Speaker 1: New Radio 97.7 and 1290 AM WTKS.
Speaker 2: You might have seen when Michael Phelps is swimming and some of the other swimmers, I noticed just the guys, I didn’t see the girls doing it, this cupping thing where it looks like they put these suction cups on certain strategic areas of the body.
Speaker 3: Well they’re not exactly suction cups. We have more from a doctor.
Speaker 2: Okay good.
Speaker 3: Dr. Michels.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Dr. John Michels is on the line here with us, Fox News contributor, medical specialist and it’s supposed to bring blood to strategic areas of the body that are used in exercise or swimming or whatever kind of exercise you wanna be doing or discipline.
Speaker 2: Dr. Michels, a good morning to you. What is this cupping thing all about and just how good is it one way or the other?
Dr. Michels: Well good morning, thank you for having me on this morning.
Speaker 2: Yeah, sir.
Dr. Michels: So the practice of cupping actually dates back to 1550 B.C. is actually the first literature that mentions the practice of cupping.
Speaker 2: Whoa! Wow!
Dr. Michels: So it’s been around for thousands of years. It’s a Chinese and Egyptian medicine practice and they use glass or silicone cups and they create a vacuum, traditionally using heat where they would burn herbs or cotton or alcohol to create a vacuum and suction onto the skin and now we use mechanical suction, either a hand pump or a mechanical pump, to draw the skin up into these cups, draw blood into an area where there’s damaged tissue, and the thought is it creates an inflammatory response and speeds healing and recovery.
Speaker 3: I’ve heard from somebody who swears by this. Actually it was a friend of a friend who said that he swears by it.
Dr. Michels: Well, and that’s kind of how the literature shows is that it’s unequivocal whether it works or not. Some people swear by it, some people say it’s a total sham. The difficulty is it’s hard to study so the critics, again, are gonna say that the benefits perceived are a little more than the placebo effect. It only works because the person receiving it actually believes it’s going to work. And the reason it’s tough to study is unlike using a medication, say you want to test a drug, you’ll give one person the actual medication, you’ll give another person a sugar pill. Now neither person knows what they’re getting and you can study the response, see who gets better or who doesn’t get better.
Dr. Michels: Now with this, you can’t really fake the cupping. You either walk away with those giant hickeys on your back or you don’t and so people know whether or not they’ve received the treatment so it’s been really difficult to study and that’s why the results are pretty inconclusive.
Speaker 2: Dr. John Michels with us this morning, Fox News contributor, medical specialist, about the cupping controversy. Michael Phelps does it but is it safe? Dr., apparently, this has been around since before Christ, I guess it’s okay but what is the, I noticed that I kept asking my wife, why didn’t we see the women doing it? Now maybe they did, I just didn’t notice but I didn’t see any of the female swimmers using it.
Dr. Michels: Well both men and women use it. It’s even been used safely on children throughout history. There are very few drawbacks to using it as long as you don’t mind walk away with the bruising which can last anywhere from days to several weeks-
Speaker 2: Really!
Dr. Michels: Depending on the suction. Absolutely, ’cause it can break blood vessels in the skin and that bruising can last for quite a while. But beyond that, the risks are very little. Some of the common side effects, like I said, are the bruising. You can have some pain with it. If heat is used, patients can receive a burn. Skin infection is rare and if the cupping is done for longer than five to ten minutes you can actually have breakdown of the skin and develop an ulcer in the area where the cupping’s been done but when used in the hands of a seasoned practitioner, it’s relatively safe.
Speaker 2: Dr. Michels, is this taught in medical school? Was this covered in a class that you had or anything?
Dr. Michels: This was not, in fact, I went to a Western medical school. We only learned Western medicine. This is an Eastern medicine practice. Like I said, Chinese, Egyptian medicine is where this tradition is coming from and where it’s been practiced for thousands of years so it’s beyond the scope of what we’re taught in medical school.
Speaker 2: Okay. What are your thoughts on it? Is this used as a practice in any of our medical facilities at all?
Dr. Michels: Well I take a pretty open view to practicing medicine and I look for anything I can utilize, since I practice pain management, that can help manage a patient’s pain. This is something that is relatively safe and if the patient wants to try it and it’s effective for them, I’m in favor of it.
Speaker 3: Dr. Michels, I actually considered trying that because there’s somebody nearby who does it, I just never got around to it, but we have a listener with a question. How often do they have to do it? Is it a one time thing or do they do it every few days?
Dr. Michels: Well Michael Phelps was actually doing it in between events so he’s doing it to try to recover because, I think if you saw the other day, he had something like 37 minutes between events and so he was going back trying to utilize this to help those muscles recover faster between the event so that he could go out and perform at his optimal level.
Speaker 2: We’re talking with Fox News contributor, medical specialist Dr. John Michels who, by the way, former first round draft choice and Super Bowl champion with the Green Bay Packers. As a Packer fan, Dr. Michels, way to go.
Dr. Michels: Thank you.
Speaker 2: What do you recommend, sir, if somebody came to you with some sort of problems that cupping has been at least rumored to help?
Dr. Michels: Well I think if a person comes to me and asks whether or not they should try it, I would say absolutely. There’s very few drawbacks. Again, as long as you don’t mind having a mark on your skin and, again, age is gonna be dependent. If this is a child I’d probably say avoid this because in our day and age where child abuse is a very sensitive subject, a child shows up to school with a bruise on their back, people are gonna start to question that.
Dr. Michels: But someone who is a consenting adult who approaches me and says I’m thinking about trying this, I would first say make sure the person who is performing the cupping knows what they’re doing ’cause you could get hurt but if so, if this is something you’re interested in, I’m all in favor of it.
Speaker 2: All right. Well, Dr. Michels we appreciate the time. Where can we find more information?
Dr. Michels: About me or about cupping?
Speaker 2: Well let’s do both.
Dr. Michels: So about me, my website is SpineDallas.com or you can follow me on Twitter @DrJohnMichels, no A in my last name.
Dr. Michels: And cupping, if you have a seasoned Eastern medicine practitioner, typically places where they practice acupuncture, they’re also gonna practice cupping and herbal medicine there and you can get more information from a practitioner of Eastern medicine.
Speaker 2: And Dr. you did hear about the blonde that got kicked out of med school for recommending acupuncture as a cure for hemophilia, didn’t yah? I didn’t know if you knew about that.
Speaker 3: Not funny.
Speaker 2: I’ll leave you sir, thank you. Appreciate it.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Dr. Michels: Thank you.
Speaker 2: All right, Joel, okay well that just appeals to my morbid sense of humor.
