Gua sha-

a traditional Chinese medical practice using a stone, sharpened porcelain spoon, steel edge, or jade stone to create dermabrasion lines from the spine outwards, causing extreme redness to the skin in areas of gua sha application.  It is used frequently by the Chinese after an oil massage to begin with. The term "sha" refers to the petechia or extravasation of blood along the lines of applying these instruments that literally scrape the skin.  The Chinese use these techniques for the treatment of many maladies including active hepatitis B, migraines, shoulder pain, back and knee pain, fever, flu, earaches, asthma and bronchitis.  It may attract the attention of American physicians who generally oppose the technique, and it may be confused with child abuse in young adults and children.  Because it is so common among those from China and Southeast Asia, many patients avoid modern physicians due to their vocal opposition to patients using the technique.  Gua sha is very similar to coining.   There is very little medical evidence of effectiveness (Chin Med. 2010 Jan 29;5:5. doi: 10.1), but there are many poorly constructed low level studies in the Chinese and Western literature.  There are some basic science experiments showing an anti-inflammatory effect but practitioners using these are engaging in a leap of faith to translate these into human results, and at best are engaging in defrauding of patients claiming there is science to support Gua sha as of 2018.  As usual, the Chinese medical literature does not translate to reproducible results in Western medicine since 1. the Chinese do not use standards for constructing randomized controlled trials,  2. have a high bias rate compared to Western studies, and 3. rarely use a specific technique alone- the Chinese throw many techniques and treatments at a disease or condition at the same time, hoping something in the combination actually works.  Therefore Western medicine is prudently skeptical about any results from China or Chinese practitioners until they can meet the more rigid standards of conducting scientific experiments.