Does scraping have a scientific basis?

Gua Sha has become the first choice for modern health-conscious people. In addition, modern people are under great pressure in life and are prone to sub-health conditions. Occasionally, scraping can dredge the meridians, dispel cold and detoxify, promote metabolism, and is beneficial to the health of the body. However, many people are concerned about scraping, thinking it is a traditional therapy. So does scraping have any scientific basis?

Regardless of the theory of traditional Chinese medicine, just using a scraping board to repeatedly scrape the local area will cause a certain degree of bleeding and congestion under the skin. This can accelerate local blood circulation. For symptoms such as cold infection, local congestion and pain, this method can quickly relieve the condition.

It can be said that scraping has both health-care functions and therapeutic effects. It is not appropriate to call it "pseudoscience". However, it is true that many people have misunderstandings about scraping. For example, many people think that when scraping, they must scrape out the "sha".

In fact, whether "sha" appears, how much sha appears, and the depth of color of the sha all vary from person to person. The doctor will determine the location, sequence and strength of scraping based on the needs of the treatment, rather than judging the effect based on how much "sha" is scraped out. Blindly pursuing the color of scraping will actually cause harm to the body.

Gua Sha can dilate capillaries and promote blood circulation. There are three diseases that are more suitable for Gua Sha treatment. One is the neck and shoulder discomfort caused by wind and cold, which can be solved by scraping the shoulder and neck meridians or trapezius muscles. The second is back pain caused by rheumatoid arthritis. Third, some types of colds, heatstroke, indigestion and other diseases can also be treated with scraping, but the operation must be strictly followed, and it is best to find a professional to do it.

However, it should be noted that not all diseases can be cured by scraping. The claim that scraping can cure all diseases is unscientific, unreliable and incorrect. Do not perform scraping for the following diseases: diabetes, heart disease, nephrotic syndrome, skin diseases, allergic purpura, thrombocytopenia, leukemia, allergic dermatitis, contact rash, edema, etc.

Gua Sha is guided by the theory of meridians and acupoints in traditional Chinese medicine. Through the use of special scraping instruments and corresponding techniques, a certain medium is dipped in the body surface to repeatedly scrape and rub, causing local skin changes such as red millet-like or dark red bleeding spots, thereby achieving the effect of activating blood circulation and removing sha. Gua Sha is also a traditional culture of the Chinese nation. It inherits tradition, brings forth new ideas while getting rid of old ones, faces the world and learns from others. We must actively promote Chinese traditional culture and let it go to the world and face the future.

Gua Sha should be a traditional method of fighting diseases that the working people experienced and realized in their daily lives. Although it is not as advanced as modern medicine, it is still possible to achieve self-healing by adjusting one's own body and activating the body's own disease resistance.

These diagnostic and treatment methods have been passed down through the experience of countless people over thousands of years. If they were ineffective, they would have been eliminated long ago. The ancients were not fools.