GB-03 (Shang Guan) Upper Gate

What does GB-03 Shang Guan do?

GB-03 sits above the cheekbone arch in front of the ear, and it is a meeting point of three channels — the Gall Bladder, San Jiao and Stomach. Its recorded actions are local to the ear and the side of the head.

• Eliminates wind and benefits the ears — the ear action, shared with the cluster of points around the ear’s opening
• Activates the channel and alleviates pain — the local action, for headache, facial pain and jaw complaints

A named pair, above and below one arch. GB-03 is “Shang Guan”, Upper Gate; ST-07 Xia Guan is Below the Joint, directly beneath it on the lower border of the same zygomatic arch. The two are named as a pair, they sit within a centimetre of each other, and they share most of their indications — ear, jaw and teeth. Both are held here.

Three channels cross here for the same reason they cross at ST-07. The Gall Bladder channel curves around the ear, the San Jiao channel approaches it from behind, and the Stomach channel passes in front. Points in this small region tend to carry multi-channel meetings, which is why their reach exceeds what any one channel would give them.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (channel, category and action records; ST-07's classification and position queried from our own data), cross-referenced against multiple online sources.

What is GB-03 Shang Guan used for?

GB-03 is used for headache, ear conditions, facial deviation and toothache. Our own indication record is reproduced here in full.

• Headache
• Deafness
• Tinnitus
• Diplacusis — hearing the same sound as two different pitches
• Deviation of the eye and mouth (facial paralysis)
• Toothache

Diplacusis is an unusually specific entry, and worth noting for that reason. It is not a general “ear” complaint but a particular distortion of pitch perception — the kind of precise symptom that suggests an observed indication rather than one derived from theory. This library’s standard is to retain such entries rather than smooth them into a broader category.

An honest note. Sudden hearing loss requires medical assessment and is treated as urgent in conventional medicine, where time to treatment matters. This record describes classical use and is not a suggestion that assessment be delayed.

How it is combined. With ST-07 Xia Guan directly below it. With SI-19 Ting Gong, SJ-21 Er Men and GB-02 Ting Hui at the ear’s opening. With SJ-17 Yi Feng behind the earlobe, and GB-08 Shuai Gu above the ear for headache. With SJ-03 or SJ-05 distally. All held here.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (indication record; the ear-region and Gall Bladder head points queried from our own data), cross-referenced against multiple online sources.

Where is GB-03 Shang Guan located?

GB-03 is in front of the ear, in the hollow above the upper border of the cheekbone arch — directly above ST-07 Xia Guan. Our own location record defines it by reference to ST-07, which makes the pair inseparable in practice.

• Above the upper border of the zygomatic arch, anterior to the ear
• Directly superior to ST-07 Xia Guan, which lies below the same arch
• The arch itself is easily palpated, and the two points sit on either side of it

The bone between them is the whole distinction. Above the arch is GB-03; below it is ST-07. That is a genuinely palpable boundary, unlike the counted intervals that separate most points — and it means the pair are hard to confuse in practice even though their names, positions and indications all run in parallel.

A locating note worth carrying. Our ST-07 record documents that it is conventionally located with the mouth closed, because opening the jaw moves the mandibular condyle forward into its hollow — while our SI-19 record specifies the mouth open, because the condyle otherwise fills that space. GB-03 sits above the arch and is not affected by the condyle in the same way. Three neighbouring points, three different relationships to jaw position.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (location and translation records, retained unchanged; ST-07's and SI-19's locating conventions queried from our own data).

• A Manual of Acupuncture (p. 424): Anterior to the ear, in a hollow above the upper border of the zygomatic arch, directly superior to Xiaguan ST-7.
• Chinese Acupuncture and Moxibustion (p. 210): In the front of the ear, on the upper border of the zygomatic arch, in the depression directly above Xiaguan (ST-7).

How is GB-03 Shang Guan needled?

The standard texts record perpendicular insertion to roughly 0.3–0.5 inch — and our own record adds explicitly that DEEP PUNCTURE IS NOT ADVISABLE. Moxibustion is recorded as applicable. That caution is reproduced here as it stands in our data. What follows is a neutral record of what the reference literature documents, not instruction for a reader.

• Angle and depth as recorded: perpendicular, 0.3–0.5 inch.
• Our own record states: deep puncture is not advisable. Few points in this library carry an explicit depth prohibition of their own; where one exists it is retained verbatim rather than paraphrased.
• Moxibustion: recorded as applicable.
• Regional anatomy: above the zygomatic arch lies the temporalis muscle and, deeper, the temporal fossa. The superficial temporal artery and vein and the auriculotemporal nerve run in this region; deep to the arch lie the maxillary artery and the branches of the mandibular nerve, which our ST-07 record documents from below.

Hazard, stated proportionately. The considerations are vascular and neural rather than cavity-related, and the recorded depth prohibition reflects how close the deeper structures are. Our record for SI-18 Quan Liao cites a cadaveric study giving 46.6 mm from that point to the sphenopalatine ganglion and labels it explicitly as a deep-path measurement, not a safe depth; our SJ-17 record states plainly that no measured safe-depth study exists for that point. No study measuring a safe depth at GB-03 could be located, and neither figure is borrowed here. No case report naming GB-03 as the site of an injury was located, and none is asserted.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (needling record including the deep-puncture caution, retained verbatim; the SI-18 and SJ-17 measurements queried from our own data), cross-referenced against multiple online sources; regional anatomy from standard anatomical description.

Is there research on GB-03, and what should a reader know?

No trial isolates GB-03. Where the point appears it is one component of a protocol for facial paralysis, tinnitus or headache, and a study that includes a point in a protocol is not evidence about that point.

The pattern in this small region is consistent and worth stating once. The points around the ear and the zygomatic arch — GB-03, ST-07, SI-19, SJ-17, SJ-21, GB-02 — appear together in almost every protocol for the conditions they treat. That makes protocol results uninformative about any individual member, and it makes secondary sources that attribute a trial’s result to one of them unreliable. This library gives each its own page precisely so that what is genuinely known about each can be separated from what the group was tested as.

What this page can state with confidence. The three-channel meeting classification; the named pairing with ST-07 above and below one palpable bony arch; the explicit depth caution our own record carries; and the unusually specific diplacusis indication. All four are checkable, and none depends on a research claim that does not exist.

A note on searching for it. “GB 3” and “Shangguan” searches return protocol trials and unrelated material — shangguan is also a Chinese surname. This library has discarded comparable matches throughout, including surnames, place names and institutional affiliations. Any claim attached to this point should be checked against what a study actually used.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (classification, location and indication records; the neighbouring ear-region points queried from our own data).