Cupping

Today at acupuncture, I mentioned to the practitioner that I’d like to try cupping some day – and before I knew it, she had pulled out a box of little glass cups and *poof* – instant suction onto my back and shoulder.

I twittered this fact and that sparked a flurry of curious tweets about what it was like, so I figured I’d post up a picture. This is obviously several hours later, so most of the ones on my upper back have already faded (except for that one up there on the left).

It didn’t hurt exactly, just felt a little funky when she started shifting the cups to pull on the skin. (She didn’t think they would leave much of a mark as my blood is apparently not very stagnant.) Overall, I think I only had them on for a few minutes.

Did it work? Hard to say. I definitely left with a bit more flexibility than I had when I got there, but she had also used ultrasound and heat & electrical stim, so who knows?

To be honest, though, I’m going to see about getting an appointment with my regular pain doc. The acupuncture has been helping, but I’ve got one trigger point in my lower back that will NOT let go. (Even after she stuck a needle into it and shot electrical stim directly into the muscle.) So I think I’m going to see about getting that one numbed via injection. It’s radiating a lot of pain even when I’m not doing anything and I think it’s causing the muscles in my upper back to tighten up in response. (One of those vicious circles of pain causes the muscles to tighten which causes more pain, etc.)

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