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Hey guys, Tony Maritato here, licensed physical therapist and in today's video I want to talk
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about cupping, the ancient Chinese art of cupping and how it can affect or influence
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scar tissue formation, scar tissue development and potentially the aesthetics, the look of
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your incision after it's been healed following a total knee replacement. So if you guys don't know me, my name is Tony Maritato
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I'm a licensed physical therapist. I work here in Ohio. i also have a facebook group called the total knee replacement support group for kind people
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it's a free group you're welcome to come join it's an amazing community over 7 000 people strong
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so i got a question in that group related to a scar and there were some fibrous thick areas in
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the scar and the person member from the group was asking if pumping or instrument assisted soft
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tissue mobilization might help reduce some of that fibrousness. Now, I tend to be of the mindset
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that there is absolutely benefit to the clinical research. The clinical research in this case
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in my opinion, suggests that cupping and instrument-assisted soft tissue mobilizations probably no better than placebo. But that being said, I also believe that there's support for
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you know, what we see that works in the clinic, whether it be placebo, whether it be something
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that we just don't understand yet. So while clinically I cannot say that cupping or anything
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else is going to help or influence how scar tissue is going to be formed because I believe your body is going to regulate that your body is going to thicken it or thin it your body is going to do what it needs to do I will say that it relatively low risk there there very few recorded
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complications of any significant matter. I would say that when I've had issues with either pain in
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an area related to soft tissue or some potential healing skin healing things like that I'll use
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cupping. I'll use it in my clinic with my patients. I'll use it on myself at home. I would never try
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to claim that there's good clinical evidence to support it. But because the risk of injury or
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complication is so low, I think there's relatively low risk of harm in using it, especially using it
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the way I use it. I don't use it to burst the capillaries. I don't use it to create those red
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splotches, purple splotches that you've seen online, if you've done any research for it
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I simply use it as a gripping tool. I use it as a tool to grip the skin, lift the skin
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potentially facilitate some superficial lymphatic drainage, potentially use it to create a negative
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pressure on the surface of the skin. That's really all that I'm doing with it. And maybe you would
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say that I'm doing it incorrectly because I'm not doing it the way it's intended. But that being said
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I'm going to share a video with you. I'm going to explain what I'm doing and how, when I do use it
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in the clinic, how I go about using it. So I'm going to keep this video on mute. I'm just going
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to kind of let it play through and I'll explain what's going on. So this is an individual who's
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got a sealed incision. It's completely healed except for one little spot that I'm going to
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avoid at the top of the incision I put the leg into reasonable extension if not completely straight close to completely straight to give myself some laxity in the skin And then what I doing is I using this little silicone
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cup. These are my favorite. I do have the pumps, but I like these better to create a little bit of
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a bubble, a little bit of a lift. You can see how at least superficially the negative pressure is
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drawing increased capillary refill blood flow into the superficial layer but i promise you it
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does not affect the tissue deeper than the most superficial skin layer now what i'm doing and this
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is a dry cupping procedure i'm creating a little bit of mobilization so maybe if there is a little
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bit of scar tissue connecting the skin to the tissue below think of cellulite the way cellulite
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is a piece of connective tissue that's dimpling the skin because it's grabbing the skin and pulling
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it down, I might be mobilizing a little bit of that. I do believe that it also helps reduce some
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sensitivity if there are nerve endings in there that are highly sensitized for whatever reason
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And then what I do after I've done a little bit of dry soft tissue mobilization with the cup
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I put a little bit of lotion on. This is a biotone, paraffin-based lotion. I spread it around
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I create the suction with the cup again. And now this allows me to create a little bit of a gliding
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motion. Again, I find that I can feel areas of restriction within the skin and it's just the skin
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No different than when you look anywhere on your body, there's going to be little dimples in your
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skin that skin is kind of tacked down in there now we want it to be dimpled in
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there are reasons for that or else we would just be a big oval Visually it just you know your skin contours to the connective tissue of your body But maybe there some benefit to creating a little
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lift and a little separation in there. I would certainly never claim that it's reducing scar
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tissue. I would certainly never claim that it's breaking adhesions or anything like that
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but at the end of the day sorry for the ad what i find there's another video i've got here let me
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jump ahead what i find is that when we can stimulate altered sensation when we can create
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different mechanical feedback like in this case again a lot of patients will develop pez and
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sarine bursitis pain on the inside just below the joint line this has been a great way for me to
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reduce some of that sensitivity i'm not saying it's reducing the inflammation i'm just saying
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it's reducing some of the tissue sensitivity so i love these little cups i'll put a link
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to amazon an affiliate link in the description of this video below for the ones that i use
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they're a couple bucks each buy what you want to buy but between a couple dollars for some lotion
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and a couple dollars for this silicone cup, I don't think you can really go wrong
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And at least it gives you something to do that might potentially have benefit
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but most likely doesn't have harm. If you have questions, if you have concerns
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or any other, you know, want to know anything more, absolutely drop a comment in the video below
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I'm going to put this into a printed article that I'll put on my website at totaltherapysolutions.com
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And I'll look forward to seeing you guys on the next video
