houston – You may have seen people rubbing kasha stones on their faces on social media lately.
Gua sha is said to relieve tension and reduce swelling and inflammation (such as sinuses). However, some people go a step further and use this technique all over their body, resulting in bruises.
Nellie Reed is a busy mother of two girls. She's always looking for the next best thing to look and feel healthy. After the gua sha, she says she feels good, but the bruises on her back suggest otherwise.
“I'm always looking for more energy to keep up,” she said. “It looks scarier than it actually is, and the benefits, you know, outweigh any slight pain or anything you might feel.”
Licensed acupuncturist Kiat Chong demonstrated on KPRC 2 how to move muscles downward using a technique called “scraping.” The idea behind this technique is to burst blood vessels near the surface of the skin called capillaries to heal people suffering from chronic pain.
“We control the damage to the body…Once we do that, we start repairing it,” Chong explained. “When there is trauma, the blood rushes to repair itself.”
Gua ha is one of the oldest herbal medicines that has been around for thousands of years.
“What patients expect is that before their muscles were very tired and heavy, but once they shave…the blood flow improves, the muscles loosen, and they actually feel lighter,” Chong said. .
This technique is often used on the face, but Chong says you shouldn't press it so hard that it bruises your face. Instead, a light touch is required, which he can do more often, such as 2-3 times a week. The body is much less frequent.
“It's always a long-term solution, not a short-term solution,” Chong said. “In the short term, you feel pain. In the long term, you feel relief.”
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Reed said this helped her gain range of motion that she didn't even know she was missing.
“I rave about it because it's different and it works, so I tell my friends, colleagues and family about it,” Reid said.
American doctors consider this a holistic treatment. I find that acupuncturists also practice this, and perhaps physical therapists also use techniques similar to Gua Sha. Literature published by the National Institutes of Health states that this may be a beneficial treatment for some people.
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