CUpping | Electro-cupping
What is Cupping?
Cupping is an ancient form of alternative medicine in which a therapist puts special cups on your skin for a few minutes to create suction. There are a few variations of cupping therapy, and the purpose to them. In general, cupping therapy is used to pull, or suction, the fascia and soft tissue away from the muscles, helping to create separation between the tissues which as many purposes, including to help with pain, reduce inflammation, improve blood flow, increase relaxation and down-regulation of the nervous system, break up fascial adhesions, promote lymphatic flow and well-being.
Traditional Cupping and Electro-Cupping
Traditional cupping is used with a handheld pump that sucks the air out of the cup and pulls the skin and fascia away from the muscle. This style of cupping can be static (leaving the cups in a positions for a certain period of time) or dynamic, in which we will glide the cups across the body and allow the suctioning of skin and tissue to peel more surface area, and to promote blood and lymphatic flow.
Electro-Cupping combines traditional cupping with electrical STIM (also known as Electrical Stimulation Intra-Muscular Therapy). The primary purpose of e-stim therapy is to simulate what happens in the body when you voluntarily contract and release a muscle many times in a row. This process strengthens and repairs tissue, particularly muscles which have become shortened, weakened, or atrophied due to injury or disease.
Contraindications for use of Estim or cupping.
If there is an area known peripheral vascular disease, thrombophlebitis, a known DVT or suspected DVT, you want to avoid Estim in that area. You will also want to avoid the obvious places like over the phrenic nerve, the gonads, the eyes, over areas of active osteomyelitis, and areas of hemorrhage. Also, if you have any pacemakers, or metal installed within, or have known bloots clots or may be on blood thinners.