Slimming and beautiful legs with hand scraping to relieve lower limb swelling

The summer is hot and many women wear hot pants and short skirts to show off their long and beautiful legs. However, many people's lower limbs are swollen due to poor metabolism and they always cover them with long pants and long skirts. Chinese medicine practitioners say that simply using both hands to scrape the legs can improve blood circulation and prevent edema and varicose veins, but the force should be lighter than scraping for heatstroke, and the direction should be opposite, from bottom to top, so as not to cause blood stasis in the lower body.

Many women are worried that leg edema and varicose veins will affect their appearance, so they dare not wear shorts or skirts in summer. However, Chinese medicine practitioner Dong Yirong said that using scraping therapy and massaging the legs with the back of the hands every day can improve blood circulation and shape slender and beautiful legs. (Photography by Huang Zhiwen)

Edema, varicose veins, and legs that are too embarrassing to see in public

Dong Yirong, a Chinese medicine practitioner at the Department of Traditional Chinese Medicine of Changhua Christian Hospital, said that many women often suffer from lower body edema due to their physical constitution or prolonged sitting or standing, which causes obstructed blood circulation. Their shoes may feel comfortable when they put them on in the morning, but in the afternoon their feet will feel swollen and the shoes seem to have become smaller. Others will maintain the same posture for a long time, causing blood stasis in the lower limbs, damaging the venous valves, and increasing venous blood pressure leading to varicose veins, with earthworm-like purple stripes appearing on the skin surface.

Scraping for Heatstroke VS Scraping for Beautiful Legs

Gua Sha is a well-known folk therapy in China. In addition to being used to relieve summer heat, it can also help beautify the legs and prevent or relieve edema or varicose veins caused by poor blood circulation. However, the operating principles and methods of the two are slightly different.

Scraping for heatstroke is to use external force to slightly stimulate the subcutaneous capillaries without injuring the skin, causing them to expand and dissipate heat, lowering the body temperature and relieving dizziness, vomiting, nausea and other discomforts. The scraping areas during heatstroke are mostly concentrated between the Jianjing point and the Dazhui point. Depending on the individual's physical condition, the skin may turn red or appear in flaky purple-red spots after scraping. When scraping, it is advisable to scrape gently from top to bottom and from inside to outside.

The beautiful leg scraping method also promotes blood circulation through "scraping", unblocks local lymph and blood congestion, and prevents edema, varicose veins and other discomforts. However, Chinese medicine practitioner Dong Yirong said that it is not easy to get sha on the legs. The direction of scraping should be from bottom to top and from outside to inside. The inside and outside of the legs and the front and back can be scraped, but the force should be light to avoid pain or even increase venous pressure.

Before doing scraping on the legs, you can apply lotion or baby oil as a lubricant to avoid damaging the skin and causing wounds during scraping.

How to choose scraping tools? Traditional Chinese Medicine: Hands can do everything

Which instrument is safer for scraping? Chinese medicine practitioner Dong Yirong believes that hands are more suitable than a scraping board. She explained that scraping tools such as scraping boards and wooden comb backs only have one-sided contact with the skin and a small area, which can easily damage the skin; but if you pinch or push with your hands, the contact area is wide and the fingers are highly sensitive, you can accurately determine the location of blood or qi stasis, and further massage to clear it. In addition to massaging with your hands, you can also make a fist and use the joints of the four fingers to scrape the back, which is also effective.