Gua sha is a very old seemingly facile Chinese Medicine treatment in Maitland that treats a wide range of underlying conditions in the body.
Gua sha are two Chinese words with gua meaning to scrape or rub and sha referring to the dotted reddish coloration that may rise to the skin surface during treatment. It’s important to note that the coloration is not the bruising or breaking of the blood vessels but the deep, extracellular fluids, composed mostly of waste material and toxins, going up to the surface. Gua sha is a gentle procedure and no bruising actually occurs. The presence of the rising coloration can be an indication of an underlying condition, like arthritis. However, the relief and healing of pain still take place even without any coloration developing.
In gua sha treatments all the healing occurs within a mere 20 – 30 gentle strokes through a clothing or sheet or directly on the skin; people are incredulous at the simplicity of the procedure. But although it may seem a facile treatment, doing the procedure wrong could result, at least in zero benefits, or worse, in injury.
Gua sha therapy has an uncanny ability to cure stiffness and pain caused by inflammation of the joints and bones. In simple terms it is a treatment that’s perfect for people with arthritis.
There has to be a perfect explanation of how a surface treatment like gua sha could affect deep tissues. One theory argues that the body’s connective tissue system is actually a moving-scaffold-like multilayered, communication organ. The gentle unidirectional scraping transmits vibrational ripples through the connective tissue layers, and like a speaker amplifies the ripples as it travels to the deeper layers, activating the self-healing components of the body. The stem cells attached in the outer layer of the bone or periosteum, which happens to be a connective tissue, may very well be one of these healing components.
Modern science has still not yet discovered how gua sha therapy actually works. So, while we’re waiting for an answer, you may want to know that this therapy can be incorporated into any type of massage therapies to help relieve muscle fatigue, soreness, and, aches, and pain.