Gua Sha is an Oriental and Chinese Medicine healing modality used both in clinical settings and in homes, but it is little known in the West. It involves palpation and cutaneous stimulation where the skin is pressured, in strokes, by a round-edged instrument (a spoon, a coin, a jade stone); the result is the appearance of small red petechiae called 'Sha', that will fade in 2 to 3 days; the more stagnation the patient has the darker the color of the Sha. This modality, like most oriental traditional medicine modalities, is a diagnonsis tool and a treatment at the same time.
Raising Sha removes blood stagnation considered pathogenic, promoting normal circulation and metabolic processes. The patient experiences immediate relief from pain, stiffness, fever, chill, cough, nausea, etc.... Gua Sha is valuable in the prevention and treatment of acute infectious illness, upper respiratory and digestive problems, and many other acute or chronic disorders.
