Experimenting with Muscle Healing: Gua Sha

Summary Background Info: Three and a half years ago, in the spring of 2016, my IT band became injured when training for my first full-marathon (which I still haven't done). Instead of slowly returning to my training (during the 20-mile run week), I jumped right back in as hard as I could, after two weeks of no running because of melanoma stitches. I dropped back to the half-marathon a few weeks after that because of the pain, and my IT band has bothered me off and on since (...especially because I carried and birthed baby #3 in there. Diastasis recti, a gap in my ab muscles, is one of my physical flaws that affects my core strength. I've been told by two physical therapists that its size makes them believe only surgery will close it. And I don't want to do that. I have been very active, despite it, and I feel like I am doing what's best, experimenting with activity about a problem that is still pretty new to modern medical professionals.)

Before, it has taken two to three months of no running to get my IT band and angry quad muscles to relax enough to run with no pain. I rode my bike, got a month's pass to the local gym with swimming lanes, and saw a physical therapist for a couple of months. It.took.forevvvvvvverrrrrrrrrrrr. Or at least it felt like that long; looking back, I realize how healthy I am to exercise the way I do. But when my IT band started bothering me three weeks ago, after my 11-mile run for a current half-marathon training cycle, my heart dropped. My next half-marathon will be my fourth, and it is the first since baby #3 was born. On October 26, less than two weeks, I look so forward to running the autumn-colored hills of Land Between the Lakes in Grand River, KY, just like I did four years ago in my very first half-marathon. My IT band hadn't bothered me at all this year, after I took off some time and focused on yoga at Christmas. I exercised so much self-restraint each week since New Years, gently adding mileage and speed while dutifully performing my strength exercises and glute-activation exercises before *every* workout. I had done my part... all the parts I could know to control at this time in the process. So I was utterly discouraged. For a couple of days I was certain I would not be able to run this half... and forget about all my full- and ultra-marathon curiosities.

BUT

Then I remembered something I'd recently seen on some professional runners' social media accounts: muscle scraping, also called "gua sha." I obsessively read several accounts and personal experiences for five days, after Googling it. In short: A couple thousand years ago, Chinese observed how tense muscles caused a block in bloodflow. If blood cannot flow freely, then all of the healing elements in nutrition aren't getting to the centers that need repair. So using ancient stones or crystals (or stainless steel in current days), they realized that lubricating the skin over tight muscles, and then applying pressure in a downward motion repeatedly for a couple of minutes, reached deeper muscle tissue than typical massages. Capillaries burst, bruises happen, and new blood rushes in to heal what has been hardened by tension.

I am not a gimmicky person, and I do not like instant fixes that are nothing more than masks on decay. I also fear a lot of health issues, and I was unsure how to feel about all the bruising I read would occur if I gave gua sha a try. Some sites I read advised massage therapists to be sure their patients realized how bruised they would be after a gua sha session because they could be accused of abuse. Yikes!

But I was desperate, and athletes I admire and respect as people and performers have been doing it for years as an effective warm-up, pre-hab, that reduces injuries.

My IT band was injured on September 21. That's when the pain became unbearable for running.
One week later, September 28, I received my affordable stainless steel gua sha tool from Amazon. This one, if you're interested: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07J1JW38F/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I was so nervous to do it. I texted my closest friends. I was even trembling. I guess I was worried I'd give myself a blood clot or damage my muscle beyond repair? I am an irrationally fearful person, enneagram 6. I did NOT read any accounts of either of those terrible things happening. (If a person suffers from any clotting or thin blood disorder, they are advised not to do gua sha, or to at least consult a medical professional. I have no blood disorders.)

If you don't like gruesome photos, then skip ahead. The first day I did it for less than five minutes on several lanes of my left thigh. It hurt while I did it. I put some essential oils on my skin to ensure smooth gliding of the tool. The skin was not scraped or scratched. Capillaries under the surface, in the muscles, burst into bruises that called for attention to healing. I am so happy I took this chance. It hurt excruciatingly while I did it, but when I stopped it was just sorely stiff like a bruise for about 48 hours.

Immediately after my first ever gua sha, Sept. 28

This was a few hours after the gua sha that same day.

This was the day after, September 30.

This was a few days later, Friday, Oct. 3. The bruising steadily decreased each day. I haven't seen bruises in a week, even though I have used gua sha every day in the same location. That is evidence of healing, as are all the miles I have put in. :)

My half-marathon is in less than two weeks. I still feel the discomfort in my IT band because I am strengthening my hips and adjusting to a new running gait, but the pain is absent. I gua sha every day, before, sometimes during, and after all my workouts. The tension and bruising ceased a week ago. Where the band attaches to my hip and knee, I feel some remaining hardness, as well as on the spot right above my left glute, and they lessen every day.

When professional runner Sara Hall (2:22 in the Berlin Marathon a couple weeks ago) showed followers on Instagram how she has done this massage therapy as a warm up for eight years, I knew it was okay to experiment with it consistently for my own health.

Gua sha massage enables me to run as I figure out why my IT band is over-compensating on my left side. Feeling the band while I run, and engaging the changes I study about in my glutes and hips, helps me adjust because I can actually feel the changes while they need to happen. Also, think of all the healing those muscles have experienced because the gua sha cleared a path for healing nutrients to contact what was hurting? I am amazed, and I want my athletic and non-athletic loved ones who experience muscle tension to at least be aware of this technique and perhaps research how it could positively affect daily activity.

Googling "gua sha" will show how celebrities have been using this massage for facial youth and rejuvenation. I have done it while washing my face a few times... and see that "not-a-hickey"?

I ran the half-marathon distance in my workout yesterday, with lots of gua sha. I may not get a PR in this half, but I feel so encouraged about this gift: my health, knowledge of gua sha, the tool to do gua sha, the courage to try something sorta unheard of and painful as an investment in healing. I think gua sha is the next big thing, and I wanted to share my experience. Please consult medical professionals you trust if you research this and have any concerns. I do NOT want anyone to harm him or herself because of my positive experience.