Is Cupping Therapy Right For You?

If you’ve been on Snapchat recently, you’ve definitely seen people using suction cups on their backs and have wondered why they have giant purple-reddish bruises. Looks pretty painful, right? But this practice (known widely as “cupping therapy”) actually helps relieve muscle pain in the back, neck and shoulders.

What is cupping therapy?

Cupping therapy is a type of sports therapy and alternative medicine that may be beneficial to anyone experiencing muscle tension or tightness—and no, this does not just apply to athletes. During cupping therapy, multiple suction cups made of glass or plastic are applied to certain areas of your body. The proper medical term for this is myofascial decompression.

Myofascia is the connective tissue that binds muscles to the skin. As the name suggests, cupping helps relieve pressure when connective tissues become tight. The tightness can happen for many reasons, including injuries or repeated movements, such as repeatedly lifting weights. Cupping the muscles removes the tissue layers to let them slide past one another more freely.

Dry vs. Wet Cupping Therapy

There are two different types of cupping therapy: dry and wet. During dry cupping, your provider will heat the inside of the cups using a flame and apply them to a specific area of your body. As the heat inside the cup cools, the pressure changes and creates the vacuum that suctions your skin. In wet cupping therapy, the first steps are the same as in dry cupping. After the first heated cups are removed from the body, the provider will create little cuts in your skin in the cups' former spots. After that, they’ll place new cups over the incisions. The additional steps are intended to release toxic fluids, like heavy metals, from your body.

You may experience some pain during the treatment, but while it may be uncomfortable, it shouldn’t be intolerable.

Benefits of Cupping Therapy

Cupping therapy tends to cost around $30 to $80 per treatment. For this relatively low cost, it provides many benefits, including increasing blood flow to certain areas of the body which can decrease stiffness and improve mobility. There are also many benefits of cupping therapy that haven’t been confirmed by research. These include relieving fibromyalgia symptoms, lowering cholesterol and treating acne and shingles.

Sometimes, your provider may recommend cupping therapy alongside other medical treatments to relieve muscle tension. These can include foam rolling, heat therapy, yoga, massages and acupuncture.

Just like any medical treatment, there will always be side effects. Though the side effects of cupping therapy are minimal, it can cause adverse effects like burns or skin infections in people with specific health conditions. People with hemophilia, eczema and epilepsy may want to avoid cupping therapy.

Before booking an appointment for yourself, talk to a health professional about whether this type of therapy will be beneficial to your specific needs. It’s also important to remember that cupping therapy results vary from person to person, so be open to other treatment options if this type of treatment does not work for you.