I love turning nouns into verbs! So ya, in my world, I cup people. It’s fun for me and my patients love it too!!
What is cupping?
Cupping is the application of suction cups to any area of the body on the skin. Either glass, plastic, or silicone cups are applied and the air removed from inside them to create suction. This creates a negative pressure, meaning a pulling away from the center of the body, and there are many benefits to this type of bodywork.
Cupping Methods
There’s two ways to cup – leave them in one place or slide them around, pulling up the tissue with the suction like an inverse massage. Instead of pressing into muscles, the muscles are gently pulled up, and the amount of suction can be adjusted to comfort.
What does Cupping Do?
Cupping is a deep tissue therapy that breaks up adhesions, promotes blood and lymph circulation, and releases tension in the local tissues. Often joints, muscles, and various connective tissues can accumulate toxins due to tension and lack of circulation. These toxins contribute to pain and discomfort. Because cupping releases blockages, this in turn means it promotes qi circulation. The result is looser tissues allowing waste products to be flushed out and blood and lymph and qi to circulate more freely.
Common Benefits
- relieving pain or tension in the muscles
- relieving pain or tension in joints
- relieving symptoms of colds and coughs
- relaxation and stress reduction
- digestive support
- general detoxification and metabolic support
Why Get Cupped?
Cupping can help treat the following problems:
- Respiratory disorders: asthma, bronchitis, colds, coughs
- Digestive disorders: IBS, Constipation, Crohn’s, etc
- Post-surgery
- Post Cancer Treatment
- Scar Healing
- Anxiety
- Fatigue
- Menstrual cramps, menstrual pain
- Tennis elbow
- Plantar fasciitis
- Headaches
What Are Side Effects and Contraindications?
Most patients will have marks in the shapes of the circular cups for a few days after the cupping session. This is normal and discoloration varies from hardly anything to very dark purplish or red marks. These are not bruises, but instead reveal toxins and old dead blood and waste products that had been trapped in areas of poor circulation. The discoloration shows that these waste products are pulled closer to the surface, where the blood and lymph can flush them out through our natural detoxification pathways such as sweat and urine. Most importantly they don’t hurt!
To determine if or when cupping is right for each patient, I create individualized treatment plans. I can do a quick short amount of cupping with acupuncture after, or we can do a whole cupping session to cover more areas and spend more time with it.
Cupping is not done on open sores, broken skin, active cancer patients, or over a pregnant belly. They are overall extremely safe. Amy Rieselman is a Certified Cupping Therapist who’s received training from the International Cupping Therapy Association.
Questions? We’d love to hear from you. Drop us a line.
