 You might have seen this trend going on especially starting with a picture of Michael Phelps during the Olympics where you could see him bending over to jump in for a dive to start a race and you could see those red bruised looking marks on his body. Now cupping has just grown in popularity since then but I thought in this video I talked a little bit about what it actually is and what it actually does from a Chinese medicine point of view. Hey guys I'm Dr. Alex Hine doctor of acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine author of the health book master the day. So before we jump in there's two very important links right below this video. The first is for a free guide which is four daily rituals that can potentially help you add years to your life with traditional Chinese medicine and the second is if you'd like to learn more about becoming a patient of mine locally in Los Angeles or virtually via telemedicine you can just check the link below the video to reach out to my private practice. So many people don't know that the history of cupping goes far back to the BC era including even the Egyptians so there's a picture of an inscription and a carving on one of the tombs and I believe there's a writing in one of the papyri about utilizing cupping for medical purposes. So that goes back to the BC era of course it goes back to the BC era in terms of Chinese medicine so traditional or classical ancient Chinese medical texts also describe cupping. Even Hippocrates used cupping in ancient Greece and on top of that it's still widely used as a folk practice throughout Southeast Asia parts of Africa even and parts of the Middle East. So cupping goes back literally thousands of years and is really present in many different cultures but probably it is most famous in modern times for being a part of the therapies associated with Chinese medicine. So acupuncturists doing cupping. Now one of the main functions that cupping has in Chinese medicine is that we say it regulates the Qi and the blood. So it not only moves the blood and it helps with circulatory disorders but it also moves the lymph. So a clogged lymphatic system is often a big issue for people especially with chronic disease not just acutely getting your lymph you know your lymph nodes swollen right but in general we tend to use it for a few main conditions. We tend to use it for musculoskeletal pain. We tend to use it for circulatory issues and GI issues and interestingly we also use it for the common cold. So sometimes when people are getting acutely ill when we say they have wind then what we do is not only Gua Sha which is like a scraping type therapy we also use cupping for that as well. Now on top of that cupping has many different types of methods. So for example the traditional method is typically fire cupping. So use a glass jar the glass cup you light some forceps with a cotton ball and alcohol light on a fire so you can generate a strong vacuum and then you put it under the patient's body to generate some suction. Typically you leave the cups there for only 10 to 15 minutes or 20 minutes. Typically what happens is you can either utilize this kind of fire cupping that way. Sometimes we will also do sliding cupping where you'll actually apply the cups via fire cupping and then slide them up the paraspinal muscles or even along the trapezius for people who have chronic back pain or chronic neck pain. That's one of the primary ways we use cupping but on top of that there are other ways you might not know. There is just using silicone cups so you can buy them on Amazon and you can just squeeze them and apply some suction to create a little bit of suction. It's not going to be as strong as fire cupping at all and the third one that's less common known is wet cupping. So wet cupping is a combination of using a bleeding therapy with a cup. So I think in the Middle East it's called Hijama something like that where you will actually bleed the person. You just take a gentle lancet and quickly prick them like a finger prick as a child in an area where there's local issues in terms of blood flow like for example with varicose veins and what will happen is we'll actually bleed the area, use fire cupping over the area and it will actually suck blood out of the local area. It's pretty I would say it's pretty barbaric looking and if you want to scar yourself go Google image wet cupping if you want to see these little cups filled with blood basically but it can help for areas of local what we call blood stasis or blood stagnation where chronically impaired circulation is causing pain or is causing issues. So of course you can do that with acupuncture as well. You can also increase the circulation and decrease inflammation by using Chinese herbal formulas to do the same thing but sometimes there's nothing more effective than just getting locally into an area of pain and either doing acupuncture cupping or wet cupping or all the above. Now of course is a final question which is what are the red marks? Well when you do like for example the scraping therapy that's a little bit similar to cupping what the red raised marks are called Sha in Chinese medicine so in Chinese and in general the general consensus is that the darker the color the more there's impaired circulation or blood stasis as we call it. So most often the coloration will be somewhere between light and moderately dark and if it's quite severe then that's a darker dark red or dark black kind of color. So those are indicating areas where there's been lack of circulation for a long time in general. That in general is what cupping is a very brief look at the history what we use it for in Chinese medicine which I think is probably the profession most likely to utilize cupping and what that Sha that red discoloration actually is. Sometimes you also get foam or moisture coming up. Obviously if you're doing wet cupping they'll actually be blood that comes out and there are many different ways to do cupping and ways to use it but those are really the two main therapeutic purposes that we use cupping for. Alright guys so that is a very quick rundown on the history of cupping what it is what it's used for in Chinese medicine so before you guys go check out those two very important links right below the video and I will see you soon.