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Alternate names: 昌阳 chāng yáng, Glorious Yang; 伏白 fú bái, Deep-Lying White; 伏臼 fú jiù, Deep-Lying Mortar; 复白 fù bái, Returning White; 外命 wài mìng, Outer Life

Channel: KI, foot lesser yīn (shào yīn) kidney channel

Modern location: An acupoint located on the medial aspect of the lower leg, 2 cùn superior to the tip of the medial malleolus, adjacent to the anterior border of the Achilles tendon (t. calcaneus).

Classical location: In the depression two cùn above the inner anklebone. From The Systematic Classic of Acupuncture and Moxibustion (针灸甲乙经 zhēn jiǔ jiǎ yǐ jīng)

Local anatomy: At the deep level, anteriorly, the posterior tibial artery and vein. The medial sural and medial crural cutaneous nerves; deeper, the tibial nerve.

Action: Supplements the kidney and boosts yīn; frees the water ways.

Modern indications: Water swelling; abdominal distension; diarrhea; night sweating; febrile disease with absence of sweating; wilting-impediment (wěi bì) of the lower limbs.

Classical indications: The five stranguries; intestinal afflux (cháng pì); rumbling intestines; abdominal pain; lumbar pain; cold in the lower leg; absence of sweating; abdominal distension; swelling of the limbs; bleeding hemorrhoids; heavy feeling in the rectum after diarrhea; pain in the nostrils; dry belching; irascibility and talkativeness; curled tongue preventing speech; pus and blood in the stool; qì stagnation in the lumbus; pain on the dorsum of the foot.

Needle stimulus: Needling: 0.3‒0.5 cùn perpendicular insertion. Moxa: 5‒7 cones; pole 5‒8 min.

Needle sensation: Localized numbness and distension sometimes spreading towards the feet.

Point groups: River (jīng) (metal) point.

Point name meaning:

• 复 fù: to recover; to turn around
• 溜 liū: to slide, glide, flow; smooth; a swift current

KI-7 is an important point for inducing perspiration to aid a patient’s recovery (复 fù) from exterior patterns by promoting the flow (流 liú) of sweat. The point is therefore called Recover Flow. KI-7 is also an instrumental point for stopping perspiration, thereby helping the patient to recover from the flow of sweat. Further, kidney qì leaves the channel at KI-6 to flow into the yīn springing (yīn qiāo) vessel. The flow then returns to the kidney channel at KI-7, so that the channel recovers the flow that it lost at KI-6.

The points below KI-7 on the kidney channel (KI-3 to KI-6) make a circular path behind the inner malleolus. After KI-7, the qì resumes a straight path up the leg; the point name could thus be rendered as Returning Flow.

In modern usage, the characters 留 (liú), meaning to remain or stay, and 溜 (liū), meaning to flow, are clearly distinguished from one another, but they were not so in classical usage. With both the above meanings in mind, the point name can serve as a reminder of the two main diseases that KI-7 treats, i.e., water swelling (in which water remains at some location) and spontaneous perspiration (where there is repeated flow of sweat).

KI-7 is alternately called Deep-Lying White because it is the metal point on the kidney (water) channel, and is thus metal (i.e., white) within water. The alternate names Deep-Lying Mortar and Returning White are presumably mistranscriptions of Deep-Lying White due to the similarity of either the characters themselves or their pronunciation. See acupoint names: origins, meanings, and translations.

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