GB-11 (Tou Qiao Yin) Head Portal Yin

What does GB-11 Tou Qiao Yin do?

GB-11 clears the head and benefits the sense organs, and it activates the channel and alleviates pain — and it is a meeting point of FOUR channels, the fullest classification on this stretch.

• Clears the head and benefits the sense organs — eyes and ears, the organs this region serves
• Activates the channel and alleviates pain

Four channels meet here: the Gallbladder, Bladder, Small Intestine and San Jiao, as our category record states. Its neighbours GB-09, GB-10 and GB-12 each carry only the Gallbladder-and-Bladder pairing, so GB-11 is the point on this run where the most pathways converge.

Its name solves a problem two other points in this library have not. GB-11 is Tou Qiao Yin — “HEAD Portal Yin” — and GB-44 is Zu Qiao Yin, “FOOT Portal Yin”. Two points, one channel, the same core name — and the disambiguator is built into the name itself, so no confusion is possible. Verified by query.

Compare what happens when that convention is missing. Our complete audit of point names found eight genuine collisions where two points share a pinyin outright with no qualifier — among them Tong Gu, which is both BL-66 on the little toe and KI-20 on the upper abdomen. Those two are distinguished in the wider literature as Zu Tong Gu and Fu Tong Gu, exactly the convention GB-11 and GB-44 carry — but our data stores the bare name for both. GB-11 shows the system working as designed; Tong Gu shows what is lost when the qualifier is dropped.

On the name. “Qiao Yin” — Portal Yin. Qiao refers to the orifices or portals of the head, which is consistent with the recorded action of benefiting the sense organs.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (channel, category, action and translation records; every pinyin value queried for duplicates and the eight collisions counted, and the GB-09, GB-10, GB-12, GB-44, BL-66 and KI-20 records checked, against our own data), cross-referenced against multiple online sources.

What is GB-11 Tou Qiao Yin used for?

GB-11 is used for pain of the head and neck, for tinnitus and deafness, and for pain in the ears. Our own indication record is reproduced here in full — four entries.

• Pain of the head and neck
• Tinnitus
• Deafness
• Pain in the ears

Three of the four are ear entries, which makes this the most ear-focused point on the run. Comparing our records: GB-10 carries headache, tinnitus and deafness; GB-11 carries those and adds pain in the ears, and specifies head and neck pain rather than headache alone. GB-09 goes a different way entirely — epilepsy, gum swelling and convulsion — and GB-12 is the broadest of the four.

An honest note. SUDDEN HEARING LOSS IS A MEDICAL EMERGENCY — hearing lost over hours or days, usually in one ear, is treatable and time-critical within days, and needs same-day or next-day assessment. Earache with fever, discharge or hearing loss requires prompt assessment, particularly in a child. And because this point sits over the mastoid region: pain, redness or swelling of the bone behind the ear needs urgent care — that is how mastoiditis presents. New or one-sided tinnitus requires assessment. Neck pain with arm weakness or numbness, or with fever and stiffness, requires assessment. This record documents classical use only.

How it is combined. With GB-10 Fu Bai above and GB-12 Wan Gu below on the same curved line. With GB-09 Tian Chong, the line’s upper anchor. With SJ-17 Yi Feng behind the earlobe — the principal ear point of the neighbouring channel — and SJ-21, SI-19 and GB-02 in front of the ear. With GB-20 Feng Chi for the neck. All held here.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (indication record, compared against the GB-09, GB-10 and GB-12 records; the GB-02, GB-20, SI-19, SJ-17 and SJ-21 records queried from our own data), cross-referenced against multiple online sources.

Where is GB-11 Tou Qiao Yin located?

GB-11 is behind the ear, within the hairline, slightly more than two thirds of the way along a curved line from GB-09 above the ear down to GB-12 behind the mastoid.

• Slightly greater than two thirds of the distance along a curved line from GB-09 Tian Chong to GB-12 Wan Gu
• The line runs within the hairline, roughly parallel to the rim of the ear — our record specifies both
• GB-10 Fu Bai sits at one third of the same line

“Slightly greater than two thirds” is a hedged fraction, and it is retained rather than rounded. Our record does not say two thirds; it says slightly more. That is rare in our location data, and it carries real information: GB-10 and GB-11 are not evenly spaced along the curve. A reader who assumes clean thirds will place GB-11 a little too high. Where our source material qualifies a measurement, this library keeps the qualification — smoothing it to “two thirds” would read more precisely and be less accurate.

The third divide-the-span construction in our data. Three separate places on the head place points as fractions of a span rather than in cun, all confirmed by query: SJ-18 and SJ-19 at thirds of a curve behind the ear; GB-04, GB-05 and GB-06 at quarters of the line from ST-08 to GB-07; and GB-10 and GB-11 here. Seven points in all. The method is self-correcting whatever the size of the head.

The path is part of the location. Our record specifies a curved line running parallel to the ear’s rim — a straight line between GB-09 and GB-12 would cut across the ear. The same distinction our SJ-18 record draws on the other side of the same ear.

A name collision at the lower anchor. “Wan Gu” is both GB-12, here behind the mastoid, and SI-04, on the ulnar border of the hand — verified by querying every pinyin value in our data, and one of eight genuine collisions in this library. A description reading “two thirds of the way to Wan Gu” is unambiguous only with the channel code. This point’s own name shows the cure: Tou Qiao Yin and Zu Qiao Yin carry their disambiguator built in.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (location and translation records, retained unchanged including the hedged fraction and the curve description; every pinyin value queried for duplicates, and the GB-04 to GB-12, SI-04, SJ-18, SJ-19, SJ-20 and ST-08 records checked, against our own data).

• A Manual of Acupuncture (p. 429): Posterior to the ear, along a curved line drawn from Tianchong GB-9 to Wangu GB-12 running within the hairline and more or less parallel to the line of the rim of the ear, in a depression slightly greater than two thirds of the distance between Tianchong GB-9 and Wangu GB-12.
• Chinese Acupuncture and Moxibustion (p. 211): Posterior and superior to the mastoid process, at the junction of middle third and lower third of the curved line connecting Tianchong (GB-9) and Wangu (GB-12).

How is GB-11 Tou Qiao Yin needled?

Our own record states SUBCUTANEOUS insertion — the needle laid along under the skin — to roughly 0.3–0.5 inch, with moxibustion applicable. What follows is a neutral record of what the reference literature documents. It is not instruction, and this page does not teach technique.

• Angle and depth as recorded: subcutaneous (transverse), 0.3–0.5 inch — the same insertion our records give at GB-08, GB-09 and GB-10. GB-12, at the end of the line, is recorded oblique.
• Moxibustion: recorded as applicable. Note that GB-09 alone in this run omits it — our records state it at GB-08, GB-10, GB-11 and GB-12 and not at GB-09. Whether that is a genuine distinction or an omission cannot be determined from our data, and nothing is asserted either way.
• Regional anatomy: thin scalp overlies the auricular muscles and the temporal bone; the posterior auricular artery and vein and the lesser occipital nerve run behind the ear; the mastoid process and its air cells lie below and behind.

Why subcutaneous, and why that is the safety story. There is bone immediately beneath the scalp, so a transverse needle is what the anatomy permits. This is a low-hazard point in that specific sense: no cavity within reach, no organ, no major vessel at the point itself. The scalp bleeds readily — a nuisance rather than a danger.

The boundary below is what matters in this region. Our GB-20 Feng Chi and DU-16 Feng Fu records carry explicit cautions because those points sit in the soft hollow below the occipital bone, where nothing stops a needle. GB-11 is on bone, above that boundary. Neither caution is imported here, and GB-11’s safety is not exported downward to points where it does not hold.

What is not claimed. No study measuring a safe depth at GB-11 could be located, and none is borrowed. Neither measured-depth study this library uses reaches the head. No case report naming GB-11 was located.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (needling record, retained unchanged, and the recorded insertions and moxibustion statements across GB-08 to GB-12 compared; the DU-16 and GB-20 cautions attributed to those points), cross-referenced against multiple online sources; regional anatomy from standard anatomical description.

Is there research on GB-11, and what should a reader know?

No trial isolates GB-11. Where the point appears it is one component of an ear or headache protocol, and a study that includes a point in a protocol is not evidence about that point.

What this page can state with confidence. GB-11 is a meeting point of four channels — Gallbladder, Bladder, Small Intestine and San Jiao — the fullest classification on this run. It sits at a hedged fraction, “slightly greater than two thirds”, of the curved line from GB-09 to GB-12, and that hedge is kept rather than rounded because it carries real information: the two points on this line are not evenly spaced. Three of its four indications concern the ear.

And its name is the clearest example in the library of a problem solved. GB-11 is Tou Qiao Yin, the HEAD Portal Yin, and GB-44 is Zu Qiao Yin, the FOOT one — same core name, disambiguator built in, no confusion possible. Contrast Tong Gu, which our data holds as the bare name for both BL-66 on the little toe and KI-20 on the abdomen, and which the wider literature distinguishes as Zu and Fu Tong Gu. Eight such collisions exist in our records; GB-11 shows what the convention is for.

A note on searching for it. “GB 11”, “G 11” and “Qiaoyin” searches return protocol trials and unrelated material — and “Qiaoyin” alone will return GB-44 on the foot as readily as this point. Search on Tou Qiao Yin, or on the code. Any claim attached to this point should be checked against what a study actually used.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (category, action, indication, location and translation records; every pinyin value audited for duplicates, the three divide-the-span constructions compared, and the GB-44, BL-66 and KI-20 records checked, against our own data).