Why You are Afraid to Have Hijama
Hijama Looks Scary
You’ve seen videos of people on YouTube of people with cups attached to various parts of the body full of blood. It looked so horrific to you that you thought the person was going to bleed to death or something. You couldn’t understand why there was just so much blood and you told yourself; ‘that’s not for me’.
You’ve Never Done it Before
Simply put- fear of the unknown. Of course you will be afraid of something that you’ve never done before. You don’t know what it feels like, you don’t know how you’ll react to it-what if you faint or something? You wonder if it’s going to work for you, are there any side effects or could you get an infection from the incisions?
You Don’t Like Blood
You have a fear of blood. It makes you feel weak just seeing it and you can’t imagine someone cutting your skin open to take your blood out. The thought of blood makes you feel dizzy, seeing it makes you feel faint and icky. You feel like throwing up just looking at blood. You close your eyes anytime you see blood and dread having your blood taken by the doctor because blood just looks gross.
You Don’t Like to Get Injections
Who likes being injected? I’m yet to meet someone who does. That feeling of the needle going into your arm. The sharp feeling of being pinched or poked with a sharp object. In your mind you imagine that’s what the incisions of hijama feel like, really painful and not just one or two but multiples of ten per cup. Of course when you watched the videos on YouTube you saw so much blood that you could only assume that the person must have been cut so deeply and/or so many times for that amount of blood to be coming out of them. Surely it must be painful?
Hijama is nothing like having an injection, the incisions are so shallow and superficial when done correctly you can barely feel it.
It Looks Painful
I think we all relate seeing blood to pain. After all why would somebody bleed unless they have received a cut and cuts are usually painful. Many people who have never had hijama imagine that the incisions must be like paper cuts! Ew! Papercuts have got to be one of the most painful and annoying of cuts and sting for days. Hijama is nothing like that. Even though small incisions are made in the skin they aren’t deep at all and in normal cases heal within a few days.
It's Not Something Your Doctor Recommended
In my experience many doctors still have not heard about hijama and the few that have don’t know much about it or have not tried it for themselves. Many would also say that there’s no proof that it actually works. (Er I think the proof is that people who have it feel better). I have even met many Muslim doctors who have never even heard of hijama, this really surprises me as I would have thought that those Muslims who are interested in medicine would from an early stage of their careers look up medicinal practices at the time of Prophet Muhammad ﷺ. It is a lot more than just the black seed. Many of my clients don’t have hijama treatments before going to the doctor for check ups because they are worried that they will be shunned for practicing a traditional medicine that the doctor doesn’t know about or recognise as being in any way beneficial.
You Think it Will Leave Scars
People think that the cuts from hijama are deep and will leave scars on their body, but as I said before the incisions are superficial and only made in the surface of the skin so they close and heal without scarring.
You Don’t Want to be Bruised
Similar to believing that hijama is painful after seeing someone who has had hijama with ‘bruises’ on different parts of their body which is one of the things that make people think hijama is painful. The marks that are left on the skin after hijama are not bruises but colouration marks. This occurs due to the suction that is placed on the skin during hijama and are not painful at all. It just looks that way, but trust me ask anyone who has had hijama and they will tell you those marks are not painful at all.