Skin Scraping 刮痧

Cross posted at http://blogs.sun.com/syw

Somewhere between Xi’An and Beijing, my friend and her daughter caught a cold — an ordinary travel story except for the treatment she sought.

Traditional Chinese medicine has 4 standard treatment methods: pressure points massage, acupuncture, spot heating, and herbs. Note that surgery is not one of them and the first three are different physical forces on the same system: the “qi” circuitry. Based on a completely different set of theories than its western counter-part, Chinese medicine believes energies in a body govern life, or the healing processes.

To treat colds, one merely needs to unblock the natural balancing hot and cold energies; skin scraping the right areas the right way does just that. The bruises are the proof: the toxins now have floated to the top and will soon dissipate.

Physiologically, scraping damages the skin. When our body tries to repair, it also eradicates the cold virus. It takes a few hundred years to discovered the best areas to stimulate such responses.

Yes, both the mother and the daughter had their skins scraped. (Pictured is my back.) They felt much better the next day. Skins felt just fine, except during hot showers. Small prices to pay, they happily claimed, to be able to enjoy the rest of the China trip.

同步上网于http://blogs.sun.com/syw_zh

朋友母女俩来中国玩，在西安感冒了。这本是平常事，只是他们在北京求的医法有点不寻常。

中医四疗法是“砭针灸药”。前仨都是经脉，而不谈开刀。中医理论讲的是能量。生命都是能量。治感冒只要调和寒热就行。最简单就是刮痧。痧出来表示寒气浮出。就会好了。就医学而言，刮痧伤了皮肤。当身体去修复时，也把感冒病毒给消灭了。只是中国人花了几百年才找到该刮的地方。

没错，母女去刮痧。（这照片是我的背。）第二天感冒都好了。不痛，只是洗热水时有点感觉。想他们能好好玩几天，这可是太值了。