Cupping and Gua Sha

Cupping is an adjunct of traditional acupuncture where sterilised cups are applied to the skin and light suction pressure is applied using a vacuum device. This raises the top levels of the skin and soft tissues, which increases blood flow and causes relaxation of the muscles.

Cupping is widely used in traditional the medicine of China, Korea, Japan and Saudi Arabia for millennia. In traditional acupuncture, cupping is used alongside the stimulation of acupuncture points with needles.

Gua Sha is the scraping of the surface tissues of the skin with a sterile shaped instrument in order to move the blood through the surrounding tissues. Like cupping, it has a long history of use in traditional acupuncture, along the established meridian systems.

Cupping and gua sha are practised by fully trained acupuncturists.