Southampton Acupuncture & Integrated Oriental Medicine

When combined with massage, herbal therapy, acupuncture, tuina, medicated plasters, liniments and poultices, cupping can greatly reduce healing time of musculo-tendinous injuries.

What is Cupping

Cupping refers to an ancient Chinese practice in which a cup is applied to the skin and the pressure in the cup is reduced so that the skin and superficial muscle layers are drawn into and held in the cup.  In some cases, the cup may be moved while the suction of the skin is active, causing a local pulling of the skin and muscles (the technique is called sliding cups). This treatment has some relation to certain massage techniques, such as the rapid skin pinching along the back that is an important aspect of tuina.  In that practice, the skin is pinched, sometimes at specific points (e.g., bladder meridian points), until a redness is generated.  Cupping is applied to certain acupuncture points, as well as to areas of the body that are affected by pain (where the pain is deeper than the tissues to be pulled).  When the cups are moved along the surface of the skin, the treatment is somewhat like guasha (literally, sand scraping), a folk remedy of southeast Asia which is often carried out by scraping the skin with a coin or other object with the intention of breaking up stagnation.  Movement of the cups is a gentler technique than guasha, as a lubricant allows the cup to slide without causing as much of the subcutaneous bruising that is an objective of guasha.  Still, a certain amount of discoloration is expected both from "static" cupping and sliding cups.

To schedule a session, call, text or email us at:

917-364-1414 or  office@shaiom.com