The cupping- practitioner prepares the papers
clips and wraps them in the form of funnel cones taken from newspaper for
easiness of burning. And in the morning of the day of
cupping application:
The wishful person in cupping takes off
his upper clothes and keeps his back naked after warming the room with a stove
in order to make the surroundings warm (if it is not already warm). It is
better to provide moderate warmth rather than hotness.
The person sits cross-legged, or sits in
the way he could rest his body. Any way, he must sit somehow straight up.
The practitioner lights a candle and
fixes it near him. Then he puts on sterile medical gloves on his hands to start
work
1) After sterilizing the skin region
very well, the practitioner holds one cup in his right hand and the other hand
holds a small conical paper and lights it from the candle. When the piece of
paper burns well. He inserts it quickly inside the cup, and fixes the cup
quickly and lightly on the back in the two places, the right one and the left
one, which we have already defined.
(The work requires lightness and
quickness of hand which the practitioner acquires by
practice. The operation is easy and facile).
2) Then he holds another cup and in the
same way he fixes it in a symmetrical place of the
first one. He must be sure of the fixing force of two cups on the body and
their pulling force on the skin.
If the two cups
are not strongly fixed, the practitioner must take off the weak cup and empty
it from the ash and the rest of the burned cone, and then he repeats the
procedure by burning another cone of paper, puts it inside the cup while it is
at its utmost burning and fixing the cup on the same place.
- If there is hair on the back (the
cupping place) of the person, the cupping-performer must only shave it with a
razor in the limited symmetrical places for the two cups in order to fix them
firmly on the body. Otherwise their adhesion with the
skin will not be complete, the air can infiltrate into the cups and the
adhesive force of both cups fails.
- The practitioner must keep the burning
cone away from the opening of the cup lest it becomes hot and, in turn, it
burns the skin a little on fixing it. When the practitioner repeats the
fixation or refrains from doing it due to a weak fixation, he must change the
cup with another one because the defect may be from the cup itself (due to a
crack in it, or its edge is not regular, so the air gets through the cup). The
most important thing is that the pull of both cups must be strong enough in
order to get the best use of cupping.
- The practitioner must wait for (2-3)
minutes letting the two cups to fix themselves on the back of the person. Then
he takes off the first cup and empties it from the remains of the burned cone
of paper and repeats fixing it by burning another paper cone. Likewise, he
takes off the other cup, after fixing the first one, and re-fixes it as quickly
as possible in order to prevent the congested blood from going away.
- For removing
the cup from the body, we always resort to holding it by putting its belly
between the thumb and the forefinger of one hand and at the same time by
putting the other one on the body of the person on the upper part of his back
adjacent to the mouth of the cup, and we press it on the skin while the holding
hand pulls the cup downward from its belly by removing the upper edge and
keeping the lower edge stuck on the body. When we remove the upper edge,
the air fills in the cup and eventually we can easily remove the cup and put it
away from the body of the person.
3) After the elapse of (2 - 3 minutes),
we repeat removing the two cups and fixing them again (and these repetitions
(twice) are made in order not to let the pull weaken
in time).
4) During the
last fixation (the last one) of the cups (in case the practitioner finds
that the fixation of the two cups is weak and he cannot strengthen them, he
repeats the fixation for a fourth time). He starts in sterilizing the blade
very well, or it may already be sterilized, and puts
it in a piece of cotton wetted with antiseptic solution right from the
beginning of his work.
5) Then he lightly and quickly removes
the first cup and disinfects its place with antiseptics or with sterilizing
spray, and holds the angle of the blade in his hand, between the thumb and the
forefinger, and slits the skin in superficial slashes apart (0.5 – 1 cm) from
each other. He cuts few slashes up and down mentioning the name of God from the
beginning of his work
6) When he finishes the slight slashes
in the first place, he fixes the cup on it slightly and quickly. Then the cup
starts sucking the spoiled blood. The practitioner removes the second cup,
disinfects its place and repeats the act of slashing
and re-fixes it in the former place.
- The blade is to be
used for one person exclusively, and then it should be thrown away in
the wastebasket. It must never be used for another
person even if it is disinfected with antiseptics.
- The method of removing the cup is already explained by putting the potbelly between the thumb
and the forefinger of one hand, and the other hand presses on the skin above
the opening of the cup. Then the upper part of the opening is
removed and the lower part of the cup is still stuck to the skin. Then
the lower part is removed in passing it on the surface
of the slashed spots and filling it with the withdrawn blood lest it runs down
the back of the person. The slashed spots must not be dried
with a soft paper-handkerchief or with a piece of cotton. The same cup must be re-fixed directly by burning a cone of paper.
- The person may be
sufficed for four cups (two cups from the right side and two cups from
the left side of the shoulder blades) unless he is suffering from strong
diseases (except for anemia and blood depression). The practitioner may take
two other cups so that the total amounts to six cups from the back of the
person.
- The quantity of spoiled blood which is
extracted for the first time by means of a medical cupping operation amounts to
(100 – 200) grams while the quantity of a donated blood may amount to (450)
grams. Therefore, the cupping-operation with its active magical cure is
actually the cheapest price for harmful blood.
- He who has
performed cupping in past years, will have no harm if he bleeds six cups in
general or eight ones as most limit, especially for those who suffer from
diseases as: Blood clot, arteriosclerosis, cancer, blood hypertension,
arthritis, migraine, headaches in general, lumbago, pulmonary infiltration,
cardiac infarction, angina pectoris, Diabetes, ischemia, paralysis, excess
level of iron or Hemoglobin, hemophilia, downfall In heartbeats,
cardiomyopathy, general neural diseases, leukemia.
- In respect with longevous
people of weak stature, especially women, it will be enough to extract two cups
utmost from every side even for those who are used to perform cupping every
year unless cupping has exceeded in usefulness and the person insists on
performing more so long as there is no harm, no obstacle.
7) When the practitioner removes the
last two cups, he must disinfect their places (the slight cuts) very well, and
must put a piece of sterilized gauze sprinkled with a disinfectant solution by
means of an atomizer on place of the cuts.
8) After the cupping operation, the
person can eat a dish of "fat’toush" the
ingredients of which and its way of preparation have already
been explained, or he may eat a meal of vegetable salad.
9) I want to recapitulate in here: it is
forbidden for the cupped-person to drink milk[1] or
eat any dairy products all the day and its night only (for twenty-four hours)
in which he has performed the cupping operation because milk contains calcium
and some amino acids which lead to disturbances in
blood pressure.
10) The cups must be cleaned and
disinfected very well soon after the operation if possible, or they must be destroyed completely in a special place for rubbish.
[1] It is forbidden for the
cupped-person to drink milk or eat any dairy products such as cheese, yogurt
and cream, or eat any meal cooked in these kinds of dairy products during the
day of cupping, i.e. only the day of cupping and its night because milk and its
derivatives mostly lead to nausea and evoke vomiting, and make disturbances in
blood pressure; all that may lead to harm and some health problems