My name is Huda and I am twenty-eight years old. I work as a healthcare content creator and a freelance writer nowadays. This means most of my time is spent in front of a laptop screen (nearly 18 hours some days). Spending this much time sitting down can affect your posture, general health and give way to aches and muscle pains in the body. With that as background, I’d like to share my story on how I developed chronic back pain and how cupping helped me overcome it.
Working in healthcare and with a background in public health, I have always understood that, but it is completely different when you experience it. When I started working at 18 years old, I’d never complained of any pains and aches but 2019 was the year when I started experiencing some painful sensations down my back. The pain often came and went. I did not think much of it. I chalked it up to the lack of exercise and the fact that I spend most of my time sitting down.
But then the pain started becoming more frequent. My upper back and the area just above the buttocks sometimes had shooting pains. I took a few painkillers and went on with my routine work. Little did I know that it was the wrong approach to take. After a few days, I started waking up in my sleep with back pain that would not go away.
I did what most of us would do in this situation: I went to my doctor. He has been my primary physician for six years now. He did his best to understand my symptoms and prescribed me some muscle relaxers after performing a few tests to rule out a serious underlying cause. I took the muscle relaxers for a few days but that did not help at all. This prompted me to get another consultation. We upped the dosage and tried different medications and exercises. I even took anti-depressants and anti-anxiety pills. When even that failed to provide relief, I went to a specialist and a neurologist as well.
You guessed it! Even all of that did not help. Now it was mid of 2020, and I had been suffering from chronic back pain for more than a year. I had given up. I could not work, play with my nieces, go out, or even exercise for more than a minute. My mind was messed up at this point. I was clinically depressed and the doctors said that the pain was probably just in my head. Some of them even questioned my level of sanity. Only my sister was convinced that I must be in real pain. One day she came to me and told me about her friend’s cousin who had pain in her leg but was helped a great deal with an alternative therapy. Even though I was a fierce believer in modern medicine, the pain prompted me try cupping for my back pain.
What I found was an integrative clinic that took my concerns seriously and offered me help through a general practitioner and an alternative medicine specialist. They asked questions, from my working habits to my childhood injuries. They even asked which sports I used to play, what I eat in a day, how the pain feels, and a lot more. Together they came up with a new regimen of medications that had a small dose of painkillers that I had to take for 2 weeks. They discontinued most of my medicines, suggested different exercise, and meditation practices, and prescribed cupping.
I’d heard of cupping before but it was my first time trying it, let alone for back pain. I will not lie. I thought it would be neither effective nor helpful. How can putting suction cups on my back help? But I was wrong. For the first two sessions, I did not feel any difference. But the third session was a really wonderful experience (and I do not say that lightly). My pain decreased drastically after the night’s rest after the session, and even the stress and the rigidness in my muscles had subsided. After a few weeks, my stress levels decreased, I could move around without pain, and I felt like I had a new body. After this, I finally understood how these ancient techniques have such a strong following, even now.
Now I am completely pain-free but have realized that I was naive enough to believe that I knew everything. I wish I had known sooner about how there are other ways of getting help, especially when modern medicine is not enough. These days I continue to explore more options for healthy living in traditional therapies along with conventional medicine. If you are reading this and have a similar problem, I would suggest you try this as well. I now recommend Cupping and other holistic approaches to all my friends and family as well.
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