At the end of your acupuncture treatment and after the needles have been removed, your acupuncturist may incorporate gua sha into one of your treatments. Gua Sha is a technique wherein we literally scrape the exterior body to bring blood flow up to the skin. In it, we use tools such as shaped stones, spoons, jar lids, and, yes, even bones. In Chinese medicine we call this scraping “breaking up stagnation” and/or “releasing heat” and it results in relieving tension in the affected area.
When we are performing gua sha, we are working on the skin, but the scraping goes all the way down to the muscle layer, breaking up knots and areas of tension Sometimes, however, pain and “stagnation” are not caused by the tearing of our muscles and tendons; often, our fascial network becomes sticky and stagnant as well. The goal of gua sha is to affect both the external body and internal body, breaking up some of this stickiness.
Similar to cupping, after a gua sha treatment you will notice red marks in the areas where we worked. This is normal and will fade over the following days.
