Cupping therapy is an ancient form of alternative medicine in which a therapist puts special cups on your skin for a few minutes to create suction. People get it for many purposes, including to help with pain, inflammationblood flow, relaxation and well-being, and as a type of deep-tissue massage.

The cups may be made of:

  • Glass
  • Bamboo
  • Earthenware
  • Silicone

Cupping therapy might be trendy now, but it’s not new. It dates back to ancient Egyptian, Chinese, and Middle Eastern cultures. One of the oldest medical textbooks in the world, the Ebers Papyrus, describes how the ancient Egyptians used cupping therapy in 1,550 B.C.

Types

There are different methods of cupping, including:

  • Dry
  • Wet

During both types of cupping, your therapist will put a flammable substance such as alcohol, herbs, or paper in a cup and set it on fire. As the fire goes out, they put the cup upside down on your skin.

As the air inside the cup cools, it creates a vacuum. This causes your skin to rise and redden as your blood vessels expand. The cup is generally left in place for up to 3 minutes.

A more modern version of cupping uses a rubber pump instead of fire to create the vacuum inside the cup. Sometimes therapists use silicone cups, which they can move from place to place on your skin for a massage-like effect.

Wet cupping creates a mild suction by leaving a cup in place for about 3 minutes. The therapist then removes the cup and uses a small scalpel to make light, tiny cuts on your skin. Next, they do a second suction to draw out a small quantity of blood.

What Does the Research Show?

There haven’t been many scientific studies on cupping.

One report, published in 2015 in the Journal of Traditional and Complementary Medicine, notes that it could help with acne, herpes zoster, and pain management.

That’s similar to the findings from a 2012 report, published in PLoS One. Australian and Chinese researchers reviewed 135 studies on cupping. They concluded that cupping therapy may be effective when people also get other treatments, like acupuncture or medications, for various diseases and conditions, such as:

But those researchers noted many of the studies they reviewed could have been biased and that better studies are needed.

The British Cupping Society says that cupping therapy is used to treat:

Research Articles:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6435947/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK538253/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29122256/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6248735/