Centuries-Old Art of Cupping May Bring Some Pain Relief

Finally an article about cupping! I love cupping and use it not only on myself for various sports injuries, but also for my patients with complaints ranging from tired backs, pulled muscles, and tight shoulders from using the computer, to even the common cold.

The most common questions I get asked about cupping are:
1) Will it burn me? 
2) Will it hurt?
3) How long will the marks last?

And the answers are as follows:
1) No it will not burn you. The flame used creates a vacuum in the cup so it can suck onto the skin. The flame is inside the cup for about one second or less, hardly enough time to make the glass hot.
2) Cupping feels great! The practitioner has the ability to adjust how tight the cups are on the body, making it more or less intense. Stationary cups give a more concentrated sensation and moving cupping is very akin to a deep tissue massage.
3) The marks very greatly from person to person and from treatment to treatment. Typically those who are more fair skinned mark more easily and stationary cups leave more of a mark than moving cupping. I usually tell my patients the marks can last anywhere from one day to a week and a half. Cupping's cool, wear the marks as a fashion statement!

I love how these articles like to suggest that these treatments may just be placebo effect, but the fact remains, if patients feel relief then it works. (And it really does work.)

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Link: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324073504578114970824081566.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

The ancient art of applying suction cups to the body has gotten a boost from several new studies that show it helps relieve a variety of painful conditions. But scientists say larger, more rigorous studies are needed.

Fairbanks Daily News-Miner/ZumaPress.com

Cupping, as the practice is called, was performed traditionally in China and other countries, and is now available from acupuncturists, and some chiropractors and massage therapists in the U.S. In the traditional method, called fire cupping, a ball of burning cotton is briefly placed inside a glass cup to heat the air inside, which then creates a partial vacuum as it cools. Newer-style plastic or silicone cups have valves that attach to hand pumps used to create suction.
Until recently, there was scant published evidence in favor of cupping for pain relief. Over the past three years, a handful of new studies have shown it helps relieve back, neck, carpal tunnel and knee pain.

There are a number of theories on how cupping may work to relieve pain. A widely held one is that suction on the skin "increases blood flow to the area and creates a mild immune response," says Kathleen Lumiere, an assistant professor of acupuncture and oriental medicine at Bastyr University in Kenmore, Wash. It also helps release fascia, connective tissue that can pull on muscles causing pain or limited motion, clinicians say.

Typically cups are on for up to 20 minutes and leave a temporary reddish mark that looks "like rare roast beef," says Brian K. Nathanson, a Norwalk, Conn., chiropractor who has been doing cupping for about five years.

Some clinicians slide the cups on the body, using them as massage tools in a technique sometimes called running cupping. "People who love deep-tissue massage love cupping," says Gabrielle Francis, a Manhattan chiropractor and acupuncturist who does both static cupping and running cupping. Both can cause mild discomfort in some patients, clinicians say.

The intrepid can opt for "wet cupping," in which the skin is punctured with a lancet before the cups are applied. The technique, which draws out a small quantity of blood, can have a powerful effect—particularly on areas where you can feel a hard lump of knotted muscles, says Kristine Tohtz, a Chicago chiropractor and acupuncturist who does wet and dry cupping.

Cost of cupping varies widely, from $40 to $100 or more for a half-hour session. It shouldn't be done on pregnant women, people with heart conditions or people with bleeding disorders, clinicians say. Caution should be used if a person has thin skin that might tear easily.

In a study of people with neck pain caused by computer use, "cupping therapy was effective in reducing pain," says Tae-Hun Kim, a researcher at the Korea Institute of Oriental Medicine in Daejeon, South Korea. The 40-person study, published online in September in the Journal of Occupational Health, found that six cupping sessions over two weeks was more effective on average in relieving pain than a heating pad—and the benefit lasted a month after treatment ended.

But, says Romy Lauche, a scientist at the University of Duisburg-Essen in Essen, Germany, "the studies are very preliminary. We cannot say it has proven its efficacy."
Dr. Lauche co-authored a 50-person study published last year that found a single wet-cupping treatment on average significantly reduced chronic neck pain three days after the treatment, compared with a control group that had no treatment. Location of the cups varied with each patient but typically was on the trapezius muscle, which spans the neck, shoulders and upper back. In unpublished results, she adds, scientists found the pain relief lasted for months.

In a 40-person German study published in October, cupping therapy significantly relieved knee arthritis pain compared with patients who received no treatment. But the study's lack of a control group treated with a sham technique "raises questions of whether it is cupping that is really working or if it has a placebo effect," says David Felson, who directs an arthritis research program at Boston University School of Medicine.

Dr. Lauche agrees that lack of a placebo control is a flaw in the studies. A new study, currently ongoing for fibromyalgia pain, is testing cupping against a sham cup that attaches with adhesive and provides minimal suction, she says.

By LAURA JOHANNES
—Email aches@wsj.com
Write to Laura Johannes at laura.johannes@wsj.com

AARP: Acupuncture Does Help With Pain

"Overall, those treated with real acupuncture had their pain symptoms reduced by 50 percent."

Not to beat a dead horse over the head, but acupuncture works! It's great! 

Sweeping new study finds it helps more than standard treatments

Millions of Americans who use acupuncture can take heart from a new study that provides evidence that the ancient Chinese healing therapy can help reduce chronic pain by as much as 50 percent — welcome news for sufferers of back pain, arthritis, headaches and other painful conditions.

Acupuncture can be quite effective in pain management. — Chris Crisman/Corbis

A rigorous review of 29 randomized controlled trials, involving nearly 18,000 patients, shows that acupuncture was better at relieving pain than over-the-counter medicines and other common treatments, says Andrew Vickers, a researcher at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, who led the multinational study.

"What this study provides is fairly strong evidence that acupuncture is an effective treatment for chronic pain," Vickers says, adding that about 3 million Americans use acupuncture each year.

In these trials, some people suffering from back and neck pain, osteoarthritis, chronic headache and shoulder pain received standard acupuncture treatment, in which tiny needles are inserted into traditionally specified points on the skin. Others received fake acupuncture treatments, in which the needles were inserted at random points on the skin, or they were "treated" with needles that retracted into handles instead of entering the skin. Additional participants received no needle-based treatment at all.

Overall, those treated with real acupuncture had their pain symptoms reduced by 50 percent. Those who received sham needling saw a 43 percent drop in pain, while the no-acupuncture group reported their pain was reduced by 30 percent. A placebo effect — the strong psychological belief in a treatment's effectiveness — likely accounts for the greater improvements seen with sham therapy than no therapy. The study, funded by the National Institutes of Health and published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, drew on the work of dozens of researchers across the United States and Europe. Vickers says he and his collaborators painstakingly checked the original patient data as part of their review.

"It's a potentially very important article," says Edgar L. Ross, M.D., director of the Pain Management Center at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston and an associate professor at Harvard Medical School. Ross, who works with an acupuncturist at his center, says he sees similar benefits, although the average 50 percent pain reduction reported in the study was greater than that experienced by his patients. In his practice, "it's closer to 25 or 30 percent reduction in pain scores."

Western-trained doctors are increasingly willing to recommend acupuncture to their patients, but there's still no clear scientific explanation for why it works, Ross says. One theory is that acupuncture triggers the release of endorphins, natural painkilling compounds in the brain. Another is that it affects neurotransmitters, the chemical messengers that help brain cells communicate pain.

"It's very safe in trained hands," Ross says, though he also believes in a pain management plan that uses a mixture of techniques. Acupuncture "is certainly a very viable therapy," but it should be considered as one part of a whole pain treatment plan, he adds.

Link: http://www.aarp.org/health/healthy-living/info-10-2012/acupuncture-helps-with-chronic-pain.html