What is 'cupping' in an acupuncture treatment?
Cupping is an unusual therapy as seen from the Western perspective but interestingly enough, cupping is a therapy that is used throughout the world in many ethnic medicines, not just in traditional Chinese medicine. It is also used a lot in Russia. It is used in Latin American cultures, as well. It is used throughout the Mediterranean, as well. The idea behind cupping is using vacuum stimulation. What we do is we evacuate the air from a cup and we place that cup on the body surface so that a suction immediately forms. And the idea behind that is to promote circulation and healing in that local area. Cupping is predominately used for managing pain. It can help for a lot of muscular pain or local pain for whatever reason. It can also help to stimulate the immune system and it is used a lot for a lot of acute infections particularly respiratory infections and colds. Cupping can also be used from the Eastern perspective as a form of detox. In the Eastern theory of it, the cup, the vacuum suction force, the cup sucks out a lot of internal toxins and can stimulate healing that way.
