A Guide to Cupping Therapy: History and Practice of Cupping

Cupping therapy is the practice of drawing the skin into sphere-like bamboo, silicone, or glass cups placed on the skin and creating a partial vacuum. A cupping practitioner may light different materials inside the cup on fire or use a device to create heat, before placing them on the skin to create the vacuum as the cups cool.

It is often performed in conjunction with acupuncture for local pain relief, such as headaches, neck pain, and anxiety, and is believed to improve blood circulation. Cupping may be performed by acupuncturists, chiropractors, herbalists, or alternative medicine practitioners. In a cupping session, cups rest on the skin for 3–15 minutes and often leave darkened circles on their skin.

The use of cupping in the US has grown in recent years as celebrities like Gwenyth Paltrow and Olympic athletes Michael Phelps and Natalie Coughlin have promoted cupping.

An alternative medicine practice, cupping has long been documented in early Chinese and Egyptian practices. It is regularly performed in Asia, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Latin America.

In traditional Chinese medicine, cupping is referred to as “pulling up jars” to clear stagnant blood and improve the flow of qi, energy that circulates through the body. Cupping is sometimes used as a treatment for the common cold, pneumonia, and bronchitis, but is not advised to be used on the abdomen or sacral regions (fifth segment of the lumbar spine) of pregnant women.

There are multiple types of cupping, as well as a varied power of suction, the method of suction, and the materials inside the cups.

• Types of Cupping: Dry cupping involves heating cups and placing them on the back, chest, abdomen, or buttocks. Suction occurs as the cups cool. Wet cupping—called hijama in Arabic, or “medicinal bleeding”—involves making small incisions on the skin before placing the cups on the skin to draw out blood through the suction. Flash cupping is used to improve respiratory wellness and involves quickly repeated applications of cups for shorter spurts. Most cupping falls into dry and wet cupping types.
• Power of suction: Suction can be light, medium, strong, or pulsatile. Pulsatile uses a mechanical device as a pulsing pump.
• Method of suction: There are three ways to create suction in cupping. Fire cupping involves lighting then removing an alcohol-soaked cotton ball inside the cup. The heat sucks the oxygen out of the cup, creating suction that lifts the skin. Manual cupping uses cups with a small device to create suction by hand. Automatic suction cupping utilizes a machine on the cups.

Elements added to cupping therapy include massage oil, moxa, herbs, magnets, lasers, electronic stimulation, and water.

Cupping is believed to open blood vessels in the body to improve blood flow, but the effectiveness of cupping has not been scientifically proven. Practitioners perform cupping to treat a variety of conditions.

Cupping is commonly used to treat chronic low back pain, high blood pressure, arthritis, fibromyalgia, blood disorders like anemia and hemophilia, and asthma. Cupping is also used to treat skin issues such as acne, psoriasis, or eczema, as well as for mental health, particularly anxiety and depression.

There can be side effects from cupping on the skin at the cupping site, though most symptoms are manageable or mild. There is a risk of skin infection if the practitioners are not using clean tools, so be sure to ask the facility about their process before a cupping session.

Some side effects of cupping include bruising, scarring, burns, skin ulcers, and skin darkening.

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