25 Mar Blood – The Body’s Amazing Superhighway
Written by Dr. M. Ling, 25 March 2013
Blood is a useful focal point for exploring health. Whatever health outcome you are experiencing today, it is heavily related to what is in your blood.
Blood bathes your cells 24 hours a day. Blood not only brings vital nutrients to your cells; it also carries away metabolic waste products. If these waste products are not immediately carried away as they are produced, poisonous toxins build up in the tissues and organs they reside in.
A clear example of this is gout – the accumulation of uric acid. Pain and swelling symptoms present mainly in the big toe or even the knee. From a Chinese medicine view, by the time you feel these symptoms, the whole body is in fact already systemically filled with toxins.
Essentially, blood is the superhighway of nutrition and detoxification that reaches every organ and cell in your entire body.
When blood is acidic, toxic, old and dead, then that’s the kind of blood bathing your cells. Pain and disease manifest in the body as a result.
Over time, acidic blood and excess heat in the blood contribute to early death of cells such as those composing cartilage, tendon, and ligament tissues in joints. This leads to conditions like osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, gout, frozen shoulder, and symptoms seen in several autoimmune diseases, among a myriad of other maladies.
Stagnant, dead blood on the other hand, is seen to be what congests tissues and meridians, causing conditions like lower back pain, stiff neck, menstrual irregularities, Raynaud’s phenomenon, ischemic heart pain, stroke, and heart attack, to name a few.
Everyone wants blood that is fresh, healthy, flowing smoothly, and rich in oxygen and iron nourishing every layer and cell of the body. It stands to reason therefore that altering health outcome depends upon altering the composition of your blood.
But at some point, the level of congestion and toxicity in the body is too great to be altered through diet alone, or even herbal medicine or acupuncture.
The physical extraction of toxic, dead blood is required to free the body, making room for healthy blood to be produced, and flow easily. This is most effectively done through hijama therapy, also known as “wet cupping“– a form of controlled bloodletting.
In clinical setting when I perform wet cupping on clients, I often see blood come out bubbling and frothy like A&W root beer, or very dark red and clotted like raspberry jelly. This is far from being normal, healthy blood and reflects imbalances in the body.
To ensure wet cupping (hijama) is done properly, visit a certified hijama therapist or qualified health professional with both the medical and technical knowledge of how and when to perform wet cupping safely and effectively.
For more information, read this article outlining research on cupped blood under microscope conducted by a naturopathic doctor. Or visit Cupping – All Types for more research articles.
