4 FACTULS ABOUT CUPPING ie BLOODLETTING

CUPPING or BLOODLETTING translates to "BEKAM". I'm sure why you guys wondering, why a post about bloodletting, and the answer is because I underwent one yesterday, for a pain that was buggering me wrist for about 3 weeks already. I was originally offered a 'massage' but then after a couple of pinching and painful pressing, I was induced to try 'bekam' as the Makcik says 'Ini kalau urut pun takkan baik punya, bekam aje'. And hence, here's some of the factuls about Bloodletting.

1.
Bloodletting draws out bad blood from your system..and your money too..
Of course it draws blood, what else? And those bloods are said to be the bloods that is bad, containing all the dead blood, uric asids, and so on. So how are we going to prove that? Litmus paper? I have no idea how, but when those bloods are out, after 10mins of cupping, it seem to be a bit funny where the color is a bit darker and it gelled like 'dadih'. When asked why, the Makcik says 'Darah awak pekat nie, tak pernah bekam ke? Kalau darah orang eksiden merah, cair tak jadi pekat cam nie'. Ooo..ok...And how much it cost me? Initially she asked for RM15 per cup, so I told her just gimme 3 cups, as I told her I brought only RM50, but then she put on 5 cups, which prompt me to ask her, that's going to cost me more, and she said don't worry, 'ada diskaun'. And at the end, RM 50 changed hands. Quite a cost for a 15 minutes process, and me wrist still hurts.

2.
Bloodletting is good, when in an honest, know what you're doing hands.
It was said that bloodletting is following the "Prophet way" as advertised in the pamphlet from the shop, and checks with Mr. Wiki confirms this. So, me arguments is that, it's probably a good treatment, but why does my hands still hurts. Why? Here's why. When at the start of the process, the Makcik brought out a shaving tool and started to shave my hands. I don't have problems shaving my macho arms hairs, but the problems is the shaver is full with somebody else's hair! Shoot!! Where's your safety and health guidelines?Never heard of HIV ka? How come a medical practitioner didn't know this. It started to piss me off but, as a good patient that trust the 'doctor', I told her to stop (even though she just managed to trim a bit off) and change the blade. 'Ini yang saya malas nak buat bende camnie. Setakat nak tukar pisau pun susah ker? Baru berapa sen aje mata pisau tu?' in a good, nice manner. So, she changed the blade and I found out that she was using a good one, which is Gillette,and I guessed that's why, because Gillette is not cheap, it's about 70 cents each, so I asked her why don't you just use the cheaper TOPAZ blade, and the reply was 'Tok guru saya ajar macam nie, tak boleh suka-suka tukar, pisau ni buaya pun boleh potong'. Kih kih kih, I laughed in temper. But the process goes on.

After shaving another handful of my arm hair, she brought out the cups. There's small cup, big cup, medium cup, cups with profile at the mouth, and so on (I wondered if they are labeled as cup A, B or C... No D, I guess..). She then started to position the cups to my arm, and start sucking the air out by using a what it seems to be a hand pump. This time, the hand pump has  smear of bloods at its handle. I was about to cancel the process, but I asked 'Camner awak nak potong, pakai nie ke?'..'Tak nanti awak tengok ler'..Twice I asked but I got the same answer, but when I saw her breaking a new Gillette blade in half, I'd calmed down. But then, another awkward moment happens when she couldn't position the cups, when pumped, the cups holds for a while and dislodged because the pressure was off, and the surface was too small to get a proper vacuum on. 'Biasa ler kat pergelangan tangan ni memang susah sikit nak letak'. So in the end she put it where it can hold, but not where the pain was. Again as a good patient, I had let the good 'doctor' proceed as they know best.

After she pumped about 5 spots, the surface turned a bit darker, she'd removed a cup and started to make small incisions by using the broken blade, and to tell the truth, the pain was quite joyful, and there was a girl next to the booth, who is being duped into joining a cheap, low cost travel package (not like me, I am not being duped, I am voluntarily) was watching, and she started to 'Ish..aa..tengok tu orang bekam dia hiris tangan..Eee'..and I just smiled like there was nothing happening, "macam gigit semut jer..". It was about 10 to 15 small incisions made per cup on the skins, when after those incisions, she put back the same cup on the same spot and pumped the air out again. This is when, all the bad blood was pouring out, and you can feel the pressure sucking it. It was quite a new sensation, when I noticed that suddenly, the booth was full of people watching. People shoving theirs head around to watch and I felt, they must think I'm insane by doing this. Again, normally, these 'procedures', will be done in a closed booth, which they have in site, but for me, as it was only for one arm, she said it will be fine as you don't need to lie down, so I agreed to do it outside in the open, which I never thought that in the process I would be subjected to be the 'lab rat' for the others to check upon. I just smiled back to those people and then turned my head, looking down and thinking how can this be happening to such a skeptic like me.

Meanwhile, the Makcik noticed that one of the blood started to bubbles. She showed me that and said 'Yang berbuih tu sebab asid'..'Oh ye ke..' ..But when closely inspected, I found that there was a leak coming from between the skin and the cup mouth, so I showed her, and said 'Nie buih ni pasal bocor nie...kat sini..' She just blinked. So, from all those experience, I had come to the conclusion which, bloodletting is good, when in an honest, know what you're doing hands. And me wrist still hurts. 

3.
Bloodletting leaves marks.
A hell lot of marks. Yes it will leave bruises marks, but not only that, there was marks of unproper planning, marks of no point, marks of self destruction,more painful marks and marks of disbelief in my mind to why in the world I had done this. But, some goods has come out from this. First, I got to blog about it, you can read first hand experience about bloodletting, and we could learn something good from it, like, me wrist still hurts.

 

4.
Bloodletting is a SCAM?
Well, I am not saying that the kind of treatment is, but from the above experience, I came to the conclusion that the people running it, is probably running a scam. Why? Additional to the pieces above, I had noticed some tell tales that is typical to a standard scam (my on ISO standard on scams).

First, luring or setting up the bait. They do this by luring you with something like let me just check first, when you're hook, then they sell you their most expensive items. In this case, the Makcik offer me feet massage,but I don't need one. Since my wrist was aching, I asked can you instead massage it? Can, she said, and you know the rest of the story, how I was hooked and the process begins, from initially just checking to a full hand cupping.

Secondly, questions is answered, but not to the question itself. Confusing? Right, when asked about further details, they will answer to it, but the answer is guiding you somewhere else. Example, when asked about how long does this bruise marks will disappears, the answer was 'Sapu aje minyak ni nanti hilang ler'. When asked, how do you clean all this equipment, the answer was 'oh semua bawak balik ke kedai, cuci guna chemical'...'Jadi banyak ler cup nie...mana tak nampak pun?'..'Eh..ada.. banyak lagi kat kereta, berbeg-beg lagi'....ya ka..

Thirdly, putting faith as a confident-ship. They will tend to attract us by showing that the  treatment is considered an Islamic treatment, included in the hadith and so on. They even went for asking my name, and then without reason, my mother name and then, asked me to cite 'Al-Fatihah and selawat 3x', before the treatment begin,(and before the cupping is offered) just to show that they are running an honest business. Since I normally would just avoid things like these, I guess you are wondering why after all those tell tales and I still got duped? Well, simply because, some people still have that senses of trusting other people without bad judgment, and consider all people are good at heart, but the main reason was because me wrist hurts and I needed to solve it.

And in the end, my wrist still hurts and I should have just gone to see a doctor..