in this video we are going over the foot jouen liver channel as always the way we go about this is we start by going over the general functions and characteristics of the liver channel because if we know how the liver channel is supposed to work that will give us some clues as to what these points can do for us then we're going to go over the channel pathways including the primary channel law connecting channel sinew channel divergent channel and all those pathways and again knowing the pathways of the channel is going to help us understand the functions of some of these points and then we're going to go over the individual point functions and indications so that's the plan for today if you want to follow along with the slides those are available on the website there's a link in the descript description below to download them but let's go ahead and get started with the foot jwin liver channel so as always when we start with uh any channel i always like to start with this quote from chapter eight of the su when this is the the place where each organ is assigned a government office and here we're using the translations from wong jui's apply channel theory so for the liver chapter eight of the su wen says the liver holds the office of general and is the issuer of strategy and planning so we think about the liver we can think about a general commanding the troops the general giving orders and telling people where to go so if our liver is good and in harmony we can think about a general who's firm and resolute but also uh relaxed and quiet that even though if there's all this chaos going around he's able to keep his composure and give orders and have a proper plan and strategy of what to do and has the courage to follow through with those plans on the other hand if our liver is a little bit out of order maybe a better picture would be like a drill sergeant someone who's angry shouting barking orders um and just uh maybe not so much in control but someone who's always angry and shouting and so that's a little bit more of a disharmonious liver so when we say the liver holds the office of general on the one hand we can think of this in terms of our patients so you might have a patient who comes in and he he or she is maybe angry they like to give you orders sometimes you'll have a patient who dictates the treatment to you they say i want this point here and this point here and they have a shouting voice they're very angry sometimes you have people that they like to have a plan but they're not very flexible when those plans change or sometimes you have people who just have no plan and they're unable to plan or strategize so on the one hand we can think of that in terms of our patients if you see a person like this that's a they come in like a general commanding the troops you might think oh this person is a liver person i might want to address some issues on the liver channel if we have a patient that comes in that they're either they're unable to make plans they're unable to follow through with their plans or on the other side their their plans are very rigid and they're unable to be flexible we might say oh this is a liver type of thing remember that liver belongs to the wood face and when we say wood we actually mean a tree so when a tree is healthy it's supposed to be green and flexible and bends very easily in the wind but does not break when our tree is unhealthy then instead of bending it just snaps so that's what we want to think about too is do they have this flexibility in their planning and strategizing or are they just rigid and if things don't go to plan they fall apart so on the one hand we can think about that in terms of our patients but we can also think about this as in the actual liver the functions of the liver the liver is a general so one of the things the general has to do is manage its resources so the liver is managing its great reserves of yin blood the liver is also giving orders and commanding the troops telling the qi and blood where to go so this relates to its function of governing free coursing so the liver is governing that free coursing all over the body and has an effect on all the organs and that's part of its strategy and planning as well so so those are some of the things we're going to see pop up here when we talk about the characteristics of the liver channel oh yeah i'd like to think of like i have a lot of mulan in here so think about general general shang a strong resolute commanding the troops but also having us plan and managing his resources so we look at the functions of the liver [Music] one one major function we always think of is the liver stores blood so how is this going to come up in the points well we can basically anything that has to do with the blood is going to be related to the liver so we can think about this in terms of tonifying blood invigorating blood and preventing blood stagnation or clearing blood heat all these things are related to the liver because the liver stores blood and manages those resources what this also means is the liver blood is going to be very much connected to the chong the ren and menses so when we go through these points we're going to see a lot of regulating menstruation this could be delayed menses prolonged menses uterine bleeding when we say uterine bleeding we might mean profuse menses prolonged menses the cycle the bleeding lasts more than seven days we could mean spotting between periods we could mean painful menses things like that just because that's blood the liver stores the blood we're going to turn to points on the liver channel to treat some of those conditions we also say that the liver spreads qi or maintains free flow sometimes we say that the liver governs free coursing and this is about regulating and moving the chi sometimes we say that the liver governs orderly reaching that the chi has to reach all the areas of the body and it's the liver that has that spreading and reaching function another more chinese way maybe to say it is that the liver is in charge of dredging draining and regulating that the liver dredges drains and regulates and what do we mean by dredging the chi well maybe you can remember that when we talked about the channels one of the analogies we used was irrigation ditches we said the channels are like rivers or irrigation ditches that are supplying water to the fields or supplying nutrients to the organs of the body well it turns out that if you want to have your irrigation ditches to work all the time you need someone in charge of maintaining those irrigation ditches and sometimes we need to dredge them out that we need to make sure that the irrigation ditches are free and clear so that the water can move through them and so this is the function of the liver by dredging the channels it's maintaining the channels and maintaining free flow just like if you had a bunch of irrigation ditches it suddenly gets stuck somebody's got to go out there and dig it out and make sure everything can run clear that's what the liver is doing when we say it spreads qi maintains free flow or dredges and drains the channels so when this comes up we're going to see a lot of liver points that have something to do with chi stagnation and making sure that the chi is free-flowing so we're going to see a lot of points that have to do with pain distension and just ensuring free flow through the channels and this is not just about the liver this is not just about we have our classic liver cheese stagnation signs like frequent sign rib side distension propensity towards anger yes those are liver t stagnation signs but this also applies to the other organs the liver has a job of maintaining free flow of chi so that the other organs can do their job and this is going to come up with things like the stomach if things aren't freely coursing through the stomach they can get stuck and we can end up with rebellious stomach g this is also going to be really big with the bladder that by governing free coursing and maintaining free flow this is going to help with transformation in the bladder and what this means in terms of our points is we're going to see a lot of points that have to do with urination problems that difficult urination painful urination retention of urine and that has to do with the liver's ability to maintain free flow so that the ub can do its job so it's not just about liver chi stagnation but also the other organs as well we say that the liver is related to the sinews in terms of the tissues each of each of our organs is related to one of the tissues we say the lung governs the skin and body hair and so on the heart governs the blood and vessels well the liver we say the liver governs the sinews the liver dominates the sinews or here we can say the liver nourishes the sinews or the tendons and so here maybe you can think of in order for our muscles and tendons to work they have to be properly nourished by the liver blood if the liver fails in its function of nourishing the sinews or nourishing the tendons they can get dried up think about maybe like a rubber band that's really nice it's going to be stretchy and flexible if your rubber band dries out it's no longer stretchy and flexible it's more like it's brittle and it breaks so again we're going to see this come up in the points in terms of things like hypertonicity of the sinews spasm and contraction inhibiting bending and flexing of the joints and things like that then we also talk about the nails just because the we say the nails are the surplus of the sinews and so that's another way we often use this diagnostically that if a person has weak brittle nails or they have ridges on the nails that could be an indication an external indication that the liver is not properly nourishing the sinews so i'm not sure i'm not sure if that comes up in our points but we that is something we do talk about diagnostically is asking the person do you have strong nails or brittle nails are there ridges on the nails and that is related to the liver dominating the sinews we also say the liver opens to the eyes again each of the five organs is associated with a sense organ so the kidney goes to the ears blah blah blah here the liver opens to the eyes it's when though when the eyes are properly nourished by the liver the eyes are able to perceive the five colors so it's something like that in the neging what's this what's this going to mean for us is one that the liver blood has to properly nourish the eye so if liver blood is not properly nourishing the eyes we can get things like blurred vision cloudy vision reduced vision what this also means is if we have heat in the liver channel sometimes this heat can rise up into the face and affect the eyes and we can get red eyes itchy eyes things like that so that's something we're going to see as we go through these points is we're going to have certain points on the liver channel that benefit the eyes either treat dry red itchy eyes or help with vision problems by nourishing with liver blood and then finally we say that the function of the liver is the liver stores the hun or the ethereal soul the liver soul stores the hun what is the hoon well we can say a couple things about it um there is a section of this again in wong judy's applied channel theory he has a nice section on what do we mean by the whom sometimes when we talk about the hoon we're talking about uh that aspect of the spirit that manifests as courage that the the will to follow through on your plans so again we said that the liver governs strategy and planning so it's one thing to have a plan a plan of action a plan of things whatever you want to do but then you need the courage to back it up and follow through and again there's a balance here if you don't have enough courage we talk about uh timidity and this is something that comes up with both the liver and the gallbladder that we talk about courage versus timidity that with if there's not enough qi the person would be timid and they don't have enough gall they don't have enough guts they don't have enough gumption to follow through on the other hand if you have too much courage that's going to result in rashness or overconfidence or charging in even though your plan doesn't really work so that's one aspect of the hoon when we say the liver stores the hoon we can be talking about courage another aspect um just one that comes up maybe a little more practically in the clinic is basically this is a way we can explain the liver involvement in conditions like insomnia normally when we talk about insomnia we're talking about the heart shen that the heart has to house the shen the shen has to come home to the heart and be relaxed in order for us to fall asleep and so a lot of our liver a lot of our insomnia patterns involve the heart well it turns out we have the same thing with the liver and the whom that the human has to come home to the liver and be relaxed otherwise we can't fall asleep so sometimes if a person has trouble sleeping you might say oh your hoon your ethereal soul is out wandering around and this is just a convenient way to explain why certain insomnia conditions we're going to treat the liver instead of the heart has to do with the whom or the ethereal soul some other characteristics we can talk about is we can say the liver corresponds to the wood phase and to wind so again liver corresponds to wood and when we say wood don't think of like a piece of lumber or a p or a two by four that you build your house out of the character here is mu which means wood but also means tree so think about the liver as a tree what do trees go what do trees do one they grow upwards so the liver has a rising action the trees grow upward and then they spread their branches out so the liver has an upward direction but it's also supposed to spread things outwards into the limbs also wood is supposed to be like we said flexible and bendy that if the wind comes along it bends but doesn't break if the liver is deficient or out of balance maybe it loses its flexibility so your sinews instead of being pliable and flexible becomes stiff and brittle or emotionally instead of being flexible and going with the winds of life emotionally we can't we lose that flexibility and then in terms of the evils the wood phase corresponds to wind in terms of the five or six evils and so again we're going to see this come up in the points that we go to the liver to treat a lot of wind conditions especially if you have liver heat or liver young rising that can stir up internal wind if we have liver blood deficiency that can make room for the wind to blow through the vessels so this is another thing we're going to see in our points talking about internal wind spasm contraction tremor shaking epilepsy wind stroke and things like that so those are some things we're going to see pop up when we look at the functions and indications of points on the liver channel like we said the liver is like a tree trees grow upwards so the liver governs uprising but again what can be a problem here is that we can have hyperactive uprising that the liver can rise excessively and so we get liver heat liver young rising so again when we look at our points we might see certain conditions with especially with heat that liver qi rises up and we get symptoms in the upper body or in the face dizziness red eyes blurred vision headache that this there's just too much yang rising upward and we need to calm it down or subdue that yawn so that's another thing we're going to see when we look at these point functions of indica and indications things going on in the head where we need to subdue that liver young rising and then in terms of the emotions the liver is associated with anger again we said the wood is about um strategy and planning but it's also the emotion this anger and the sound is shouting so if somebody is angry and shouting you might think this is a liver condition but when we say anger there are also some other offshoots of anger so we say irritability frustration resentment those are all also um we can say those are different uh subcategories of anger but they'll have the same effect as that they can cause constraint of the chi that the liver is supposed to govern free coursing if you um if you feel a lot of anger frustration and resentment that can stagnate your chi or it can happen the other way around if something happens and your chi starts to stagnate then you might be more susceptible to outbursts of anger frustration resentment another one that comes up depression weepiness and mood swings i feel like this is one that's often overlooked that usually we have people coming in with depression it's very easy to think of the heart or the kidneys or we can think about grief with the lungs a lot of people overlook the role of the liver that when the liver is governing free coursing and properly coursing the chi we'll have calmer emotions whereas depression when you have chi stagnation or depressed liver chi as your liver qi is pressed down we might feel emotional depression then we have things like weepiness and mood things um maybe this isn't very nice to say but think about like pms types and uh symptoms where uh again menstruation is very closely related to the liver and so if that liver is not free coursing we can have this moodiness irritability easy to snap at people easy to swing from anger to sadness or weepiness and that may be a sign that the liver is not properly free coursing and so that might be a situation where we want to turn to points on the liver channel for treatment so now that we understand the some of the functions and characteristics of the liver let's go ahead and look at the pathways of the channel so again knowing that where these channels go are going to help us understand what these points can do for us it's going to help us understand why they do what they do what we can make more sense of the functions and indications if we know where the channel actually goes so we always start by looking at the primary channel so the primary channel begins at liver one which is the hairy region of the big toe so on the top of the big toe remember our linkage from the previous channel was gallbladder 41 to liver one so the gallbladder channel goes down the foot and goes to the fourth toe qi doesn't jump from toe to toe usually that's not a thing so instead the gallbladder channel goes down and at gb41 on the dorsum of a foot there's a branch that goes over to the big toe to liver one and that's our linkage from the gallbladder to the liver channel and then the liver channel begins at liver one on the hairy region of the big toe so this is a thing about hobbit feet we got some some hairy big toes and that's where the liver channel starts uh the liver channel goes up the top of the foot and then goes up the inside of the leg liver one two three four on the top of the foot and then we're going on the medial aspect of the leg with liver five six seven eight nine uh and then what's interesting happens is the liver channel goes to the inguinal crease and then it winds around the external genitalia so sometimes we say the liver channel wraps around the external genitals winds around the external jungle or skirts the external genitals that's the that's the one i like as we say the liver channel skirts the genitals and so again this is going to be really important because you might not see a lot of points around there but when we go through our functions and indications we're going to see a lot of benefiting the genitals treating itchiness swelling stuff like that things of the external genitals and then it goes up the abdomen where we're talking uh kind of right around the ren channel right here so we see this uh part of the channel that's in the lower abdomen and so again we said the liver has a lot to do with lower jowl problems either urination problems or menstruation problems because we have that part of the channel at the lower abdomen around the umbilicus and below the umbilicus and then it goes up the abdomen and it curves around the stomach and enters the liver and gallbladder organs remember we said that every channel enters its own organ and its yin yang pair via an internal pathway and so that's what's happening here is we have an internal pathway going to its own organ the liver and at the yin yang pair the gallbladder what we want to pay attention to is does the channel enter any other organs so here it not only enters the liver and gallbladder because that's the yin yang pair also goes to the stomach organ so we're going to see that there are certain points on the liver channel that are very good for stomach issues and again this is related to our free coursing we need free coursing through the stomach in order for to digest our food and have the stomach down bear the food into the small intestine if we lose that free coursing things get stuck and that stomach chi rebels back upward giving us things like hiccup belching nausea vomiting and other types of rebellious stomach jeep so that might be important to know that the liver channel enters the stomach then it passes through a diaphragm spreads over the lateral costal region so this is going to be a very common term we're going to see up when we see come up whenever we talk about the liver whether we're in acupuncture and herbs we see a lot of hypochondriac pain pain in the lateral costal region rib side distension and this is just because the liver channel goes to that area sometimes the way that this comes up clinically is you know i've never had a lot of patients come in and say oh i feel some distension in my lateral costal region or oh i feel this flank pain some of the ways this is going to come up is you might say see the patient has difficulty taking a deep breath as in they can't expand their ribs in order to take a full breath because they have this rib side distension because there's stuckness in their liver channel they can't expand the ribs to take a full breath or another thing another symptom we talk about is frequent sighing that when a person sighs or go when you make that side what's happening is your ribs are expanding and then contracting it's like you're trying to move that chi through the liver channel it's like you're trying to shake off that stagnation that's happening in the rib sides by doing this psi to get things moving and so sometimes you'll have a patient that comes in that every time you ask them a question it'll be like how's your sleep like it's all right oh how's your energy it could be better so that that's kind of an interesting thing that sometimes we have uh on our clinic chart notes they'll be asked they'll try to ask the patient do you have frequent sign people who sigh frequently usually don't realize that they're saying frequently but if you observe the patient sometimes you'll notice that they do a lot of sawing and so this could be a sign of stagnation in the liver channel because the liver channel goes to those ribsides you send them then say it ascends along the posterior aspect of the throat so again when we look at the functions and indications of these points we're going to see a lot of throat conditions either swollen throat throat pain or plum pit chi this feeling that you have something stuck in your throat that can't be swallowed and again if we just looked at the the external channel you'd be like oh liver channel goes up to the leg and stops at liver 14. how does this treat the throat why do can we use points on the liver channel to treat the throat well it's because the internal pathway does go to the throat so again we're going to see certain types of throat problems usually due to liver tea stagnation or heat in the liver channel because that's where the channel goes um it also goes up to the nasopharynx stuff in the nose and then goes up to the eye and connects to the eye system so again we said the tissue of the liver or the sense organ of the liver is the eyes so we're going to see that points on the liver channel can treat certain eye issues especially dry eyes red-eyes itchy eyes when we have too much heat too much yang rising upward into the head that can rise up into the eyes and dry them out and then this is interesting it connects to the vertex at do 20. so it goes all the way up to the vertex so we might see things like vertex headache and again we have this if we have this qi rising up it can rise up into the head and rise all the way up to the vertex we might want to needle some points on the lower body to draw that qi back downward draw that heat and yang rising back downward to get things out of the head and then we have some branches um for some reason deadman says this is i always thought it just went up and then wrapped around the lips and then kept going but he says this is a separate branch that descends from the eye but anyway the we have a branch that runs down from the eye system into the cheeks and curves around the inner surface of the lips and so this is important um we've had a few channels before that wrap around the lips so this is always a good thing to know about things that wrap around the lips so both of the yang ming channels we had the stomach channel wraps around the lip we had the large intestine channel wraps around the lips the liver channel is specifically wrapping around the interior surface of the lips i think we said i think also maybe the ren channel wraps around the lips and possibly uh part of the do channel as well but again this means we're going to be able to treat things in the lips this is especially i think this is especially useful when we talk about um it's very common for women to have skin issues or breakouts around the lips especially with uh centered around mensie so that's sometimes a condition either during or right before menses that you'll have female patients that say oh i break out on my face around the lips and basically when things happen in time with a period it's usually a pretty good sign that we can blame the liver channel that there's some stagnation or heat maybe that heat is in the liver channel itself maybe that heat is going into the yangming channel but again knowing that the liver channel wraps around the lips is going to be useful for us diagnostically and in treatment so the way some people remember this is liver lips liver lips the liver goes to the lips so liv lip the liver goes to the lips now me being me when you say the liver goes to the lips it's like yes the liver goes to the lips on your face but remember we also said that the liver skirts the external genitalia so for me being who i am when i say the liver goes to the lips i'm like that means two things so the liver encircles ellipse also goes to the external genitals so that might be useful to know and then we have a branch from the liver that runs through the diaphragm and connects to the lung so again when we talk about our organ connection it not only goes to its own organ that's the yin yang pair liver gallbladder it also goes to the stomach and also goes to the lung and so again we might see some lung symptoms i believe the liver and lung also have a relationship along the cycle or the controlling cycle in the five phases so sometimes that's something that happens we have liver rebelling against lung but we also see here that we have a liver channel that goes to the lung and uh it goes to the long channel and so this is how we get to the next channel and the cycle complete so remember our uh sequence of channels uh lung large intestines unexplained heart siu b kidney pericardium sanjal gallbladder liver and then back to lungs when you have liver going back to lung it's going through this branch so our linkage to the next channel is liver 14 lung one through that kind of through that branch and again just to reiterate our organs entered are the liver gallbladder and stomach so what are some takeaways with this channel pathway well again i think some things we should pay attention to is one that the liver goes to the genitals and skirts the genitals so we're going to see a lot of urogenital issues either stuff with the genitals as in itching swelling pain swollen testicles leukeria vaginal discharge but then also problems with urination difficult urination painful urination lynn syndrome retention of urine and then with then that channel also goes in that lower jaw area around ren2 so we're going to see a lot of menstruation issues uterine bleeding painful menses again we said the liver goes to the rib side so we have that rib side distension it also goes around the breast area so that's another thing we can look for is breast distension especially happening before the period and so that's kind of a gold gold sign uh when you have a patient complain of breast distension before menses that's probably a good sign that we're dealing with some liver qi stagnation and then again liver goes to the lips and to the eyes and vertex we're going to see that come up quite a bit and this might be kind of weird but when we get to the liver channel one of the things i think of is herpes and that might sound kind of weird but it just kind of helps me put everything together because when you talk about herpes we can have genital herpes and when you have genital herpes we usually think of that as damp heat in the liver channel because the liver channel goes around the genitals we can have oral herpes and like cold sores on the lips or especially on the inside of the lips and that makes me think of damp heat in the liver channel and then we can also think about like shingles or herpes zoster that's usually something that happens along the rib sides and again we might diagnose that as damp heat or heat toxicity in the liver channel because that's where the liver goes so it's like whatever kind of herpes you got whether it's hsv-1 hs82 or herpes zoster might be a good chance he could go to the liver channel for treatment so that's kind of a weird thing i think of that maybe normal people wouldn't think that way and then um maybe another thing we should say that i didn't mention yet is hernia and shaun disorder because the liver channel goes to the inguinal area goes to the lower abdomen wraps around the genitals that's another thing we're going to see a lot of is hernia hernia pain inguinal hernia or abdominal hernia and something we call sean disorder and the mounting or mounting disorder and that's basically hernia-like pain due to cold in the liver channel so that's another thing we're going to see come up quite a bit on these point functions and indications so we look at the pathologies of the liver channel these are the pathologies that come from cam usually these come up on tests a lot so it's good to know but most of these should make sense so we start out with low back pain and fullness in the chest i'm going to be honest to me low back pain sounds a little bit weird because when you look at that channel it doesn't really go to the low back but it turns out when we do look at these point functions and indications we're going to see a lot of lumbar pain low back pain difficulty twisting and i'm just going to say that has something to do with the function of governing free coursing and so maybe that's a way you can think of it we also said fullness in the chest because that's where the liver channel goes pain in the lower abdomen because the channel skirts the genitals and then we have that branch of the abdomen or branch of the channel below the umbilicus so pain in the lower abdomen again we're going to see a lot of genital urinary and menses type things and hernia because the liver channel goes to the inguinal area goes to the lower abdomen we'll see a lot of hernia pain coming up when we talk about the liver channel vertex headache dryness in the throat and lips because we have that branch that goes up the throat goes up to the eye system and goes up to the vertex so we can treat disorders in that area this is an interesting one hiccup enuresis and dysuria so hiccup and urination problems again this has to do with the liver's function of governing free coursing not just for the liver but for all of the organs so if the liver fails in free coursing the stomach chi is not going to move so it's going to rebel back upwards giving us hiccup if the liver is not free coursing then the bladder is going to have trouble with its transformation so we're going to get urination problems enuresis dessert dysuria painful urination things like that and then mental disturbance just because we need our chi to be free-flowing again we can talk about the liver with anger depression and things like that so that is the liver primary channel the secondary channels are pretty straightforward so we talk about the liver wool connecting channel remember all lower connecting channels start at the low connecting point so in this case that is liver five so the the lower connecting channel separates or branches off at liver five remember we said that all lull connecting channels connect to their yin yang pair so we see that the liverlul connecting channel connects with the gallbladder channel its yin yang pair then as for its pathway the liver channel ascends the leg and goes to the genitals so again we have skirting the genitals or going to the genitals or wrapping around the genitals we're gonna see a lot of genitals in the liver channel and then uh in the negin there are excess and deficiency symptoms associated with each of the lower channels so for liver load deficiency we have sudden itching of the genitals and for excess in the liver low we have priapism or persistent erection so the liver is associated with the wood so if you got excess in your low you got too much wood so we can think about the liver low channel little liver diversion channel looks very similar this one uh diverges remember each uh divergent channel diverges or separates from the primary channel so here the liver divergent channel separates or diverges on the dorsum of the foot we don't say exactly where but somewhere on the top of the foot and then basically it ascends to the pubic region and then converges with the gallbladder channel that's again we said every divergent channel after it separates it then converges with the young paired primary channel so the liver diversion channel converges with the gallbladder primary channel so this this divergent channel is not very exciting i feel like when we've looked at other diversion channels it's like oh they diverge and then they enter deep into the body and they connect the organs and then they re-emerge liver divergent channel separates at the foot goes to the genitals not very exciting you look at the liver sinew channel looks very similar the liver sani channel originates on the big toe where about where liver one is uh goes up to the ankle we have this binding or knotting at the ankle it goes up to knee binds or knots at the knee and then it goes up to the genitals and so we have pathologies like strain big toe because that's you know liver one um dysfunction of the genitals inability to have an erection retraction of the genitalia and or a persistent erection priapism so either too much erection or not enough erection so i think kind of the point here is these like these channels all pretty much look the same i think kind of the point here is each of these channels goes to the genitals or the pubic region so we have liver low channel goes up to the genitals and stops liver divergent channel goes up to the genitals and stops even the liver sinew channel goes up to the genitals and stops and our liver's primary channel didn't stop it wrapped around or skirted the external genitalia so this is going to be a pretty good sign that again we're going to deal with a lot of genital issues when it comes to the liver channel so and maybe we should not just say genital issues we should say lower jiao issues so issues with the genitals issues with urination and issues with menstruation we're going to see a lot of when we go through these point functions we're going to see a lot of benefits the lower jowl so let's go ahead and get into the point functions so now that we know the functions and characteristics of the liver now that we know the pathways of the liver channel we can finally get into the functions and indications of a point and hopefully these functions and indications will make a lot more sense now that we know those general functions and characteristics now that we know those channel pathways and then we're going to combine it with our knowledge of the point categories and hopefully everything will make sense or maybe not because our point we're going to see our point categories here are a little bit weird they're a little bit unusual so that may or may not help us but anyway starting with the points we're starting with liver one liver one is on the lateral side of the big toe point one tune from the corner of the nail that's like all gingwell points are on the fingers and toes point one soon from the corner of the nail this one we actually do have an alternate location where it's more on that hairy region of the big toe so i think this is kind of like um with a pericardium channel we said it could be on the corner of the nail or it could be on the tip of the middle finger that's in the hand dway-in pericardium channel well in the foot dway-in liver channel with our jing well point we also have two options either on the corner of the nail or on the big toe but it is a jing well point remember jing well points are very good for quickly clearing out excess a lot of times we'll needle these points or we'll even prick to bleed so we're physically drawing out some of that excess and so look for liver one we have a lot of again lower jiao symptoms so they say it regulates qi in the lower jaw treats shine disorder this hernia pain usually due to cold in the liver channel alleviates pain treats genital urinary disorders so we have things like pain swelling retraction of the generals the different types of limb syndrome painful dribbling urination um [Music] blood in the urine and also regulates menses so we have things like irregular menses profuse menstrual bleeding either menorrhagia where the we have profuse bleeding or bleeding that lasts a long time or spotting between periods metro raja where you might have some spotting around day 14. so again regulates menstruation and again i would say that for when we talk about jingle points we're usually talking about quickly clearing out excess when we talk about these things i would think about these things as happening because of excess conditions not necessarily menstruation problems due to liver blood deficiency there we might go to other points but here we have a lot of regulating the lower jowl genitals urination and menstruation usually due to excess and then very common for doing well points as we say they revive consciousness and calm the shen so loss of consciousness epilepsy fear and fright mania depression and so again this is a very common function of jingle points we use them to restore consciousness or revive consciousness usually we're talking about some sort of wind stroke so that's very common to jingle points what's a little bit maybe unusual here is usually when you talk about jingle points one of the major functions is it treats the opposite end of the channel so again when we talked about like long and large intestine we had a lot of treating things in the face that treat the opposite end of the channel we also said jingwell points are very good for treating fullness below the heart and you'd think this would be a big deal because this is the wood point on the wood meridian you'd think you would see these things but it turns out for the jingle point on the liver channel we don't really see these things this jingle point is more about treating things in the lower jaw and the lower abdomen it doesn't treat things in the chest it doesn't treat things in the face so that's a little bit unusual for a jing well point so liver one really more talking about regulating the lower jowl liver two is the ying spring fire point so liver two is between the first and second toes uh proximal to the web margin so a lot of our yin spring points on the foot are just proximal to the web margin so liver 2 is a ying spring fire point what do spring points do they clear heat so we're going to see a lot of clearing heat with liver 2 all over the liver channel so we have clears liver fire and descends liver young remember we said the liver has an uprising action and so if we have too much liver heat too much liver young it can rise upward and cause problems in the face so headache dizziness red eyes a bitter taste in the mouth tinnitus those are all things in the head that there's too much heat too much yang rising up in the face we can use liver too to clear out this heat and subdue the liver yawn spread the liver tea again for liver tea stagnation so counterflow cold in the forelimbs this is again the liver belongs to the wood phase when we say wood we mean trees trees grow upward but they also spread their branches outward so the liver is supposed to spread the chi outward into the limbs if the liver fails to do that we get cold in the limbs if you're in herbs the formula we'd use here is sunisan frigid extremities powder and that's when you have cold limbs but a warm core due to stagnation propensity to anger uh throat obstruction again uh stagnation can cause these emotional problems liver channel goes to throat so we see throat obstruction associated with lower teeth extinguishes interior wind um so again we can have a wind stroke contracted sinews can be a wind sign deviation of the eyes and mouth sounds like a either bell's palsy or a post uh stroke symptom where we're talking about interior wind cools the blood and stops bleeding clears damp heat so again we're just talking about heat all over the liver channel so liver 2 is a yin spring fire point you see ying spring fire point think of clearing heat here we're i would say we're clearing excess heat liver two tends to be used for excess conditions so this is not necessarily liver yin deficiency with liver young rising but tends to be used for more excess conditions excess liver heat and i would say generally what am i trying to say this isn't exactly it's a strong point or maybe what i mean is this is not a gentle point this is not something we feel like oh we want to just gently vent clear out the heat this is a more of a a strong very strong clearing point so i might i might not use this unless we're talking about when unless you want to strongly clear the heat but again we're talking about all kinds of heat liver heat liver young rising things going in the face uh heat in the blood causing bleeding damp heat in the lower jaw so all types of heat it's a fire point it clears heat liver three tai chong supreme rushing liver three is in the hollow just distal to the junction of the first and second metatarsals this is a very famous point a very commonly used point i might almost say it's overused but this is a point that you definitely want to know this is the point that you're going to be needling every day so the thing about liver 3 is liver 3 is a shoe stream point and liver 3 because it's on yin channel that means it's a yuan source point and normally what we say about yuan source points is that they're very good for tonifying the organ at least on yin channels yuan source points tonify the organ however with liver 3 i think we could say that but usually when we think about liver liver 3 we don't necessarily think about tonifying we tend to think more about the this first function spreading liver tea regulating liver qi moving liver qi treating symptoms of liver qi stagnation so things like pain in the lateral costal region because that's where the liver channel goes uh cyan again this could be inability to get a full breath or just you're sighing a lot moving that rib side irritability out outbursts of anger be these emotional problems do the liver cheese stagnation breast distention so painful or tender breasts especially before menses these are just all signs of liver cheese stagnation liver three tai chong is very good for treating liver cheese stagnation so the term chong that's the same chong as the chong mai supreme rushing basically the the character over there there's three dots on the side that means water and then the part in the middle means center or middle so sometimes i think of this chong at least the image i get is like you have water or a moving river and this is the center of the river where things are moving swiftly things are moving unimpeded and so that's when we needle tai chong liver 3 we're going to get this swift unimpeded movement we're going to move the liver qi we can also say that it subdues liver yang rising and extinguishes interior wind so headache dizziness is uh that liver young rising up into the head and tinnitus things like that apistitonos is arched back rigidity epilepsy deviation of the eyes and mouth again we're talking about stirring of internal wind when that liver young starts to rise hyperactively it can stir up interior wind and give us those kinds of things so here what i think about with liver three is you can say when we talk about the needling we usually needle it towards kidney one on the bottom of the foot so kidney one is on the bottom of the foot it's very good for grounding so if you're needling this liver three you can needle towards kidney one and kind of access that grounding pulling the qi downward anchoring and settling that liver yawn rising and that's something we can use liver three for as well and i would say side note this is not from a textbook this is just something weird that i do in my own personal experience there are certain times when i want to needle kidney one on a patient but i don't want a needle kidney one like it's a very sensitive point maybe they're new to acupuncture and i don't want to start out with needling directly into kidney one because it can be very intense very painful so sometimes what i'll do in that situation is i'll needle liver 3 towards kidney one and it's kind of like you're accessing kidney one from the other side through liver three and that can give us um kind of this dual effect of we're grounding things we're pulling things out of the head we're subduing that liver young rising basically we stuck a need we stuck a needle in the bottom of the foot and that pulls things downward but then we're also getting that that movement and that rushing of opening up the free flow so maybe that can help you think of this grounding thing is we're needling towards kidney one we're kneeling towards the bottom of the foot and that will pull things down and subdue that lurion and then yes we do say it nourishes liver blood and liver yin because this is a yuan source point and so yes technically we can use this point for both excess and deficiency it's kind of balanced between the two liver two more about excess liver three more about excess or deficiency depending on how we needle it and we can do it honestly i think maybe when it comes to tonifying in blood we might have better points i might go to points like spleen 6 to tonify yin tonify blood because that's a crossing point on the liver channel but technically we can do it through liver 3 because it's yuan source point and then again we have a lot of regulating the lower jowl so menstruation problems amen or irregular administration all types of bleeding uh also urination problems just because the liver channel goes to the lower jaw we also see um stiff low back so remember we talked about our liver channel pathologies we did say low back pain or stiff low back this is another one and i'm assuming this is just by by virtue of governing free coursing we can help with some of that stiffness contraction of the sinews including the low back so liver 3 very big point very important point we say it's a yuan source point so it should tonify but honestly i would think of the main function here as moving liver qi and subduing that liver yang rising oh we can also say that liver 3 is one of ma don young's heavenly star points so if you remember in very beginning when we talked about categories we talked about madong yang's heavenly star points the ode to the heavenly stars that these were the the group of points that madonyang thought were the most important he thought these points were so good he wrote a song about them so in his song he was like there are so many points on the channels just like there are many stars in the sky but honestly it's better to know a few points really well that's better than knowing a lot of points kind of crappily so if you're going to know a few points really well these are the 12 or 13 points you should know and for liver 3 we in that song we say it's good for epilepsy so again extinguishing internal wind legs unable to walk so spasm and contraction of the sinews the seven types of shine disorder so inguinal pain hernia pain this is great unilateral sagging and swelling of the testicle so if you have one testicle that's swelling and hanging lower maybe you can kneel liver three and it'll fix it let me know how that works for you and then cloudy vision because again the liver channel goes to the eye so that's something we can say about liver 3 is it's a madong young heavenly star point and again liver 3 you're going to see come up very famously in this point pair we call four gates siguan four gates it's a combination of liver three plus li4 these are both yuan source points you're using the yuan source point on the foot jouer yin channel and you're using the yuan source point on the han yang main channel and they're kind of mirror images so that liver 3 is between the first and second metatarsals li4 is between the first and second metacarpals so they're kind of like mirror images and they're very good for moving qi and so this is a very famous combination i would say almost too famous a lot of people just go to four they don't think very much about their diagnosis and they just automatically go to four gates but it is good for moving qi because liver three is again very good for moving qi li4 the yangming channel is full of qi and blood so it tends towards stagnation so we can use them together this was first given to us in the book the ode to elucidate mysteries i believe and i would just say that generally i think uh wong ju yi talks about this point combination too i think this was originally used for just more like wind and especially wind in the face but now people just use it for all types of liver cheese stagnation but uh but again think about like wind in the face things coming up in the face um we talked about like a bell's palsy tmj eye problem stuff in the face and so li4 is good for is the command point of the face liver 3 is good for bringing things downward so originally that what that's what it was for but now people you just use four gates for all types of cheese stagnation maybe it's a good idea or maybe it's overused and you need to think a little bit more liver four is the jing river and metal point liver four is located around the ankle uh just media uh medial to the tibialis anterior tendon so liver 4 and spleen 5 are very close to each other they're both jing river metal points here honestly not very much exciting spreads liver cheat in the lower jaw and clears heat due to stagnation in the channel so again we're just talking about a lot of lower jowl problems so pain and retraction of the genitals hypogastric pains a lower abdominal pain or pain in the abilities again shine disorder that hernia pain because of the inguinal area pain and swelling in the lower abdomen so not a lot i feel like not a lot stands out here again usually when we talk about metal jing river points we're talking about things with the sinews things with the tendons things that manifest as changes in the voice and we don't really see any of that here so i'd say liver for at least in tcm is maybe not a commonly used point maybe if you're in five element acupuncture or japanese style acupuncture they use a little bit more but when you look at these classical indications it's just kind of a lot of the same so maybe not a super big point in my opinion liver 5 is a point i really like i feel like people need to use this point more people are using liver 3 too much there are a lot of times i like to use liver 5 instead to liver 5 the goal wormwood canal this is the lull connecting point and here we're on the medial leg five tune above the ankle and so this is the low connecting point remember what we said like little connecting points are good for disorders along the low connecting channel where does the low connecting channel of the liver go it goes up the leg and goes to the genitals and stops there so we're going to see a lot of benefiting the genitals benefiting the lower jaw so moose liver qigan benefits the genitals for itching swelling and pain of the genitals sudden swelling and pain of the testicles incessant erection remember when we talked about those excess and deficiency conditions of the liver channel one of them was priapism or incessant erection and i'm just thinking about like hitting like an erection it's like that erection it's a bit incessant like you need to calm yourself down with that incessant erection so liver five going to the genitals clears damp heat from the lower jaw so again this itching and swelling can also be just due to it can be either due to liver cheese stagnation or due to damp heat then again a lot of other lower jaw stuff love with menstruation and urination so difficult urination irregular menstruation leukeria and so again here i think of the liver lull connecting channel goes up the leg goes to the genitals and stops there so i think about a lot of genital issues one of the things we can think about is maybe the name of this point is wormwood canal now if you remember if you're if you're also studying herbs you might remember that we have certain herbs that we say have this action of killing parasites and it turns out when we say killing parasites we actually mean two things we can mean real parasites lower intestinal parasites like round worm taper and pinworm but we can also say parasites this can also mean things like fungal infection or itching of the skin so we have certain herbs that are good for killing parasites or treating damp heat but we're really treating fungal infections or itchiness of the skin some of these herbs we can even use as like externally as a wash or a douche so if we have some damp heat itchiness itchiness of the genitals we can use those herbs as a wash to help with that itchiness of the genitals and so basically that's what makes me that's what i think of when i see this name worm or woodworm canal either woodworm makes me think of parasites and not necessarily parasites like actual worms but here parasites like fungal infections things going on in your genitals so a lot of damp heat in your genitals itching swelling and pain of the genitals again that's where the liver channel goes that's where the liver low channel goes that's where all the liver channel goes so very good for genital issues and mixing i had a i had one patient come in uh she was actually um somebody somebody i knew from school but she came to see me and she and i was like okay what's your chief complaint and she was like my lip is swollen and looks they're like really it's like it looks fine to me like which which lip are you talking about and she said the left one and so then she's like oh it's like like do you wanna see it like no i think that's fine i don't necessarily need to see it i'll take your word for it but her one of her lips was swollen and so when you talk about swelling and pain of the genitals that was a point that i used was liver five because the liver law connecting channel goes to the genitals and it's good for that type of swelling and we also see interesting here treats plum pitching plump chi or my hoo chi uh plump it tea or plum sun tea this is a condition in the throat remember the liver channel goes to the throat and this is often described as you feel like you have something stuck in the throat we usually say you feel like you have a piece of raw meat that's stuck in the throat but can't be swallowed so you might this is actually a very common thing when when somebody first described me plum like that's never going to happen it's actually really common that people will come in and they'll say oh i feel like i have something stuck in my throat i feel like there's something there that i can't swallow you look in there there's nothing there that is plum pit chi we can say this is due to liver cheese stagnation or we can say this is a form of insubstantial phlegm or i mean really we could say it's both it's kind of like when the liver t is not moving the fluids are not moving and that can congeal into phlegm but this here it's a type of insubstantial flame when you look there there's nothing there and that is called plum pit chee and so um [Music] plum pitching this feeling of something that can't be swallowed and it usually happens with emotional things so depression fear and fright uh worry and oppression and so this is usually when we see this plumpet qi happening is there's usually some emotional factor driving it that they're worried or they're depressed or they have a lot of emotions that they can't express and because they can't properly express their emotions um either because usually because it's like it's not socially acceptable you can't just like about your co-workers sometimes you have to keep it to yourself if you don't want to get fired they can't express their emotions and that causes the chi to stagnate and you might get this feeling in your throat of something that can't be swallowed so that's plumpet chi and maybe another way we can think about this is when we talked about rule connecting points one of the things we said is they treat certain psychoemotional disorders and so maybe we can connect that to our treating plumpet chi that this is usually an emotional disorder when we're when we have these emotions or we can't express these emotions it stagnates the chi and we end up with plumpet cheese so liver5 for plumpachi so that's all i think about is a wormwood canal you got some worms in your genitals you got some damp heat itching in your general genitals you got some fungus infection or some uh herpes dampness in your genitals liver five goes to the genitals also good for emotional things like plum pitching after that liver six uh liver six is the she cleft point here where seven soon above the medial malleolus so liver five and liver six are right next to each other tutson apart liver six is the she cleft point and again you would think that this would be a big deal that when you talk about she cleft points we usually say she cleft points are good for acute conditions and pain when we talk about she cleft on points on the in channels we say they have an additional action of doing something with the blood either invigorating blood uh stop cooling the blood or stopping bleeding something with the blood it turns out we don't really see that very much here that liver six is just not a very big or important point i mean when we're reading through dead men usually for each chiclet point he has this function moderates acute conditions we don't even have that moderate's acute conditions here so liver six even though it's a she cleft point we really don't see a lot of a lot of stuff happening moves liver chi and regulates the lower jaw yeah we have a bunch of other points to do that shine disorder low abdominal pain [Music] uterine regulates blood um so that blood stasis and and pain drains dampness really not a whole lot exciting i would say clinically i don't see this point used very often we don't see it coming up in classical point combinations very much so it sounds like the sheet clef point should be a big deal so maybe if you have some acute conditions or acute excess or pain along the liver channel maybe you'd go to liver 6 i'm not sure it's a huge point liver seven knee gait this is one soon posterior to spleen nine so we're up on the knee spleen nine just come one soon back this is called knee gait or knee pass get what guess what this point does it's good for the knee so dispels wind dampness we're talking about like b syndrome as dispel when damn this and benefits the knee this point is on the knee it's good for the knee so swelling and pain of the knee pain on the inner aspect of the knee b syndrome in the knee like this external contraction of wind cold damp in the knee so i wouldn't think too much harder about that that liver 7 is on the knee it's good for the knee i will say there are a couple of interesting things that come up in deadman um that you may be like what does that mean because sometimes he names certain uh chinese diseases but then he doesn't really explain them so what he talks about here is crane's knee wind this is swelling of the knee with emaciation of the lower leg so your knee gets red and swollen but then your calf kind of gets emaciated and i guess that's you look like a crane walking around with skinny little legs but really swollen knees and so that was something that was described by uh zhong jong jing in the jingue yaluway and he said this is um actually i might be thinking of the other one um but yeah that's crane's knee white tiger joint wind pain this is the one that uh was from zhongjung jing in the jinguey yaluway this is redness and swelling of the joints and basically this when he was describing this condition it he called it a white tiger joint wind or white tiger running joint pain because it could affect a lot of joints at once but this is specifically a condition of an external contraction of wind cold damp that was then turning into heat so you had this complex heat cold condition we had this redness swelling and heat that looked like hot b but it was originally a wind cold damp thing so again those are just that's just something that deadman mentions these two terms and doesn't really explain them if you want to know more you can look in your nigel weissman practical dictionary of chinese medicine and he explained those a little bit more but basically the gist of this is liver seven is on the knee it's good for the knee liver eight uh liver eight pool spring liver eight is a hussy water point chuchuan sounds like we're talking about water so that's convenient uh just superior to the medial end of the popliteal crease anterior tendons semi-membranos and semitendinosus so if you remember kidney 10 is acting i'm like pointing to my knee like under the desk and you can't see what i'm pointing to but it's like a kidney 10 is between the two tendons liver eight is just in front of the two tendons so we're we're right around kidney ten and we're right around all of these hussy water points so kidney ten is a hoosie water point liver eight is a water point and spleen nine is also in that area of sea water point and so this point is very good for damp dampness or damp heat in the lower jowl so a lot of these water points are good for dampness or damp heat so we have benefits the bladder and genitals clears damp heat from the lower gel and then also some mensie stuff so again swelling and itching itching of the genitals because you got damp heat in your genitals pain in the genitals impotence difficult urination because you have a damp heat pathogen blocking the smooth flow of urine or you have liver cheese stagnation that the ub can't properly transform and create smooth urine so we have a lot of damp heat in the lower jaw so maybe what you can think of is we can kind of relate this to spleen 9. remember spleen 9 is a very important point for dampness spleen 9 is a hussy water point but with spleen 9 we're talking more about dampness in the spleen liver eight is right nearby it's also a hussy water point but here we're talking about dampness in the lower jowl so maybe that's something you can think of is liver eight is very close to spleen nine they're both very good for dampness just one is more spleen dampness liver eight is more dampness in the lower jaw also speaking of lower jaw we have invigorates blood and regulates menstruation so abdominal masses in women due to blood stasis painful periods due to blood stasis infertility due to blood stasis amenorrhea your period isn't there because you got blood stasis so that's another thing we can think about is uh very good for blood stagnation or blood stasis in the lower jaw and then this is kind of interesting we have this other function nourishes blood and yin and this is kind of interesting kind of the reason we say that is remember the liver is wood this is the water point water is the mother of wood so that makes us the tonification point and so theoretically we should be able to use liver eight to tonify the liver tonify liver yin and tonify liver blood the thing is there there are certain modern practitioners who are really into this idea i've seen a lot of japanese style practitioners who are really into liver eight for tonifying blood because it's the tonification point i think when we look classically at some of our indications and classically as some of the point combinations and point prescriptions we see come up we don't see a lot of this nourishes blood and yen so this is something that uh i think the way deadman words it is different practitioners will [Music] attach a different amount of importance to the to this function does liver 8 actually nourish blood so this is something you may see in clinic a lot that people are using liver8 to tonify liver blood i'm not sure there's a lot of backup for that in terms of classical point indications or classical point combinations so personally i would go ahead and do this but i just make sure that you combine it with other points that either tonify yin or tonify blood so i wouldn't rely solely on liver 8 i might combine it with things like spleen 6 or other things that are good for tonifying blood so by and large even though it is the tonification point and it may have some action of nourishing blood and yin for liver eight i would think dampness in the lower jaw and blood stagnation this just occurred to me maybe you can think that liver8 is very close to spleen 10 shui i'm looking at the wrong camera spleen 10 shui high um sea of blood which is also very good for blood stagnation so again these two points are right next to each other they're both good for blood stagnation after that as as it commonly goes the points get a lot less interesting when we're going up the arm the points below the elbow are usually very interesting they have a lot of categories they have very specific functions once we get above the elbow not a whole lot interesting happens like what does what does li13 do i don't know it's just on the arm and it's good for the arm we kind of have the same thing here with the liver channel once we get above the knee the points get a lot less interesting basically they're on the leg and they're good for the lower jaw so we're going to see a lot of regulates menses benefits the uterus regulates the lower jaw so liver 9 forcing above liver 8 and it regulates menses it's good for menstruation problems irregular menstruation difficult urination i feel like we have other points i would go to first liver 10 3 soon below stomach 30 so we're kind of on the upper leg of the border of adductor longus clears damp heat and benefits lower dow so again this is like right this is kind of close to your genitals close to your lower jaw it's good for the lower jaw so difficult urination retention of urination itching of the genitals again for this there i might go to other points first we have other points that are easier to get to with this function i think what's interesting about the name of this is leg five miles and it seems like that should be a big deal because we talk about stomach 36's zusan lee leg three miles that's it's really good for tonifying if you get so tired or you can't go anymore needle stomach 36 you'll be able to walk another three miles you would think that liver 10 leg 5 miles this would be like 67 better than stomach 36 but really turns out we don't we don't really use that so leg five miles not sure why it has that name but we don't we don't needle that one so you can walk five miles so it's uh it's next to the genitals it's next to lower jaw it's good for the lower jaw liver 11 same sort of area too soon below stomach 30 and again benefits the uterus so it's next to the lower jaw it's good for the lower jaw liver 12 gmi urgent pulse again this one is right in the inguinal crease so it's right next to the lower jaw so it's good for the lower jaw pain in the genital swelling of the testicles uterine prolapse and then um hypogastric pain so lower abdominal pain shine disorder basically we're in shaun disorder we might be talking about inguinal hernia this point is in the inguinal crease so it makes sense just the thing to be careful of the name of this point is urgent pulse probably the reason it has that name is because it's right next to the femoral artery and femoral vein so this one you need to be very careful about needling because you don't want to puncture that femoral artery so again liver 12 it's in the inguinal crease it's good for things around the inguinal crease like shaun disorder or menstruation once we get onto the abdomen it gets a little bit more interesting liver 3 is uh the front move point of the spleen and the way gathering point of the yin organ the zong it's on its anterior and inferior to the free end of the 11th rib and this i should probably do a point location video on this because this is one that a lot of people have difficulty finding so if you want to find the free end of the 11th rib to get in the general vicinity it's going to be on the mid axillary line on the mid axillary line roughly level with ren9 so if you come one scene above the umbilicus and then have that where it intersects with the mid axillary line that's going to give you the free end of the 11th rib again a lot of people have trouble with this they start they start palpating up here and they they feel something up here and they think this is the 11th rib and it's like no that's just your costal cartridge cartilage the 11th rib is um on the mid axillary line sometimes people get down here and they think that this is the 12th rib and like no the 12th rib is on your back if i want to needle your uh gallbladder front move point it's actually on the back i would have to have you lie face down the 11th rib is right here anyway liver 13 is good because it is the front move point of the spleen so we're going to see it does a lot of spleen things so regulates liver qi fortifies a spleen and harmonizes the liver and spleen so again this is a very common thing we see this pattern of liver overacting on spleen or wood earth disharmony that the liver and spleen have a relationship along the ku cycle the controlling cycle and what often will happen is instead of nicely controlling the spleen the spleen will get angry and overact or over control the spleen so this is a very common pattern of liver excess plus spleen deficiency and that's what we're going to see here is that we can use liver 13 either to treat liver excess so liver cheese stagnation or we can use it to treat spleen deficiency because it's the front move the spleen a lot of digestion problems or we can use it to treat both at the same time liver overacting on spleen so propensity to anger distension and pain of the abdomen borborygmus your intestines are rumbling diarrhea and loss of appetite and constipation so i think i think deadman had like some huge list of indications and i just kind of went with those that he said in the commentary that these are some classic signs of liver over acting on spleen i'd say one of our our biggest one is we talk about alternating constipation and diarrhea so when the liver is overactive and got the stagnation he got constipation when the liver finally releases then you got the spleen q deficiency causes diarrhea so you have alternating constipation and diarrhea so again this one can be used either for just spleen deficiency even if you don't have liver problems you just want to tonify the spleen you can use liver 13. if you want to regulate liver cheat and you don't you don't have any swelling problems you can just use liver 13 to regulate liver tea or we can use it for a combination when we have both liver overacting on spleen and then we also said it's the way gathering point um i feel like this one we have a couple different translations we can say the eight influential points the eight gathering points or the eight meeting or accumulation points we're talking about these eight points that have something to do with the tissue so we talk about the way gathering point of the sinews is gall bladder 34 the gathering point of the bones is ub11 we also have a gathering point of the yin organs and so that's when we say the way gathering point of the zhang we're talking about we can affect all of the yin organs through this point and then maybe something else we'll point out here interesting is this is uh specifically indicated for running piglet or running piglet chi in chinese this is ben toon running piglet this is again described by zhongdong jing and it's this feeling of something that starts in the lower abdomen and rushes upwards towards the heart it's usually accompanied by it might be caused by fear or fright it's usually accompanied by intense anxiety this feeling of something rushing up the heart most people think he was probably talking about an anxiety attack that this feeling of stuff coming up with intense anxiety we're talking about an anxiety attack but but usually our two possibilities for this are you can have some kidney deficiency or you can have some liver chi stagnation when that stagnates it might suddenly burst and erupt upward so that's just another indication for liver 13 as this running piglet but for liver 13 i would think of liver overacting on spleen and finally our last point is liver 14 cycle gate qi men cycle gate so this is where uh the the flow of chi ends and it goes back to lung one to begin again so through that whole cycle lung loss and system between heart siu be kidney pericardium sound a gallbladder liver and then back to lung this is where the chi goes from liver back to lung and the cycle starts over in the sixth intercostal space forcing lateral to the midline so um [Music] the fifth intercostal space is right below the breast the sixth one is one down or it's about level with run 14. or there's an alternate location here sometimes you'll see especially five element people they'll come along the ribs and you'll kind of feel a little bit notch here but it's basically forcing lateral to the midline on the lower border of the ribs and so there you have two um kind of i think that the six six intercostal spaces more of a standard one but if you see some five element jr worsely practitioners they might needle liver 14 below the ribs anyway regulates liver qi so oh this is the front move point of the liver so again we're going to see a lot of just helping the liver helping the liver zong the liver organ so we regulate liver chi distension in the hypochondria sign breast distension because we're right next to the breast but these are just signs of liberty stagnation invigorates blood and disperses masses this is the liver governing free coursing and then important i think the the important one here is harmonizes liver and stomach so for liver 13 we said harmonizes liver and spleen for liver 14 we say harmonizes liver and stomach so first of all how do you remember these two well the way i remember it is liver 13 is the front move point of the spleen so that means it's good for liver and spleen liver 14 is not the front move point of the spleen so it's good for a liver and stomach so the one that's the front point of the spleen is good for liver overacting on spleen the one that's not is liver overacting on stomach this is the front move point of the liver so so we need to remember which is which then the next question is what's the difference because usually we just talk about liver overacting on spleen or wood earth this harmony what's the difference between liver overacting on spleen versus liver overacting on stomach well i would think about it this way in terms of direction remember normally the stomach is supposed to down bear the food into the small intestine and the spleen is supposed to raise the clear young or the clear cheek and so when the liver starts to overact you start to get um things are going the wrong direction so liver overacting on spleen our key symptom is alternating constipation and diarrhea for liver overacting on stomach our key symptom is rebellious stomach cheese so that's why we see things like epigastric distension hiccup belching vomiting hardness of the epigastrium this is sometimes we say when the liver is excess it tends to move horizontally and invade the stomach and so now the liver can't properly move its chi downwards so it rebels back upward so harmonizes liver and stomach is going to be a rebellious stomach gene then again we have running piglet so that's what i would remember about these two is once we get on to the abdomen we have um liver 13 is liver overacting on spleen but also just spleen things because it's the front move of the spleen liver 14 is going to be liver overacting on stomachs or rebellious stomach jeep but also just liver things because it's the front move of the liver and that is it for the footjouen liver channel so thank you for being here we'll see in the next one