Cupping Therapy
Cupping became part of the mainstream conversation during the 2016 Summer Olympics, when swimmer Michael Phelps showed up to compete with round bruises covering his back. Cupping is the procedure of stimulating acupuncture points by suction.
Suction is created by placing round cups directly on your skin. The cup is either first heated with fire or manually pumped to create a suction. The cups are then left on your skin for several minutes. Because of the pull there will be a red to purple mark signifying various disturbances in the energies. this marks will gradually fade away in 8-10 days.
Cupping is used to dispel Qi stagnation, stagnant blood and lymph, thereby improving qi flow. Cupping therapy offers several advantages including aiding in promoting blood flow and increase blood circulation to muscles and tissue, supplies oxygen to cells, loosens knots, and can release and drain excess fluids and toxins.to achieve this different cupping techniques can be employed such as:
Wet cupping: it helps to reduce inflammation. Helps to remove stagnation in flow of energy. Severe pain not responding to medication.
Cosmetic cupping: Anti-aging, helps to tone facial muscles, removes wrinkles, fine lines, jowls, crow’s feet. Helps to improve skin tone, increase oxygen-rich blood circulation, strengthen skin and connective tissues, stimulate cells responsible for collagen production.
- Fire Cupping: helps to improve digestion, metabolism and detox.
- Dry Cupping: Used for aches and pains, digestive disturbances.
- Eye Cupping: Helps to drain sinus, Lifts eyebrows, improves fine lines and crow feet’s, Reduces puffiness and dark circles.
- Ozone cupping: increase oxygen-rich blood circulation, strengthen skin and connective tissues, stimulate cells responsible for collagen production.
In today’s times, there is a range of materials that can be used to craft the cups to create suction like, hollowed out animal horns, bamboo, silicone cups, rubber cups, and glass cups
Cupping therapy is safe on a weekly basis but as the treatments continue, the frequency of the visits can be reduced since the toxin levels in the patient’s body should be relatively low. Cupping therapy sessions can usually be scheduled weekly or monthly depending on the individual situation and concerns of the patient.
By way of added precautions, we choose not to do cupping on certain patients such as pregnant or menstruating women, patients that tend to experience high bleeding.