Five traditional therapies for chronic pain. Acupuncture, tui na, cupping, gua sha and herbal medicine. What each one involves, and when we use it.

Hair-fine, single-use needles at points along the body’s channels — often a long way from the spot that hurts, and sometimes with a gentle electrical pulse added. The one most visits start with.

Hands-on Chinese bodywork — pressing, kneading, rolling and stretching, worked into whatever has seized up. Often done in the same visit as the needles.

Glass cups that draw the tissue up instead of pressing it down, reaching muscle that hands struggle to get into. It leaves round marks, and they fade.

A smooth-edged tool drawn firmly along oiled skin, in one direction, until the tight muscle underneath starts to give. It brings up a red mottling called sha, and that fades in a few days.