Qian Zheng Pulling to the Right Position

What does Qian Zheng do?

Qian Zheng is an extra point — it belongs to no channel and carries no point category, so it has no channel-theory actions; everything below comes from documented clinical use. In that documented use it has one clear purpose, and the name states it: it is the point for a face that has been pulled out of true — facial paralysis, and the deviation of the mouth and eye that comes with it.

• The empirical point for facial paralysis — the defining documented use. It is named in the modern Chinese acupuncture protocols for Bell's palsy and peripheral facial paralysis with a consistency few extra points achieve, and it is on the affected side that it is used.
• Used for deviation of the mouth and eye — the visible sign the point is named for, whatever its cause. Our own indication record carries this first.
• Used for parotitis with facial swelling and pain — mumps and swelling in front of the ear, following from the point's position directly over the parotid region.
• Used for ulceration of the tongue and mouth — carried in our indication record and in the wider reference literature as a documented use.
• Used for facial spasm and post-paralytic tightness — recorded in modern practice for the involuntary twitching and synkinesis that can follow facial paralysis, as well as for the paralysis itself.

A correction worth stating plainly. Qian Zheng is often described as "clearing heat" from the mouth and tongue. That is a channel and organ-theory phrase, and Qian Zheng is on no channel — it has no five-shu, yuan, luo, xi-cleft, back-shu or front-mu classification, and nothing runs through it that could carry such an action. Our own earlier record used that phrasing and it has been removed; the clinical indication, mouth and tongue ulceration, is kept, because that is what the sources actually document. The points classically credited with clearing heat from the mouth and face are ST-44 Nei Ting, the spring point of the Stomach channel, and LI-04 He Gu, the source point of the Large Intestine channel and the command point of the face — both held in Sacred Lotus sources & references.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (existing action and indication record, corrected as described); Chinese Acupuncture & Moxibustion (p. 244); PubMed PMID 36644430 (PMC9805865), 42185063, 41839590; cross-referenced against multiple online sources.

What is Qian Zheng used for?

Qian Zheng is used above all for facial paralysis and for the deviation of the mouth and eye that accompanies it. The indications carried in Sacred Lotus sources & references are deviation of the eyes and mouth and ulceration of the tongue and mouth; the wider reference literature sets them out as follows.

• Facial paralysis, including Bell's palsy — the leading and defining indication
• Deviation of the mouth
• Deviation of the eye, and difficulty closing the eye on the affected side
• Peripheral facial paralysis in its acute stage
• Facial spasm and twitching
• Synkinesis and tightness after facial paralysis
• Parotitis (mumps) with swelling and pain in front of the ear
• Ulceration of the mouth
• Ulceration of the tongue
• Pain in the cheek and jaw

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (existing indication record); Chinese Acupuncture & Moxibustion (p. 244); PubMed PMID 42185063, 41839590, 36644430; cross-referenced against multiple online sources.

How is Qian Zheng used in practice?

Qian Zheng lies on the cheek, half a cun to a cun in front of the earlobe. That short distance places it directly over the parotid gland and, as a recent anatomical study confirmed, over the trunk of the facial nerve just after it leaves the skull and before it fans out into the branches that move the face — which is the whole explanation for what the point is used for. It is treated on the affected side, and it is never used alone: it is one point in a facial prescription.

Which points is Qian Zheng combined with?

• With ST-04 Di Cang and ST-06 Jia Che — the two points at the corner of the mouth and the angle of the jaw, and the most constant partners of all. Modern protocols frequently connect these two as an electroacupuncture pair while Qian Zheng is needled alongside them.
• With SJ-17 Yi Feng — in the notch behind the earlobe, immediately behind Qian Zheng and over the facial nerve at its exit from the skull. The two bracket the nerve trunk from behind and in front, and appear together in almost every published protocol.
• With ST-07 Xia Guan — below the cheekbone, added for pain and for involvement of the jaw.
• With GB-14 Yang Bai and BL-02 Zan Zhu — the forehead and eyebrow points, added where the brow will not lift and the eye will not close.
• With SI-18 Quan Liao and LI-20 Ying Xiang — the cheekbone and nostril points, for the mid-face.
• With REN-24 Cheng Jiang and Jia Cheng Jiang — below the lower lip and beside it; Jia Cheng Jiang is an extra point held in Sacred Lotus sources & references and, like Qian Zheng, belongs to the facial-paralysis group.
• With Tai Yang and Yu Yao — the temple and mid-eyebrow extra points, both held in Sacred Lotus sources & references; the anatomical study places Tai Yang over the frontotemporal branch of the same nerve.
• With LI-04 He Gu — the classical distal point for the face, needled on both sides or on the opposite side, and the one point in the group that is not on the face at all.

Is Qian Zheng the same as the formula Qian Zheng San?

No, and the confusion is worth heading off, because searching the research literature for "Qianzheng" returns the formula far more often than the point. Qian Zheng San — "Lead to Symmetry Powder" — is a herbal formula held separately in Sacred Lotus sources & references, and it is used for the same clinical picture: facial paralysis and deviation of the mouth and eye. The two share a name because they share a purpose; qian zheng describes the intended result, pulling the crooked back to straight, and it is applied to whatever is doing the pulling. They are otherwise entirely unrelated — one is a point in front of the ear, the other a powder taken internally — and papers about the formula say nothing about the point.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (location, existing use record; ST-04, ST-06, ST-07, SJ-17, GB-14, BL-02, SI-18, LI-20, REN-24, LI-04, Jia Cheng Jiang, Tai Yang and Yu Yao point records; Qian Zheng San formula record); Chinese Acupuncture & Moxibustion (p. 244); PubMed PMID 36644430 (PMC9805865), 42185063, 41839590; cross-referenced against multiple online sources.

Where is Qian Zheng located?

• Chinese Acupuncture and Moxibustion (p. 244): 0.5-1 cun anterior to the auricular lobe.

How is Qian Zheng needled in the textbooks?

Reference record only — this describes what the standard texts document, not instruction for a reader. Sacred Lotus sources & references record oblique insertion of 0.5 to 1 cun at Qian Zheng. Oblique rather than perpendicular is the standard record for this point, as it is for most facial points, because the tissue over the cheek is shallow and the needle is laid along the plane of the face rather than driven into it.

• Angle documented: oblique, commonly directed toward the corner of the mouth or along the line of the affected muscle.
• Depth documented: approximately 0.5 to 1 cun.
• Side documented: the affected side, in every published protocol that names the point.
• Electroacupuncture: documented in the modern trial literature at facial points; the published protocols usually connect the current between ST-06 and ST-04 and between SJ-17 and ST-07, with Qian Zheng needled without current.
• Intradermal and retained press needles: documented in recent trial work at the same facial points, retained for up to 24 hours.
• Moxibustion: not a method the standard references apply at this point.

Safety reference. There is no body cavity beneath Qian Zheng and therefore none of the hazard that governs points over the thorax or the upper back — but the point sits over structures that make it one of the more consequential facial points in the reference record. It lies over the trunk of the facial nerve itself, close to where it divides into its temporofacial and cervicofacial branches, which is exactly why the point is used for facial paralysis and exactly why the documented insertion is oblique and shallow. It also lies over the parotid gland, and the superficial temporal vessels and the retromandibular vein run close by, so bruising is the most commonly recorded local event; a haematoma on the face is cosmetically conspicuous in a way it is not elsewhere, and the reference literature notes firm pressure after withdrawal for that reason. The eye is in the same field of treatment when the wider prescription is used, and the facial points around the orbit carry their own depth cautions that Qian Zheng does not share but is often used alongside. Facial paralysis is also a presentation in which a medical diagnosis matters: sudden facial weakness has causes that require urgent assessment, and the reference literature treats acupuncture for facial paralysis as care given after that assessment, not instead of it. Standard clean-needle practice applies. Acupuncture is performed by qualified, licensed practitioners; this record documents the literature and is not a technique guide.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (existing needling record); Chinese Acupuncture & Moxibustion (p. 244); PubMed PMID 36644430 (PMC9805865), 42185063, 41839590.

What does the name Qian Zheng mean?

Qian Zheng means "Pull to Straight" — qian to pull or lead, zheng upright, correct, properly aligned. Our record renders it "Pulling to the Right Position", and the sense is exactly that: a face that has been dragged out of true is pulled back to symmetry. It is one of the point names that state a clinical aim rather than describe a landmark, and it names the outcome rather than the complaint — the opposite convention from Luo Zhen ("Fallen from the Pillow"), which names the complaint. The site carries the modern code EX-HN 16 in the standardised extra-point numbering used throughout the research literature, and appears in older schemes as N-HN-20.

Is Qian Zheng a channel point?

No. Qian Zheng is an extra point — recorded outside the fourteen channels for an observed clinical effect rather than derived from channel theory. Extra points carry no five-shu, yuan, luo, xi-cleft, back-shu or front-mu classification, which is why our record shows no channel and no categories, and why the actions above are framed as documented uses. The area is crossed by the Stomach, Small Intestine and Triple Burner channels, and Qian Zheng sits among their points without belonging to any of them.

Why is Qian Zheng located where it is?

Because that half-inch of cheek in front of the earlobe is where the facial nerve emerges and divides. This is one of the few extra points whose traditional location has been checked directly against anatomy and found to be precise. A cadaveric dissection study with electrostimulation of the facial nerve mapped the classical facial points against the nerve's course and reported that Qian Zheng targets the facial nerve trunk, with SJ-17 Yi Feng at the nerve's exit from the skull, Tai Yang at the frontotemporal branch, SI-18 Quan Liao at the buccal branch and ST-05 Da Ying at the marginal mandibular branch (Med Acupunct 2022;34(6):391–399, PMID 36644430, PMC9805865). Nothing in that finding proves the point works; what it establishes is that the traditional description was anatomically specific rather than approximate, and that the facial-paralysis prescription maps onto the nerve it is meant to affect. The study's own aim was to standardise these locations so that trials become reproducible.

Is there research on Qian Zheng?

The honest answer is that no study has tested Qian Zheng on its own, and none is likely to. The point is used inside facial prescriptions of ten or more points, and the trials describe those prescriptions rather than this point. What the literature offers instead is two things: repeated confirmation that Qian Zheng is a standard component of the modern protocols, and one genuinely point-specific anatomical study.

• The anatomical study described above (PMID 36644430, PMC9805865) is the only published work that is specifically about where Qian Zheng is and what lies beneath it. It is a cadaveric and electrostimulation study, not a clinical trial, so it speaks to location rather than to effect.
• Qian Zheng as a fixed component of the protocols. A stratified randomised trial in 220 patients with Bell's palsy used main points of SJ-17 Yi Feng, ST-04 Di Cang, ST-06 Jia Che, GB-14 Yang Bai, ST-07 Xia Guan and Qian Zheng (EX-HN 16) on the affected side with bilateral LI-04 He Gu, comparing electroacupuncture alone against electroacupuncture plus retained intradermal needles. Adding the intradermal needles helped in severe paralysis but not in moderate (Zhen Ci Yan Jiu 2026;51(5):630–638, PMID 42185063). A second randomised trial in 60 patients with acute facial paralysis and mastoid pain used a conventional prescription including Qian Zheng (EX-HN 16) as its control arm (Zhongguo Zhen Jiu 2026;46(3):328–334, PMID 41839590). Both name the point; neither isolates it.
• The modality-level evidence. A systematic review and meta-analysis of eleven randomised trials in 1,258 patients compared acupuncture with drug treatment for Bell's palsy and reported a higher cure rate (RR 1.77, 95% CI 1.41–2.21) and total effective rate (RR 1.18, 95% CI 1.07–1.31), but with severe statistical heterogeneity and the explicit caution that the included studies were of poor quality and that safety evidence was insufficient (Medicine (Baltimore) 2019;98(19):e15566, PMID 31083225, PMC6531040). That is evidence about acupuncture for Bell's palsy, not about Qian Zheng, and it is presented here as context rather than as support for the point.

One more thing a reader should know before searching. A literature search for "Qianzheng" returns mostly work on the herbal formula Qian Zheng San — network-pharmacology studies, a systematic-review protocol for hemifacial spasm, animal work on facial nerve regeneration — and none of it concerns this point. Qian Zheng is also a common Chinese personal name, so author-name matches make up much of the rest. Qian Zheng's standing as a point rests on its constant presence in the facial-paralysis prescriptions and on the anatomical precision of its location, not on trial evidence about the point itself.

How does Qian Zheng compare with the other facial-paralysis points?

Sacred Lotus sources & references hold the whole facial-paralysis group, and Qian Zheng's place among them is best understood by what part of the nerve each sits over. SJ-17 Yi Feng, behind the earlobe, is at the nerve's exit from the skull — the point immediately behind Qian Zheng and the one most often paired with it. ST-04 Di Cang at the corner of the mouth and ST-06 Jia Che at the angle of the jaw are the points for the mouth itself. GB-14 Yang Bai and BL-02 Zan Zhu serve the brow and the eye that will not close; SI-18 Quan Liao the cheekbone; ST-05 Da Ying the jawline; ST-07 Xia Guan the joint in front of the ear; LI-20 Ying Xiang the nostril; REN-24 Cheng Jiang and the extra point Jia Cheng Jiang the lower lip. Among the extra points, Tai Yang at the temple and Yu Yao at the mid-eyebrow are Qian Zheng's companions, and LI-04 He Gu is the distal point used with all of them. Qian Zheng's distinction is that it sits closest to the trunk of the nerve — upstream of all the branch points, where the problem in a peripheral facial palsy actually is.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (existing record; ST-04, ST-05, ST-06, ST-07, SJ-17, GB-14, BL-02, SI-18, LI-20, LI-04, REN-24, Jia Cheng Jiang, Tai Yang, Yu Yao and Luo Zhen records; Qian Zheng San formula record); Chinese Acupuncture & Moxibustion (p. 244); PubMed PMID 36644430 (PMC9805865), 42185063, 41839590, 31083225 (PMC6531040) — each verified resolvable and checked for retraction status before citation; cross-referenced against multiple online sources.