Cupping
06-04-2009
Cupping is an ancient treatment used to manage flare-ups of some inflammatory conditions.
Cupping is a treatment, like moxabustion, that has existed all over the world for a long time. In essence, it consists of applying suction to the surface of the body, using a cup. The Original type of cupping involves heating up the air inside a cup made of some rigid material (mine are glass, but I've also seen them made of pottery or horn) and applying this to the skin. As the air inside cools down, it draws up the skin into the cup. If enough suction is generated, this will draw blood out of the circulatory system and into the skin, leaving a scarlet suction mark (sometimes called a "hickey" from the Irish gaelic phrase "Marc na hIocai" or mark of the physician). Hippocrates was familiar with cupping, as was the Persian writer Avicenna. Traditional Chinese Medicine makes extensive use of cupping, and in western europe it has been used at least since the times of the ancient druids. So it's fairly well tested at this point.
The uses of cupping are numerous. Many of them are for acute conditions-- fevers, poisoning, difficulty breathing, and so forth. Cupping can also be used to produce differences in someone's constitution, and has been traditionally used for a number of what we would now call psychiatric complaints.
The most dramatic use to which I have personally seen cupping put, was in resuscitating someone who had collapsed and apparently expired from alcohol poisoning. He was a construction worker in Alma Ata, Kazakhstan, and had been on a drinking binge for a couple weeks. He collapsed, and a bystander (after taking his pulse and not finding it) attempted to perform soviet-style CPR on him, which did not work. His girlfriend, a member of the domestic staff of the building, applied cups to his back, and said some prayers in kazakh. He started breathing again, and opened his eyes about half an hour later.
I've never had the opportunity to use cups in this type of scenario myself (and it's probably not what I would try), but I do have a lot of respect for it as a form of treatment, when properly applied. Mostly, I use it to help people manage severe flare-ups in certain types of inflammatory conditions like crohn's disease or rheumatoid arthritis (its effects often being more long lasting and complete than just taking antiinflamatory substances). I've also used it to break fevers and clear the airways, mostly after other treatments (that don't leave a mark) have been tried and found wanting.
Authors differ on exactly why cupping works the way it does. Some have said that it reduces excess blood, energy, or heat from the body. Others have said that it draws out evil spirits (djinn) or poisons from the body (and special cupping kits for snake bite are still popularly sold). For all I know it may do any or all of those things, but I believe that it also causes some change in the chemistry of the body, resulting in an increased production of adrenaline, cortisones (which are natural antiinflammatories) and strengthening of the factors in the blood which prevent bleeding. Those three things will have some impact on almost any condition short of (and apparently sometimes including) death. Cupping on specific parts of the body can also have an effect on specific organs, which gives it many more uses.
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