Da Zhui: TCM Acupoint Guide

Name

Da Zhui (Dazhui)

Location

On the midline of the spine at the base of the neck, in the depression below the spinous process of the seventh cervical vertebra, between the spinous processes of the seventh cervical and the first thoracic vertebrae.

Needling

• Perpendicular-oblique superior insertion, 0.5 to 1 cun. Sensation: local distention and soreness extending downward to both shoulders.
• Caution: the spinal cord lies between 1.25 and 1.75 cun below the skin surface, varying according to body build. If an electric sensation or numb sensation is felt in the limbs, the needle should be immediately withdrawn.
• Moxibustion is applicable according to age, for example 30 cones at age thirty.

Command Functions

• Meeting point of the Governing channel with the six Yang channels of the hands and feet
• Point of the Sea of Qi
• Influential point of Yang

Actions

• Expels Wind and Wind-Heat and relieves the Exterior
• Firms the Exterior and tonifies Protective Wei Qi
• Regulates Nutritive and Defensive Qi
• Clears Fire, Heat and Summerheat
• Reduces fever
• Treats malaria
• Tonifies Deficiency
• Pacifies Wind
• Opens the Yang
• Regulates the Yang channels
• Clears the brain
• Calms the Shen
• Facilitates Qi flow
• Regulates Qi
• Tonifies Yang
• Restores collapsed Yin
• Relaxes the sinews

Indications

• Injury by Cold leading to a high fever with agitation and vomiting
• Common cold due to Wind-Heat
• Aversion to Wind with shivering, chills and fever
• Warm malaria
• Alternating chills and fever
• Malarial disorders
• Intermittent fever
• Tidal fevers
• Throat painful obstruction, throat Bi
• Fullness of the chest and lateral costal region with depression
• Deficiency sweating
• Night sweats
• Streaming bone disorder
• Heat in the bones with recurrent fever
• Lack of strength
• Physical weakness
• Asthenia
• Does not want to speak
• Shortness of breath with inability to speak
• Afternoon fever
• Febrile convulsions
• Cough
• Bronchitis
• Whooping cough
• Pulmonary tuberculosis
• Five types of tuberculosis
• Dyspnea
• Tuberculosis due to Wind
• Psychosis
• Headache
• Eczema and urticaria due to Wind-Heat
• Pain in the back of the shoulder
• Extreme dryness of the teeth of the upper jaw, especially the incisors
• Mania
• Melancholia
• Emphysema
• Muscular tetany
• All febrile diseases
• Hemiplegia
• Asthma
• Fullness in the Lungs
• The five taxations
• The seven injuries
• Wind taxation, chronic Bi leading to exhaustion of Qi and Blood
• Pain of the hundred joints
• Epilepsy
• Seizures
• Infantile convulsions
• Chronic and acute childhood fright Wind
• Hypertension
• Insomnia
• Hematemesis
• Epistaxis that does not stop
• Stiffness of the spine
• Stiffness of the nape of the neck with inability to turn the head
• Neck pain
• Neck rigidity
• Torticollis
• Spasms of the neck muscles
• Jaundice
• Hepatitis
• Vomiting
• Sensations of energy rising to the upper part of the body
• Heat stroke
• Hysteria
• Blood diseases
• Congested throat
• Osseous tuberculosis with Yang symptoms and dryness of the upper incisors
• Atrophy, Wei, syndrome due to Lung Heat
• Closed-type coma
• Heat Bi with fever

Combinations

Notes

A major point for lowering fever, with a unique ability to clear pathogens from the Tai Yang, Shao Yang and Yang Ming stages. One of the principal points to treat sweating. This point is often needled toward either shoulder when neck pain radiates laterally. It can have opposite effects depending on the needling method: with the reducing method it releases the Exterior for treating Wind-Heat, regulates the Ying and the Wei and clears Interior Heat; with the reinforcing method, or with moxibustion, it tonifies Yang, especially Heart Yang, clears the mind and stimulates the brain.