KI-07 (Fu Liu) Recover Flow

What does KI-07 Fu Liu do?

Fu Liu KI-07 is the Jing-River and Metal point of the Kidney Channel of Foot Shao Yin, and it is the tradition's classic point for regulating sweating — for night sweating and for spontaneous daytime sweating alike — and for moving water in the body. Those two roles are the same role seen from two sides: sweat and urine are both the body's water, and the Kidney in Chinese medicine governs water. KI-07 is the point on that channel where the tradition intervenes when water is going the wrong way.

• Regulates sweating — the defining recorded action, and the one KI-07 is best known for. It covers both directions: night sweating and spontaneous sweating on one hand, and febrile disease in which no sweat comes on the other.
• Regulates the water passages and treats oedema — the second recorded action, applied to swelling, to abdominal distension and to difficult urination. This is the Kidney's water-governing role expressed at a point on its own channel.
• Tonifies the Kidneys — the recorded supplementing action, and the formal basis of the point's five-element role set out below.
• Drains damp and clears damp-heat — recorded for diarrhoea, borborygmus and abdominal distension, and for damp-heat in the lower part of the body.
• Strengthens the lumbar region — the local-and-channel action, for lumbar pain and for weakness and wasting of the leg. The Kidney channel ascends the inner leg, and the lower back is the Kidney's own region.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (channel, Jing-River and Metal classification, existing action record); Deadman & Al-Khafaji, A Manual of Acupuncture (p. 346); Chinese Acupuncture & Moxibustion (p. 193); cross-referenced against multiple online sources.

What is KI-07 Fu Liu used for?

Fu Liu KI-07 is used above all for abnormal sweating — night sweating and spontaneous sweating — and for oedema and disorders of urination. The indications below are those carried in Sacred Lotus sources & references together with those set out in the standard reference literature. They describe traditional use, not proven treatment.

• Night sweating — sweating that occurs during sleep
• Spontaneous sweating during the day
• Febrile disease with an absence of sweating
• Oedema and generalised swelling
• Abdominal distension
• Diarrhoea and borborygmus — rumbling of the intestines
• Difficult or scanty urination
• Lumbar pain and weakness of the lower back
• Muscular atrophy and weakness of the leg
• Cold and numbness of the foot and lower leg

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (existing indication record); Deadman & Al-Khafaji, A Manual of Acupuncture (p. 346); Chinese Acupuncture & Moxibustion (p. 193).

Where is KI-07 Fu Liu, and how is it used in practice?

Fu Liu lies on the inner side of the lower leg, two cun above Tai Xi KI-03, in the hollow along the front edge of the Achilles tendon. KI-03 itself is the midpoint between the tip of the inner ankle bone and the tendon, so KI-07 is found by locating KI-03 first and then measuring straight up. It is a shallow, easily reached point with the tendon behind it and the deep flexor tendons in front.

Which points is KI-07 combined with?

• With He Gu LI-04 — the classic sweating pair, and the best-known combination this point appears in. The two are used together in opposite directions: the traditional teaching is that the pairing can be turned toward promoting sweat in a febrile disease that will not break, or toward stopping sweat that is leaking away, according to how each point is manipulated. The pairing is old enough and settled enough to have been the subject of a dedicated theoretical paper in the modern literature (Zhongguo Zhen Jiu 2014;34(8):781–2, PMID 25335258).
• With Yin Xi HT-06 — the Xi-Cleft point of the Heart, itself a principal point for night sweating. HT-06 and KI-07 together are the standard choice where night sweating is read as yin deficiency with heat.
• With Tai Xi KI-03 — the Yuan-Source and Shu-Stream point two cun below on the same channel, added when the Kidney itself is being supplemented rather than the sweating treated.
• With Shen Shu BL-23 and Zhi Shi BL-52 — the Back-Shu point of the Kidney and its outer companion, the standard back pairing for Kidney deficiency with lumbar weakness.
• With Yin Ling Quan SP-09 and Shui Fen REN-09 — for oedema and water retention, adding the Spleen's He-Sea and Water point and the Conception Vessel's water-dividing point.
• With Shen Men HT-07 — this is the pairing that has actually been tested in a randomised trial: HT-07 with KI-07, needled bilaterally, against sham acupuncture in chronic insomnia (PMID 34675728, PMC8519353). Both points are held in this library.
• Method — Sacred Lotus sources & references record moxibustion as applicable at this point, and it is used at KI-07 more freely than at the heat-clearing points of the channel.

Where does KI-07 sit among its channel peers?

KI-07 is one of the five transporting points of the Kidney channel, and Sacred Lotus sources & references carry the complete series: KI-01 Yong Quan (Jing-Well, Wood), KI-02 Ran Gu (Ying-Spring, Fire), KI-03 Tai Xi (Shu-Stream, Earth, and also the channel's Yuan-Source point), KI-07 Fu Liu (Jing-River, Metal) and KI-10 Yin Gu (He-Sea, Water). Around them the channel also carries KI-04 Da Zhong as its Luo-Connecting point, KI-05 Shui Quan as its Xi-Cleft point, KI-06 Zhao Hai as the Confluent point of the Yin Motility Vessel, and KI-08 Jiao Xin and KI-09 Zhu Bin as the Xi-Cleft points of the Yin Motility and Yin Linking vessels. The stretch of the inner ankle from KI-02 to KI-09 is one of the most classification-dense few inches on the body.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (both location records, five-shu and element classifications, and the complete Kidney channel series, HT-06, HT-07, LI-04, BL-23, BL-52 and SP-09 records queried directly in the live point records); Deadman & Al-Khafaji, A Manual of Acupuncture (p. 346); Chinese Acupuncture & Moxibustion (p. 193); PMID 25335258; PMID 34675728; cross-referenced against multiple online sources.

Where is KI-07 located?

• A Manual of Acupuncture (p. 346): On the medial aspect of the lower leg, in the depression 2 cun superior to Taixi KID-3, on the anterior border of the Achilles tendon.
• Chinese Acupuncture and Moxibustion (p. 193): 2 cun directly above Taixi (KI-3), on the anterior border of Achilles' tendon.

How is KI-07 Fu Liu needled in the textbooks?

Reference record only — this documents what the standard texts state, not instruction for a reader. Sacred Lotus sources & references record perpendicular insertion of 0.5 to 0.7 inch at KI-07, with moxibustion noted as applicable. Deadman & Al-Khafaji record a comparable perpendicular range at this point.

• Angle documented: perpendicular.
• Depth documented: approximately 0.5–0.7 cun.
• Moxibustion: documented as applicable, and used freely here — this is a supplementing point rather than a heat-clearing one.

What lies beneath the point

This is a low-hazard point, and it is worth saying so directly rather than attaching a generic warning. KI-07 lies on the inner side of the lower leg between the Achilles tendon behind and the deep flexor tendons in front. There is no lung, no body cavity, no viscus and no great vessel within reach of the recorded depth, and the standard references attach no special prohibition to it. It carries none of the anatomical exposure of the points over the thorax, the upper back or the neck. A comparative dissection study that marked and dissected this point in animals described the needle path at Fu Liu as passing through skin, superficial fascia and deep fascia to the flexor digitorum longus tendon, and noted that the Kidney channel points of the lower leg lie in close relation to the saphenous vessels and nerve and to branches of the tibial nerve (Zhen Ci Yan Jiu 2020;45(11):929–35, PMID 33269839). Those are the structures whose presence explains a sharp local sensation or minor bleeding; none is a serious hazard at the recorded depth.

That same study is worth reading for a second reason. It measured skin potentials at the marked locations and graded the reliability with which each Kidney point could be identified: Fu Liu KI-07 came out as a high-reliability point, along with KI-03, KI-05 and KI-09, while KI-10 Yin Gu at the knee was graded low. Point location on the inner ankle is comparatively unambiguous, and this is one of the few places that has been measured rather than asserted.

No pregnancy contraindication is recorded for KI-07 in our sources or in the standard reference literature; nearby, that caution attaches to SP-06 San Yin Jiao on the same aspect of the leg, and to LI-04. Standard clean-needle practice applies. For context rather than alarm: a meta-analysis of prospective clinical studies estimated serious adverse events from acupuncture at approximately 1 per 10,000 patients and around 8 per million treatments, and concluded that acupuncture is among the safer treatments in medicine (Bäumler P et al., BMJ Open 2021;11:e045961, PMID 34489268). Those events cluster at a small number of anatomically exposed points, and KI-07 is not among them.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (existing needling record); Deadman & Al-Khafaji, A Manual of Acupuncture (p. 346); Chinese Acupuncture & Moxibustion (p. 193); PMID 33269839; PMID 34489268 — each verified resolvable and checked for retraction status before citation.

What does the name Fu Liu mean?

Fu Liu means "Recover Flow" — fu, to return, restore or recover, and liu, to flow. The name belongs to the five-shu water imagery, in which channel qi is described as rising from a well at the toe and growing as it flows inward. The Kidney channel begins at Yong Quan KI-01, "Gushing Spring", on the sole; it then dips down to the heel at KI-05 before turning back upward — and at KI-07 the flow resumes its course up the leg. The name records that recovery of direction. It also fits the clinic exactly: the point's best-known use is restoring the proper flow of the body's water, whether that means stopping sweat that is leaking out or moving water that has stagnated as oedema.

Is KI-07 the tonification point or the sedation point of the Kidney channel?

KI-07 is the tonification (mother) point of the Kidney channel. The sedation (child) point is KI-01 Yong Quan, the Wood point. This is worth deriving from the elements rather than taking on trust, because it is easy to get backwards:

• The Kidney is a Water channel — a yin Water channel, paired with the yang Water channel of the Bladder.
• In the generating cycle, Metal produces Water. So Metal is the mother of Water; and Water produces Wood, so Wood is Water's child.
• Under the mother-child rule one supplements a channel through its mother point and drains it through its child point.
• Tonification (mother) point — KI-07 Fu Liu, the Jing-River and Metal point. Metal is the mother of Water.
• Sedation (child) point — KI-01 Yong Quan, the Jing-Well and Wood point. Wood is the child of Water. Held in this library, and our KI-01 record derives the same result from its own side.

The distinction students commonly get wrong. The five-shu position tells you the classical indication; the element's relationship to the channel tells you the tonification-sedation role. The two coincide only by arithmetic, and they land differently on every channel. On the Lung, a Metal channel, the Water point LU-05 Chi Ze is the child and therefore the sedation point — the same element that makes KI-07 a mother point makes the Lung's Water point a child point, because the channels differ. On the Liver, a Wood channel, the Fire point LIV-02 Xing Jian is the child and is the sedation point, while the Water point LIV-08 Qu Quan is the mother and is the tonification point. On the Gall Bladder, also Wood but yang, the Water point GB-43 Xia Xi is the tonification point. On the Sanjiao, a Fire channel, the Earth point SJ-10 Tian Jing is the child and the sedation point. And on the Heart and Pericardium, both Fire channels, the Fire points HT-08 Shao Fu and P-08 Lao Gong are Fire on Fire — horary points, neither mother nor child. Our LU-05, LIV-02, LIV-08, HT-08, P-08, SJ-10, GB-43 and KI-01 records all make the same derivation from their own sides, and they agree.

Why does the Jing-River classification matter at KI-07?

The Nan Jing attaches a classical indication to each of the five stages of the flow of channel qi: Jing-Well where it wells up, Ying-Spring where it glides, Shu-Stream where it pours, Jing-River where it flows freely, He-Sea where it enters the deep. The Jing-River point's classical indication is cough and dyspnoea with chills and fever — that is, disorders of the voice, the breath and the alternation of hot and cold. Read against that, KI-07's dominance of the sweating indications is not an anomaly: chills-and-fever with or without sweating is precisely the Jing-River territory, and KI-07 is the Kidney channel's member of the set. On yin channels the five-shu run Wood – Fire – Earth – Metal – Water from the toe upward, so the Jing-River point of a yin channel is always its Metal point, which is what Sacred Lotus sources & references record here.

Is there research on KI-07 Fu Liu?

KI-07 has one genuinely point-specific randomised trial and very little else. That should be said plainly rather than padded with whole-protocol studies.

• The one controlled trial that isolates it. Eighty-two adults with chronic insomnia diagnosed by international criteria were randomised to ten sessions of acupuncture at bilateral Shen Men HT-07 and Fu Liu KI-07, or to shallow needling at sham points, over three weeks, with polysomnography as well as questionnaires. Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index scores fell by 5.04 in the acupuncture group against 2.92 with sham, and Insomnia Severity Index scores by 7.65 against 5.05, both differences significant immediately after treatment; sleep-onset latency was shorter and the proportion of deep sleep higher on polysomnography. The between-group differences did not persist at either follow-up, and the comorbid anxiety, depression, fatigue and daytime-sleepiness measures improved in both arms without separating (Wang C et al., Nat Sci Sleep 2021;13:1807–22, PMID 34675728, PMC8519353). A two-point protocol with a sham control and objective outcomes is a strong design for this literature; the loss of effect at follow-up is reported here because the trial reported it.
• The sweating pairing, as theory rather than trial. The classical use of He Gu LI-04 with Fu Liu KI-07 for disorders of sweating has been examined as a theoretical question in the modern Chinese literature (Zhongguo Zhen Jiu 2014;34(8):781–2, PMID 25335258). This is a discussion paper, not a clinical study, and it is cited here as documentation that the pairing is a live part of the tradition — not as evidence that it works.
• Named in a dry-mouth review. A literature review of acupuncture for radiation-induced xerostomia searched five classical acupuncture works for points recorded against dry mouth and thirst, and Fu Liu KI-07 was among those it found, alongside KI-04, KI-06, GB-44 and LIV-03 (Li LX et al., Chin J Integr Med 2016;22(7):549–54, PMID 26311288). That is a record of classical indication, not a trial result.
• Anatomical mapping. The comparative-anatomy study described under needling located and dissected KI-07 by name and graded it a high-reliability point (PMID 33269839).

What is missing should be said plainly: KI-07's headline traditional indication — abnormal sweating — has not been tested at this point in any randomised trial we have been able to locate, and neither has its oedema indication. The insomnia trial is real but tests a two-point protocol for a condition that is not among the point's classical indications at all.

How does KI-07 compare with the points around it?

The inner ankle is crowded, and KI-07's neighbours are easily confused with it. Tai Xi KI-03 lies two cun below, is the Shu-Stream, Earth and Yuan-Source point, and is the general Kidney-tonifying point of the channel — where KI-07 is the specific one for sweating and water. Jiao Xin KI-08 is the point most often mistaken for KI-07: it sits at the same height, two cun above the inner ankle bone, but behind the medial border of the tibia rather than in front of the Achilles tendon — a finger's breadth apart, and a different point with a different classification (Xi-Cleft of the Yin Motility Vessel). Zhao Hai KI-06 below the ankle bone is the Confluent point of the Yin Motility Vessel and the channel's throat-and-sleep point. Shui Quan KI-05 is the Xi-Cleft point. Zhu Bin KI-09 is five cun up, on the line from KI-03 to KI-10. And Yin Xi HT-06, far away at the wrist, is KI-07's real functional counterpart: the other principal point of the tradition for night sweating.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (name, translation, element and five-shu classifications, the complete Kidney five-shu series, and the KI-01, KI-03, KI-05, KI-06, KI-08, KI-09, KI-10, HT-06, HT-07, HT-08, LU-05, LIV-02, LIV-08, P-08, SJ-10 and GB-43 records queried directly in the live point records); Deadman & Al-Khafaji, A Manual of Acupuncture (p. 346); Chinese Acupuncture & Moxibustion (p. 193); Nan Jing (Classic of Difficulties), on the five-shu indications; PMID 34675728 / PMC8519353; PMID 25335258; PMID 26311288; PMID 33269839 — each verified resolvable and checked for retraction status before citation; cross-referenced against multiple online sources.