KI-05 (Shui Quan) Water Spring

What does KI-05 Shui Quan do?

KI-05 is the Xi-Cleft point of the Kidney CHANNEL — and it has a single recorded action: it regulates the Penetrating and Conception vessels and benefits menstruation. That narrowness is unusual and worth respecting rather than padding out.

• Regulates the Chong and Ren vessels and benefits menstruation — the whole of the recorded action

Three Xi-Cleft points on one channel, and only one belongs to the channel. This is the fact most worth carrying away, and it is verified against our own data:

• KI-05 Shui Quan — Xi-Cleft of the Kidney channel itself — this point
• KI-08 Jiao Xin — Xi-Cleft of the Yin Qiao Mai (Yin Motility Vessel)
• KI-09 Zhu Bin — Xi-Cleft of the Yin Wei Mai (Yin Linking Vessel)

The same pattern appears elsewhere in this library and is easy to misread: BL-63 Jin Men is the Bladder channel’s own Xi-Cleft while BL-59 Fu Yang serves the Yang Qiao; GB-36 Wai Qiu is the Gall Bladder channel’s while GB-35 Yang Jiao serves the Yang Wei. A point being “the Xi-Cleft point” on a channel does not mean it serves that channel.

The yin-channel bleeding rule applies here. The six Xi-Cleft points on yin channels — LU-06, HT-06, P-04, SP-08, LIV-06 and KI-05 — carry a bleeding indication in the classical texts. KI-05’s gynaecological indication list is that rule expressed on the Kidney channel.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (channel, category and action records; all sixteen Xi-Cleft points and their channels or vessels queried from our own data), cross-referenced against multiple online sources.

What is KI-05 Shui Quan used for?

KI-05 is used almost entirely for menstrual disorders, plus difficult urination and blurred vision. Our own indication record is reproduced here in full.

• Absent periods (amenorrhoea)
• Irregular menstruation
• Painful periods (dysmenorrhoea)
• Prolapse of the uterus
• Difficult urination (dysuria)
• Blurring of vision

Five of the six sit in the lower burner, which is what a Kidney-channel Xi-Cleft point regulating the Chong and Ren vessels would be expected to treat. The blurred-vision entry is the outlier; in classical theory the Kidney’s essence nourishes the eyes, which is the usual explanation, and this record presents it as the traditional rationale rather than a mechanism.

Acute, not chronic. Xi-Cleft points are the classical choice for acute presentations. Read that way, KI-05 is the point for sudden or severe menstrual pain rather than for a long-standing pattern — which is what distinguishes it from KI-03 Tai Xi, the Yuan-Source point one cun above, used for the channel’s deficiency states.

How it is combined. With KI-03 Tai Xi just above it. With SP-06 San Yin Jiao, the crossing point of the three leg yin channels, and SP-08 Di Ji, the Spleen’s Xi-Cleft point — which carries the same yin-channel bleeding role and the same gynaecological emphasis. With REN-04 Guan Yuan on the lower abdomen. All held here.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (indication record; KI-03, SP-06, SP-08 and REN-04 classifications queried from our own data), cross-referenced against multiple online sources.

Where is KI-05 Shui Quan located?

KI-05 is one cun below KI-03 Tai Xi, in the hollow in front of and above the heel bone’s prominence. It is located from KI-03, which is itself found between the inner ankle bone and the Achilles tendon.

• 1 cun inferior to KI-03 Tai Xi
• Anterior and superior to the calcaneal tuberosity — where the Achilles tendon inserts into the heel
• KI-06 Zhao Hai lies below the ankle bone itself, and KI-08 Jiao Xin higher up the leg

Four Kidney points cluster around this ankle, and they carry four different classifications: KI-03 is the Yuan-Source and Shu-Stream point, KI-05 the channel’s Xi-Cleft, KI-06 the Confluent point of the Yin Qiao Mai, and KI-08 the Yin Qiao’s Xi-Cleft. All are held here. Getting the wrong one substitutes a source point for an acute point, or a channel point for a vessel point.

On the name. “Shui Quan” means Water Spring — shui (water) marking the Kidney’s element, and quan (spring) the point’s position in a hollow. Compare KI-01 Yong Quan, Gushing Spring, on the sole: the Kidney channel’s names run heavily to water imagery.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (location and translation records, retained unchanged; KI-01, KI-03, KI-06 and KI-08 classifications queried from our own data).

• A Manual of Acupuncture (p. 343): 1 cun inferior to Taixi KID-3 in a depression anterior and superior to the calcaneal tuberosity (the site of insertion of the Achilles tendon into the calcaneum).
• Chinese Acupuncture and Moxibustion (p. 192-193): 1 cun directly below Taixi (KI-3), in the depression of the medial side of the tuberosity of the calcaneum.

How is KI-05 Shui Quan needled?

The standard texts record perpendicular insertion to roughly 0.3–0.5 inch, with moxibustion applicable. 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 — shallow, as there is little soft tissue between the skin and the heel bone here.
• Moxibustion: recorded as applicable.
• Regional anatomy: the calcaneus lies beneath; the medial calcaneal branches of the tibial nerve cross the region, and the posterior tibial artery and tibial nerve run in the tarsal tunnel behind the ankle bone — the structures our KI-03 record documents, which lie above and behind this point rather than beneath it.

Hazard, stated proportionately. This is a low-hazard point: bone beneath, no body cavity, shallow recorded depth. The tarsal-tunnel contents that our KI-03 record names in order — tibialis posterior, flexor digitorum longus, the posterior tibial artery and veins, the tibial nerve, flexor hallucis longus — are KI-03’s anatomy, one cun above; they are not borrowed here as if they described KI-05. No study measuring a safe depth at KI-05 could be located, and no case report naming this point was located.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (needling record, retained unchanged; KI-03's tarsal-tunnel anatomy queried from our own data and attributed to KI-03), cross-referenced against multiple online sources; regional anatomy from standard anatomical description.

Is there research on KI-05, and what should a reader know?

No trial isolates KI-05. Where the point appears it is one component of a gynaecological protocol, and a study that includes a point in a protocol is not evidence about that point.

One near-miss worth recording. A comparative location and anatomy study of the Kidney channel’s lower-leg points examines KI-03, KI-05, KI-07, KI-08 and KI-10 together — our KI-09 record cites it and notes that KI-09 appears in it too. It is anatomical and animal work rather than clinical, but it does name KI-05 specifically, which is more than most minor points on this channel can claim.

What this page can state with confidence. The classification, and the distinction it turns on: KI-05 is the Xi-Cleft point of the Kidney channel, while KI-08 and KI-09 on the same channel are the Xi-Cleft points of two extraordinary vessels. That is checkable against our own data, it is easy to get wrong, and it changes what the point is for.

A note on searching for it. “KI 5” and “Shuiquan” searches return protocol trials and, as repeatedly found throughout this library, unrelated material matched on the code or on a place name — Shuiquan is a common Chinese toponym. Any claim attached to this point should be checked against what a study actually used.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (classification and indication records; the Kidney-channel comparative anatomy study cited on our KI-09 record queried from our own data).