Cupping Therapy Safe or Not？ 拔罐小知识
- 马来西亚中医学术会
- Jun 23, 2016
- 3 min read
So, with the recent news on the mistreatment with cupping from Chengdu. It seems that the public somehow needs to be educated of the rightful ways instead of being put into a fear mood on these traditional beneficial therapies.
Is It safe?
While cupping is considered relatively safe (especially air cupping, which does not include the risk of fire and heat), it can cause some swelling and bruising on the skin. As the skin under a cup is drawn up, the blood vessels at the surface of the skin expand. This may result in small, circular bruises on the areas where the cups were applied. These bruises are usually painless, however, and disappear within a few days of treatment. Sometimes, there will be slight pain over the skin a day or so, often is bearable. The color can indicates your health conditions and definitely you are not encouraged to do it daily (your body needs some rest!).
When there is blisters, it should be handle with care to avoid further infection(the skilled practitioner knows it) . Blister may happened when it is placed too long over the skin, or in certain cases even within 10 minutes blisters appeared, whereby the person might have a rather sensitive skin(often happened in fairer less elasticity skin).
Who should not CUP!
Patients with inflamed skin; cases of high fever or convulsions
patients who bleed easily, are not suitable candidates for cupping.
Pregnant women should not have cupping on their stomach or lower back.
Movement of the cups is limited to fleshy areas: the movement should not cross bony ridges, such as the spine.
That's how you are being cupped ...
Generally, the cup is left in place for about 10 minutes (typical range is 5–10 minutes). The skin becomes reddened due to the congestion of blood flow.
Benefits
Today, cupping is mainly recommended for the treatment of pain, common cold, gastro-intestinal disorders (for example: dysentery, early morning diarrhea, and acute and chronic gastritis), women health( Infertility and irregular menstruation, uterine cramps), lung diseases (especially chronic cough and asthma) including pediatric bronchititis, though it can be used for other disorders as well. Many has been using cupping to relieve their back pain after long hours of sitting in offices, even athletes uses them for muscles aches and improving their strength performances. To handful of people, you could want it for a stress relieve for a good sleep too!
IN SHORT...
Cupping therapies often follow the point selection pattern that is used for standard acupuncture therapy, practitioners will diagnose your suitability for the therapy before performing it on you. Sadly in many countries including my country Malaysia, the therapy is not being regulated, so anyone can just perform it anywhere, you could also find cupping being done at night markets which had neglect the hygiene and infection risk. Eventually leads to the poor efficacy of the well-known therapy from ages ago and bringing harm to many. So REMEMBER! get a professional skilled practitioner instead any ordinary parlor or even worst by the streets. It may seems easy but there is still precautions to be taken!
When Jennifer Aniston recently arrived on the red carpet of a film premiere, she set tongues wagging, and not just because she looked gorgeous.No, what people were talking about were the circular welts on her back. What happened to her? Did she get attacked by a squid or something?
The welts were actually due to an ancient Chinese medicinal practice called “cupping,” in which heated cups are applied to the body in order to increase blood flow and promote healing. It’s similar to acupuncture, and is currently all the rage among stars like Aniston, Gwyneth Paltrow and AnnaLynne McCord.
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