Holistically Katie

My experience getting ‘Cupping’ therapy done for the first time

I have been twice now to Wellness In Motion, located in Downtown Boston. I knew I had to write a blog post about my experience because I really enjoyed my experience and experienced ‘Cupping’ therapy for the first time. During both sessions, I was treated by Dr. Emma Bruno, who is simply amazing at what she does.

Cupping- Worth the hype?

The premise of ‘cupping’ is using suction to draw blood to specific areas of the body that are inflamed.

The benefits of cupping are:

• Reduces pain and inflammation.
• Increases range of motion.
• Decreases muscle tightness.
• Improves blood flow.

I really enjoy the cupping because it is done quickly and is quite effective at reducing pain and inflammation in your body. The process looks like this: your practitioner will expertly place the cups on your back where there is the most potential inflammation or “stickiness” ~ The cups will then be suctioned on to those particular areas. Usually they are there for about 5-10 minutes before being removed gently. As far as any pain/discomfort- of course you will want to report how you are feeling to your practitioner, but for me it felt like more of a tugging at my skin than any kind of intense pain. It wasn’t necessarily comfortable, but it didn’t hurt. The main piece to be aware of, is that you are going to have marks on your backs (basically bruises of where the cups were) that will go away after a few days. I recommend applying arnica gel to your back and just taking it easy after. You may even find that you have some fatigue, a headache or body aches. After my session, I felt very tired and needed a lot of sleep. Completely normal-all this means is your body is essentially detoxing/repairing and it is extra important to take it easy and rest. Not a good time to go in for an intense workout, sweat session or long run in the cold for example. When I take it easy and drink plenty of water, the marks go away faster.

Worth it?

In my opinion. getting the cupping therapy done regularly (perhaps every 4-6 months) has been effective and I plan on continuing. If you do decide to get cupping, I recommend going to a professional and ensuring that they are using the legitimate cups. You can buy cupping tools online now, but the ‘real deal’ are going to be the cups that are sunctioned on to you by winding them up and only a professional knows how to do this properly and on the right spots. Many great massage places, stretching places or sports medicine folks will offer this service. It is worth running through with them what it consists of and any other considerations for your needs. Generally-if you have some pain in your body perhaps from bad posture, overexercising, or just general stress and are open to an alternative approach for healing, cupping is an interesting option to explore.

Maintaining Better Posture and Alignment

Lastly, Emma gave me some very helpful tips for maintaining better posture and alignment throughout my day and in my workouts. I figured I would share!

• When standing, keep the hips tucked as if you could hold two glasses of water at your hip bones. This will help keep pressure off your lower back. Sometimes when we stand it is easy to get out of alignment, stick our butt back, hunch forward, etc- but avoid this as much as possible. Stand straight, shoulders back, hips tucked.
• When doing exercises like Bird Dog in Pilates, suck in your Ribs and keep your lower back glued to the floor. This will also prevent pain in the low back. If you are doing these exercises incorrectly every single day, its going to do so much more harm than good

Please note, this is just my experience and opinion. Not medical advice, by any means! Please do your own research and talk to your doctor before taking up protocals. I just wanted to share my own experience.