Hijama Therapy: It involves drawing blood with suction cups

Dr Zubeir Mohammed Hassan, a cupping and acupressure therapist at his clinic, Siha Center in Mombasa. [Omondi Onyango,Standard]

Zubeir Mohammed specialises in cupping and acupressure, a practice that began accidentally in 2014 after being diagnosed with chronic transverse myelitis- a neurological disorder of the spinal cord.

Symptoms began while he was walking around the Kaaba in Mecca during the lesser Hajj referred to as Umrah for his parents. “It started as a pain in my heel,” recalls Mohammed, but later turned into “a disease that was threatening to put me in a vegetative state.”