Most of us were taught Gua Sha in school. I did very little of it; patients came in for Acupuncture, not a massage. In a continuing education class, I took another course in Gua Sha and Cupping. That's where I learned about the nature of pain and the toxic buildup in muscle and tendon tissue.

Have you ever wondered what causes pain? Nerves must be fed blood, body fluids, and energy to feel good. Please take one of these away; the nerve is not being fed, so it sends a pain signal. As an example, intertwine your fingers and clutch them very tightly together. You can see how your fingers are no longer getting the blood supply, body fluids, and energy they need. The longer you clutch your fingers and hands together, the more pain you are in. When you release them, the pain goes away.

As we age, our muscles and tendons get tighter and tighter. When muscle regeneration occurs, old cells die and cannot escape tight muscles. This is the cause of the toxic buildup that prevents good circulation. I use the analogy of sand in a shoe. If there is sand in the shoe, the area will hurt.

With this information in mind, look at upper back and neck pain. When you take a Gua Sha scraper across the trapezius muscles, you can feel the knots that have formed. You can also feel crunchy areas; these are fascia adhesions. Helping the body remove this toxic buildup will help the patient get out of pain much faster.

A problem for you when doing Gua Sha several times a day is that it can be hard on your hands.

This is why the Gua Sha Massage Stick is a better instrument. You can remove toxins from knots in the muscles and fascia adhesions much quicker. It saves time and energy. The Gua Sha Massage Stick uses grooves cut into the stick to pull on the skin and break up the fascia adhesions and the knots in the muscles. This allows the toxins that have been trapped to come to the surface of the skin. The red marks are called petechia. Because the toxins are now at the skin level, the lymph system can easily clean them away. The red marks are not painful and usually go away in 3 days.

I like to use this analogy: Sand is in the carpet. Stepping on it moves the carpet fibers but does not remove the sand. Sweeping the carpet with a broom will open the carpet fibers and release the sand. This is why Gua Sha, or scraping, is so effective. It detangles the fascia, breaking up the adhesion. It also opens the muscle fibers so you can remove the knots.

Have you ever experienced a crunchy sensation when inserting a needle? As a practitioner, I would describe it to my patients as feeling like I'm needling a Kit-Kat - smooth creamy filling, then crunch. It turns out the crunch is caused by hardening fascia. I only knew how to address this issue once I fell off a step ladder and fractured my pelvis. It was then that I accidentally learned about the world of fascia.

How much do we know about the Fascial System anyway? We certainly didn't cover it in school because fascia wasn't even studied until 2007, and it is now gradually beginning to make its way into mainstream medicine.