This article was originally posted on LinkedIn by Luis Campos, ExpatGuides is a co-publisher.
The first time I ever saw the act of cupping was in the 2010 remake of the Karate Kid. In the film, Jackie Chan uses cupping therapy to heal Jayden Smith (who wrongly identifies the objects placed on him as “lightbulbs”). The scene has always stuck with me, because, for a movie that is (mostly) grounded in reality, it is strange that Chan’s character would use seemingly mystical elements to heal someone. The original 1980's Karate Kid also featured Mr. Myagi's magic hands, but at no point was fire involved — and fire always makes everything better!
Eventually, I forgot about the movie and would not think about cupping again until 2016. At the time Michael Phelps was competing in his fourth Olympics and was once again dominating the swimming events. Many sports analysts started pointing out the purple dots all over his body — as it turned out, the dots were the result of cupping therapy.
Of course, when the most successful gold medalist of all time does something, other people start paying attention. Soon athletes competing in different Olympic events were also seen sporting the fashionable octopus-suction-looking dots, but since I had neither a cephalopod friend nor wise martial arts master around me, the athletic fad simply passed me.
As someone who has suffered from back pain since I was 13-years old, I have done many things (from acupuncture to yoga to electrotherapy) to solve my problem. Unfortunately, I have never found a permanent solution. That is why when the opportunity to try cupping therapy arose, I figured I did not have much to lose by trying it.
I do not exactly recall how I came upon the contact of Bobo Ji, an acupuncturist in Shanghai (the city in which I am based), but when I saw that she was offering a special on cupping therapy it seemed serendipitous that I finally try out the experience myself. At this point, I still did not fully know what cupping therapy was. I knew it involved glass cups and fire and that the result was a body covered in dots — picture a really bad color-blind test or a terrible imitation of a Seurat or Signac painting.
Like a Spring Break party, the cupping experience begins with alcohol and undressing — though not necessarily in that order. The alcohol is lit on fire to create a vacuum inside the glass cups, this then creates negative pressure so that when the cups are placed on the surface of the skin suction will lift the skin up. In theory, this acts both as a form of deep-tissue massage and as a way to increase blood flow to areas that are in pain.
Even after experiencing cupping therapy first-hand and I am still not sure of how it works, but according to my research, it has been practiced since around 1,550 B.C. so surely it must work? Like any form of treatment, including modern medicine, there is an element of faith involved. Cupping itself can be a very painful experience, so I would not recommend it to anyone who has a hard time dealing with pain or is in severe pain already. The first few days after cupping I felt more pain than before, but as the pain slowly went away I started to feel better. If you have tried many different alternatives and are looking for something new to alleviate pain, cupping might be a possible solution for you — make sure you ask your regular doctor first!
