Nowadays, more and more young people are suffering from cervical spondylosis. Gua sha is a traditional Chinese therapy. Does gua sha work for cervical spondylosis?
Does Gua Sha Work for Cervical Spondylosis?
Yes, it does.
Gua sha can promote the flow of meridians and blood, and it can relieve neck pain caused by wind, stiff neck, or cervical spondylosis.
However, if the cervical spondylosis is caused by muscle tension or stiffness in the neck, it is best to combine it with massage therapy. If there are organic changes such as cervical hypertrophy or deformity, gua sha and massage can only provide temporary pain relief and cannot cure the condition.
Gua Sha Technique for Cervical Spondylosis
1. Areas and Techniques for Gua Sha
1. Gua sha on the head and neck: Fengchi acupoint.
2. Gua sha on the back: Dazhui, Jianjing, Tianzong, Shenyu, Jian.
3. Gua sha on the upper limbs: Quchi, Lieque, Hegu, Houxi.
2. Gua Sha Technique
Apply a small amount of gua sha oil to the area, and use vertical scraping technique to repeatedly scrape the above-mentioned areas 30 times, or scrape until redness appears. Focus on scraping areas that are not smooth, bumpy, or have nodules.
Quick Relief for Cervical Spondylosis
1. Neck Rotation
When your neck is sore, you can stand up from the computer, put your hands on your waist, maintain body balance, and start rotating your neck gently and rhythmically. Do not rotate too fast and make sure the movements are floating. It is best to do it for at least ten minutes to have a certain relief effect on neck pain.
2. Temporary Relief
When the neck pain is unbearable, you can lean on the back of a chair and try to press the neck as far back as possible. Be sure to find a balance and avoid leaning back too much that the chair falls over. When you feel sharp pain in your head, do not stop, keep pressing down for about a minute, and then lift up. This can effectively relieve the pain.
How to Prevent Cervical Spondylosis
1. Regular Exercise
Whether sitting, standing, or lying down, maintain the correct posture and avoid staying in the same position for a long time. Especially for office workers, take breaks to move your joints and muscles.
2. Maintain a Positive Attitude
Maintain a good mental state and strengthen your understanding of diseases. Many people tend to overlook the signs of spinal diseases and do not pay enough attention to changes in their own bodies. Therefore, it is important to pay attention to the knowledge of spinal diseases.
3. Exercise Regularly
Regular exercise, especially activities that involve the neck and waist, can strengthen the muscles in the neck and relieve fatigue in the lower back muscles. It can also reduce the risk of spinal diseases caused by external injuries.
4. Keep the Neck Warm
The blood circulation in the neck muscles is slow and the excretion of metabolic waste is also slow. Neglecting to protect the neck during autumn and winter seasons can make the neck vulnerable to coldness and increase the risk of developing cervical spondylosis.
5. Sleep on a Firm Mattress
Choose a firmer mattress. Mattresses with springs can cause significant damage to the spine. Choosing suitable and comfortable bedding not only ensures a good night's sleep but also protects the joints and ligaments of the body from injury.
6. Avoid Tilting the Head
Try to avoid holding the phone with your ear and shoulder when making calls. Use a headset whenever possible to prevent compression of blood vessels and nerves, which can cause muscle contraction in the neck and lead to cervical inflammation.
Precautions for Gua Sha
1. Precautions before Gua Sha
1. The skin needs to be exposed for gua sha therapy, and the pores of the skin are open during gua sha, which can allow external pathogenic factors to enter the body through the open pores, affecting the effectiveness of gua sha and possibly causing new diseases. Therefore, it is important to choose a good treatment location with fresh and well-ventilated air, pay attention to keeping warm, avoid drafts, and minimize skin exposure.
2. Choose a comfortable position for gua sha to facilitate scraping and prevent dizziness.
3. Gua sha tools should be strictly disinfected to prevent cross-infection. Carefully inspect the gua sha tools before scraping to avoid skin injury.
4. The hands of the practitioner should also be disinfected.
5. Before scraping, explain the general knowledge of gua sha to the patient, eliminate their fear, and gain their cooperation to prevent dizziness from occurring.
6. Gua sha therapy should be avoided when the patient is excessively hungry, full, or extremely tense.
2. Precautions during Gua Sha
1. The scraping technique should be applied evenly and with enough force, but within the tolerance of the patient, until redness appears.
2. Infants, young children, and the elderly should be treated with lighter scraping techniques.
3. Do not excessively pursue redness or prolong the duration of gua sha. The amount of redness depends on various factors. Generally, blood stasis syndrome produces more redness; excess syndrome and heat syndrome produce more redness; deficiency syndrome and cold syndrome produce less redness; excessive medication, especially the use of hormonal drugs, make it difficult to produce redness; obese individuals and those with well-developed muscles are less likely to produce redness; yin meridians are less likely to produce redness than yang meridians; it is difficult to produce redness in low room temperature.
4. During the scraping process, frequently ask the patient about their feelings. If dizziness occurs, such as fatigue, dizziness, pale complexion, nausea, cold sweat, palpitations, cold limbs, or a drop in blood pressure and loss of consciousness, immediately stop gua sha. Comfort the patient and help them lie down, keep them warm, give them warm water or sugar water to drink. If the symptoms do not improve, use the corners of the gua sha board to gently press the water channel acupoint, with light pressure to avoid swelling after pressing. Use the draining scraping technique on Baihui acupoint and Yongquan acupoint. After the patient's condition improves, continue scraping Neiguan acupoint and Zusanli acupoint.
3. Precautions after Gua Sha
1. Gua sha treatment promotes sweating and the expulsion of pathogenic factors through the open pores of the skin, which consumes some of the body's fluids. Therefore, after gua sha treatment, drink a cup of warm water and rest for a while.
2. To prevent the invasion of external pathogenic factors, wait until the pores of the skin close and return to their original state before taking a bath. This usually takes about 3 hours.
3. For patients with complex and severe conditions, gua sha treatment should be combined with other therapies, such as medication, to avoid delaying the treatment.
Contraindications of Gua Sha
1. Gua sha therapy should not be used or used with caution for diseases with bleeding tendencies, such as thrombocytopenia, allergic purpura, leukemia, etc. For these conditions, the tonifying technique or the balanced tonifying and draining technique should be used instead of the draining technique.
2. For critical conditions such as acute infectious diseases and severe heart diseases, immediate hospitalization for observation and treatment is necessary. If there are no other alternatives, gua sha therapy can be used temporarily for emergency rescue to buy time and treatment opportunities.
3. Newly occurred fractures should not be gua sha treated until the fracture has healed. Gua sha treatment should also be avoided on surgical scars within two months. Be cautious when gua sha is applied on scar areas of patients with malignant tumors.
4. Infectious skin diseases such as abscesses, boils, scars, ulcers, sexually transmitted skin diseases, and unknown lumps on the skin should not be directly scraped.
5. Elderly and weak individuals, as well as pregnant women on an empty stomach or during menstruation, should avoid extensive draining gua sha on the lower abdomen. The scraping technique should be gentle and tonifying technique should be used.
6. Those who are afraid of or allergic to gua sha should not use this therapy.
7. Pregnant women and women during menstruation should not have gua sha on the lower abdomen or acupoints such as Sanyinjiao, Hegu, and Zusanli. The scraping technique should be gentle and tonifying technique should be used.
