen again. Read that they had the idea that I just went and found a bunch of sick people that were desperate and got them in a back-room somewhere and experimented on them. The truth was these were very healthy people who lied and told us they had a physical address and they didn’t.

EC: Yeah.

CR: So they could get a vaccine that a lot of other people in town were getting and uh, but the FDA’s got their rules and you’re not supposed to offer people money that don’t have a lot of money. You could say it’s reverse discrimination. The way they look at it, if you offer someone money who doesn’t have a lot of money it’s like coercing to be experimented on.

EC: Okay.

CR: But that’s not what happened. What really happened was they found out what we were doing and tricked us into thinking they had an address and they didn’t and my employee didn’t catch it. So I got blamed.

EC: Okay, okay. Alright, during the course of my research I found a number of URLs hosting your templerepair.com site, including conradrunels.com, who you mentioned in an email was your son. In regards to that site why is it listed under your son’s name? Just out of curiosity.

CR: Like I said I have over 100 websites for real, so he built some of them. I’m not trying to hide anything it’s just sometimes he builds them, sometimes he signs up with his accounts.

EC: No, I was curious it was just a lot of them that I kept finding and now that you told me you have over a 100 of them that explains a lot of it. Okay, and just lastly I wanted to touch on your websites feature spiritual quotes on Templerepair.com and Blessedcream.com. Can you expand on the spiritual references on your medical sites, and what do they mean to you? And how do they coordinate with your profession as a doctor?

CR: Well, I think that most people realize what every idea of a spirit is. Her body is necessary at least on this plane, to be present on this planet and so in that sense it is a sacred house for your body. Call it temple, call it a body, call it whatever you want. But it’s the most viable thing you have to live in and I think it deserves to be thought about as a sacred thing. Obviously we all know that, for instance there are just certain things that you wouldn’t do with a person’s body. Because, I think for an example we are all appalled by the idea of canabalism, because when the person’s gone it’s appalling to us because we recognize both consciously and subconsciously the human body is a sacred thing. And it’s not a thing, it’s a temple, it’s a sacred place where our life-force, our spirit, our soul, whatever words you want to use. Hangs out for a period of time. So once you think of it in that term, it helps warrant the idea of taking good care of it and I think that it helps encourage and motivate people to do what they should be doing.

EC: Okay, and how would you say it coordinates with your profession then as a doctor?

CR: Well, that’s what you do as doctors. You’re not so much in charge of people’s souls, you’re in charge of that physical thing they walk around in. So that’s sacred, if you’re taking care of something sacred then that’s a very honourable and sacred thing to do. There was a time when being a physician was almost like being in the priesthood. You weren’t expected to have that much of a life, and you weren’t expected to make much money. They did it as a calling and I think that’s uh a good attitude to have.

EC: Okay, and I guess just one last one that I found, I was quite intrigued by was for your O-Shot that you had a voucher basically in the Oscar grab bags this year. I found that very interesting, how did that come about? If you don’t mind me asking?

CR: Well, when women are embarrassed to talk about sex research shows that only 14% of them in their entire lifetime have a conversation with their doctor about sex. Even though about half of them actually have problems. And you know, celebrities give and they start trends. They tell us what’s cool. They tell us what’s not cool. And there is over 20 drugs, FDA approved to help men with sex. There’s not one FDA approved to help women. Not even a form of testosterone. So I found it very frustrating, and as part of a way to help open up the conversation. Just putting it in somebody’s face, and having celebrities around the idea sexuality seems like at least making a decent attempt at making it open and okay to talk about sex. It’s interesting you can have, you can show and talk about murder, you can talk about horrific terrorist attacks and lots of people are killed, but news people and everyone including physicians seem to baulk in pubic about making love and having sexual relations. So it’s my attempt to open up the conversation so women will have more courage and ask for help when they need it.

EC: Okay and do you think um I guess based on the coverage and everything that was from Kim Kardashian from getting her procedure done, do you feel that doing this with the Oscars, have you had any feedback from this? Is it working? Did it work well?

CR: Yeah, all the features are growing, yeah the vampire was on ET [Entertainment Tonight] last week [August] and the O-Shot was on the cover of Cosmo in the UK [July 2014].

EC: Yeah I saw that one.

CR: You did? It’s going to be in Marie Claire in France in November. It’s going crazy, I will be speaking in Venice, Italy next month [September]. I’ll be speaking in Atlanta, Chicago the following month [October]. And our physicians are keeping busy, and our research is working. I think we’re getting better. It’s a grass roots sort of thing because its not like the vampire people like to talk about beauty. You have over 200 doctors doing this procedure and we’re probably approaching 20,000 procedures. It’s growing by word of mouth and because it works. It would be dying by word of mouth if it didn’t work.

EC: Yes, yes. So you’re finding word of mouth is probably one of the better ways that your product is getting out there.

CR: Yeah, well I think in the days of the internet if something doesn’t work it won’t survive and if it does work then it gets people talking across the world to each other. The best way to be known is to be good.

EC: Okay, well that’s pretty much all my questions I had.

CR: Well, thanks for taking the time to talk with me and shoot me an email when you have the article finished and if you have any other questions let me know.

EC: Yeah I will. Like I said in the email I am heading off tomorrow, but uh that’s the only thing it will probably, I’m not sure with my time frame when I’ll get it up there. When I do, yeah I will definitely send you an email and we can go from there.

CR: Cool, well, here’s to vampires. It was fun, I’m glad you talked to me.

EC: Alright thank you very much for your time.

CR: Okay bye bye.

EC: Bye.

If you would like to find out more information about Dr. Charles Runels check out his personal website.

You can order Anytime…for as Long as You Want: Strength, Genius, Libido & Erection by Integrative Sex Transmutation (2004) through Amazon, along with his latest books, Vampire Facelift: The Secret Blood Method to Revive Youth & Restore Beauty (2013), Activate the Female Orgasm System: The Story of O-Shot® (2013) and Defeat Fatigue & Fear: 12 Daily Practices (2014).

His other book, 3-Day Fat Burn, can be ordered through his website. To read the Cosmopolitan (UK) July 2014 cover story mentioned in the interview, click here (opens a pdf document).

3 comments

Comments are closed.