Pain Relief Partnered: Silver Bullet Wellness, LLC Opens Second Location in Mill Hall at Advanced Family Chiropractic
By Emily Wright
MILL HALL— In late January, Lock Haven welcomed a new addition to its vibrant downtown—a massage therapy studio founded by Aidan and Sophia Gscheidle. Their venture, Silver Bullet Wellness LLC, situated above Penny Lane at 132 E. Main Street, Suite 7, has been dedicated to offering clients a relaxing, comfortable, and therapeutic experience. Within months of their grand opening, the demand for their high-quality massage services prompted an expansion, and the dynamic duo is excited to announce that they are now operating at a second location inside Advanced Family Chiropractic in Mill Hall at 3076 Eagle Valley Road.
Since the official grand opening of its first studio location on January 27, Silver Bullet Wellness (SBW) has become a sanctuary for individuals seeking long-lasting pain relief without the use of medication.
In an exclusive January interview with The Record, Aidan and Sophia shared their backgrounds and education in massage therapy, along with their approach to helping clients find relief from pain, stress, and even anxiety.
Aidan is a Licensed Massage Therapist (LMT) and Certified Breath Coach who focuses on fascial release, breathing problems and anxiety, hip pain and lower back pain, neck pain, scraping therapy, and functional fascial taping (FFT). Sophia is also an LMT and licensed esthetician with a passion for skincare. She focuses on neck and shoulder pain, deep relaxation, maternity massage, face massage, and facial cupping.
With the expansion to Mill Hall, the Gscheidles are now able to cater to more clients each week thanks to the additional space. Due to a demand for their services and spatial constraints at the Lock Haven studio, scheduling clients had become increasingly challenging for the couple when they started running into situations where they needed to book appointments around each other in order to provide the top-notch level of privacy and comfort they strive for. “Unless we were working on couples, we’ve had to book around each other,” Aidan explained.
In addition to the benefits of operating in a larger secondary space, the Gscheidles can now accommodate clients with limited mobility or who require handicap accessibility. Free parking just outside the Advanced Family Chiropractic office is also a welcome convenience.
With the addition of a second location inside Advanced Family Chiropractic, the Gscheidles are not only expanding their physical footprint but are also elevating the quality and range of services they can offer. “Now we can offer massage services before or after a chiropractic adjustment depending on a client’s specific needs,” Aidan said, emphasizing the more well-rounded approach to pain relief that the new collaboration enables.
Collaborating with Dr. Leah and Dr. David Charney of Advanced Family Chiropractic, the Gscheidles find themselves in a mutually beneficial partnership. “They’re a match made in heaven—chiropractic and massage,” Aidan shared enthusiastically. The couple shared that throughout their careers in massage therapy, they’ve referred many clients to a chiropractor when they came across an issue that falls outside the scope of their practice. This in-house collaboration ensures a seamless and integrated approach to health and overall wellness. “One of our main missions is lasting results, so working with experts in chiropractic will really add to our ability to help clients achieve new levels of mobility and lasting levels of therapeutic relief,” Aidan explained.
The Record spoke with Dr. Leah Charney about the recent addition to their practice. “We’re really excited to have Aidan and Sophia join our team,” she said. “Chiropractic and massage work so well together, and we’re excited to be able to make our patients feel better even faster by offering both in the same place.” With the Charneys already operating as a husband and wife team who both work in the chiropractic industry, Dr. Leah expressed that she and her husband, David, are also excited to add another husband-wife duo to their practice. “We love their energy, and you can tell they’ve got a lot of passion for what they do,” she said.
Sophia emphasized that the Charneys provide an exceptionally high level of care in their practice, which aligns perfectly with the standards she and Aidan have set for their massage therapy business. “Dr. Leah and Dr. David Charney are very thorough,” she said. “They take their time when working with clients, and their chiropractic adjustments are truly tailored to each one of them,” Sophia said, adding that this thoroughness echoes the personalized care she and Aidan strive to deliver. “When I met the Charneys, I knew they would be a perfect fit for us and what we stand for.”
With an uptick in demand since January, the Gscheidles are committed to making their services accessible, flexible, and customized to client needs. Despite expanding to a second physical location, Aidan and Sophia continue to offer mobile massage services, which clients can book over the phone.
In addition to announcing a second SBW location, Aidan and Sophia are excited to share that they’ve expanded their service menu.
Since opening their Lock Haven studio, the couple found that some clients prefer a massage shorter than the 60- and 90-minute sessions they offer. “We realize that some people want to get a ‘taster,’ and some people just want a specific area to be worked on, such as their neck, for example,” Aidan explained. To meet new and existing client’s requests, Aidan and Sophia have added a 30-minute massage session for $65.00 and a 45-minute session for $80.00 to their menu. The 30- and 45-minute options are not available for mobile services; however, the 60- and 90-minute massage sessions remain on the service menu and can be booked as a mobile service in addition to in-house at either location.
Cupping therapy is an exciting new service available for current and prospective clients, which the Gscheidles are offering as a complimentary add-on to any massage. Rooted in ancient medicine, this deep tissue massage technique incorporates special cups that are placed on the skin for a few minutes to create gentle suction that enhances blood flow to the muscles, providing pain relief to specific areas and therapeutic benefits for a wide variety of issues such as inflammation, muscle tension, headaches/migraines, pinched nerve pain, and lumbar disc herniation, to name just a few. “Cupping enables us to reach those deep tissue areas so that we can help our
clients achieve lasting pain relief,” Sophia explained.
In addition to the vast number of conditions cupping can alleviate, it has also made a name for itself because of its ability to help alleviate stress, increase relaxation, provide a sense of calm, and even improve sleep quality.
Other complementary add-on services that the SBW menu now offers include Functional Fascial Taping (FFT) and Scraping Therapy. FFT is a non-invasive and immediate way to facilitate pain relief. By using specialized techniques to apply kinesiology tape to the skin, the body can move more comfortably and with less strain on sore muscles and joints. The tape lifts the skin slightly, reducing pressure in painful areas and improving blood flow, which reduces pain and heals the body faster.
Scraping Therapy is a massage technique that uses a smooth-edged tool to gently scrape the surface of the skin, helping to release tight or knotted muscles and improve blood flow to the area. The benefits of Scraping Therapy include pain reduction, muscle tension relief, reduced inflammation, and faster healing for injuries. In essence, the technique gives muscles a good stretch and massage at the same time, which not only reduces soreness but also promotes relaxation. Aidan says that scraping is “like ironing out the tissue” in the body when describing the technique, and Sophia shared that one example of a condition it is particularly useful for is plantar fasciitis, among many others.
These add-on services can be further enhanced by including hot towels for an additional $6.00 or hot stones for $15.00. The new service offerings underscore Silver Bullet Wellness’s commitment to providing clients with comprehensive care.
Since the grand opening of SBW, the business has earned a stellar reputation. The Record asked the couple what they attribute their success to, given that they’ve maintained a 5-star rating on both Facebook and Google, in addition to accruing a number of positive reviews that clients have posted online after their visit. The Gscheidles reflected on this briefly before sharing that they believe their personalized approach has played a key role in the client testimonials that are posted online. “We really take our time and treat each person like a human being,” Aidan emphasized. “We don’t rush through our services. It’s about quality over quantity,” Sophia added, stressing their commitment to in-depth consultations and tailoring their services to each client’s needs.
To celebrate the expansion of SBW, new clients can enjoy $20 off any service. The Gscheidles mentioned that they will honor this promotion for existing clients who have not yet used their new-client discount at the Lock Haven studio. Additionally, clients who book at either location or who book a mobile service can now take advantage of the “VIP Massage Package” promotion, where the purchase of three massage sessions upfront entitles them to a fourth session for free. The four sessions are redeemable within two years of purchase.
Breaking away from industry norms, the Gscheidles have chosen to eliminate the expectation of tips, advocating instead for a seamless, stress-free client experience. Instead of gratuities, they’ve begun to encourage clients to place deposits for future appointments. The couple maintains that great service should not hinge on extra fees.
“Now, when you get a massage at our studio, and you get dressed and go pay with your credit card, you’ll only be asked one question: ‘Do you need a receipt?’” Aidan said in a recent post on his blog, “The Rub”.
Aidan dug deep into the history of tipping to learn about how the custom came to be in the first place after feeling pulled to remove the tip option from the SBW Square reader payment system. He found through his research that the history behind tipping is rather grim, and the custom was even rejected by Americans at one point in time, as some people felt that tipping was “un-American.”
Aidan analyzed the definition of the word “gratuity” in search of a deeper meaning that might help with the decision to stop accepting tips from clients. He says in his blog post that the word “gratuity” comes from the Latin word “gratus,” which means “pleasing” or “gift,” and gratus is the same root word from which we get other similar words such as “grateful,” “gratitude,” “congratulate,” “gratuitous,” and “grace.” The word “grace” resonated with the couple and compelled Aidan to state in his post, “Grace is generally meant to mean something that is unearned, undeserved—something given simply because the giver wants to,” he said. “Grace is gratuitous. Grace is a gratuity. The technical definition of gratuity, therefore, is ‘a gift that is happily or freely given’”. This raised questions for the couple: Can something that’s expected according to societal norms be freely given? Is it truly a gratuity if a person feels obligated to give it?
Sophia also spent some time reflecting on the custom of leaving a tip and recounted instances that stemmed from her experiences while working in several different spas where certain clients received preferential treatment because they’d become known to leave generous tips, which she believes is the wrong approach altogether.
In his blog post, Aidan quotes Sophia’s thoughts: “I think it’s more cool to tell people: I’m going to give you great service because you’re paying for my service at this price, period. It’s not gonna be any better or any worse depending on if you tip or do not tip.” She further stated that in her own business practice, she never wants there to be a bias– conscious or subconscious– that influences the level of service a person receives from her because of the amount of money they might leave as a tip. “I’m just going to give all my clients the same level of service because all my clients should be treated equally,” she emphasized.
The couple underscored that they got into business to offer premium services to their clients regardless of the gift offered afterward, so the Gscheidles resolved to encourage their clients to place a deposit on their next appointment rather than leave a tip. They believe their prices reflect their high-quality services, and they don’t want their clients to feel pressured into paying them more by leaving a tip. To them, providing relief from pain and stress is a top priority, and they feel that the best tip they could receive is a positive review of their services.
With a firm commitment to individualized client care and a passion for their craft, Aidan and Sophia Gscheidle continue to enhance the well-being of their clients through Silver Bullet Wellness, LLC. Their expansion into Advanced Family Chiropractic in Mill Hall is just the latest step in their journey towards helping people feel better and experience a better quality of life by offering personalized, high-quality, and comprehensive wellness services.
Aidan and Sophia are excited to continue their journey of providing exceptional, client-centered experiences for anyone interested in exploring holistic wellness through massage therapy, and they invite new and existing clients to schedule an appointment with them at Advanced Family Chiropractic, where they can also benefit from receiving chiropractic care all in the same facility.
To book appointments or learn more about their services, visit the Silver Bullet Wellness website at www.silverbulletwellness.com or call (570) 209-8655. For additional information and service options available at Advanced Family Chiropractic, visit www.advancedfamilychiropractic.net or call the office at (570) 726-2000.
