SI-06 (Yang Lao) Nursing the Aged

What does SI-06 Yang Lao do?

SI-06 is the Xi-Cleft point of the Small Intestine channel — a YANG channel, so it carries the acute function of that category without the bleeding indication that yin-channel Xi-Cleft points hold. Its recorded actions are the channel’s course plus one distinctive addition: the eyes.

• Activates the channel and alleviates pain — the local and channel action
• Benefits the shoulder and arm
• Moderates acute conditions — the Xi-Cleft function proper
• Benefits the eyes — the distinctive one, and the source of the point’s name

The eye action is what the name is about. “Yang Lao” means Nursing the Aged or Support the Elderly, and the classical association is with the failing eyesight of old age. A point on the back of the wrist named for caring for the elderly, carrying an eye indication, is a piece of clinical observation preserved in a name — and it is the kind of detail that survives only if a reference keeps it.

Verified against our own data: the yang-channel rule holds here. This library holds sixteen Xi-Cleft points. Testing the classical rule against our own indication records gives eleven of twelve on the channel points: all six yang-channel ones — SI-06, LI-07, ST-34, BL-63, SJ-07, GB-36 — carry no bleeding indication, and four of the six yin ones do. SI-06’s indication list contains none, exactly as predicted.

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

What is SI-06 Yang Lao used for?

SI-06 is used for blurred vision and for pain of the shoulder, elbow and arm. Our own indication record is short and is reproduced here in full.

• Blurring of vision
• Pain in the shoulder
• Pain in the elbow and arm

Two of three are the channel’s course; the third is the point’s signature. The Small Intestine channel runs from the little finger along the back of the forearm, past the elbow and across the shoulder blade — so shoulder, elbow and arm pain are simply where it goes. The eye indication is not on that course and comes instead from the classical association preserved in the name.

The acute reading matters. Xi-Cleft points are the classical choice for sudden and severe presentations, which is what distinguishes SI-06 from the channel’s other arm points. For a long-standing shoulder pattern the texts reach elsewhere; for an acute one they reach here.

How it is combined. With SI-03 Hou Xi, the channel’s tonification point and Confluent point of the Du Mai, for acute neck and shoulder problems. With SI-11 Tian Zong and SI-12 Bing Feng on the shoulder blade. With SI-09 and LI-15 Jian Yu for the shoulder joint. For the eyes, with BL-01, GB-37 Guang Ming or LIV-03. All held here.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (indication record; SI-03, SI-11, SI-12, LI-15, GB-37 and LIV-03 classifications queried from our own data), cross-referenced against multiple online sources.

Where is SI-06 Yang Lao located, and why does the posture matter?

SI-06 is on the back of the wrist at the head of the ulna — and our own record specifies that it is found WITH THE PALM PLACED ON THE CHEST. That posture is not decoration: with the forearm rotated the other way, the cleft the point sits in closes.

• Palm placed on the chest — the recorded locating posture
• On the dorsal aspect of the head of the ulna, in a cleft that opens in that position
• SI-05 Yang Gu lies distal at the wrist joint; SI-07 Zhi Zheng, the Luo-Connecting point, proximal on the forearm

Posture-dependent points are a small but real category in this library, and they are worth recognising as a group: SI-19 Ting Gong requires the mouth open; ST-07 Xia Guan requires it closed; SI-12 Bing Feng requires the arm raised; and SI-06 requires the palm turned to the chest. Where a location depends on a posture, the posture is part of the location, and a point sought in the wrong position may not be findable at all.

On the name. “Yang Lao” — Nursing the Aged. Unlike its channel neighbours SI-02 and SI-03, whose names are positional, this one is functional and points directly at the eye indication.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (location and translation records, retained unchanged including the posture requirement; SI-05, SI-07, SI-12, SI-19 and ST-07 locating conventions queried from our own data).

• A Manual of Acupuncture (p. 237): When the palm of the hand is placed on the chest, this point is located on the dorsal aspect of the head of the ulna, in a cleft level with and to the radial side of the high point of the styloid process of the ulna.
• Chinese Acupuncture and Moxibustion (p. 168): Dorsal to the head of the ulna. When tile palm face the chest, the point is in the bony cleft on radial side of the styloid process of the ulna.

How is SI-06 Yang Lao 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 the point sits in a bony cleft with little soft tissue.
• Moxibustion: recorded as applicable.
• Regional anatomy: the head of the ulna forms the floor; the dorsal branch of the ulnar nerve and the dorsal carpal branches of the ulnar artery cross this region superficially.

Hazard, stated proportionately. This is a low-hazard point: bone beneath, no body cavity, shallow recorded depth. As with SI-05 on the same wrist, what crosses here is the ulnar nerve’s dorsal branch rather than its main trunk — the trunk passes through Guyon’s canal on the palmar side, which our HT-07 record documents. Distinguishing the two is the precision this library applies rather than attaching a general “ulnar nerve” caution to every point on that side of the arm. No study measuring a safe depth at SI-06 could be located, and none is borrowed. No case report naming SI-06 was located, and none is asserted.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (needling record, retained unchanged; SI-05's and HT-07's ulnar anatomy queried from our own data), cross-referenced against multiple online sources; regional anatomy from standard anatomical description.

Is there research on SI-06, and what should a reader know?

No trial isolates SI-06. Where the point appears it is one component of a shoulder, neck or eye protocol, and a study that includes a point in a protocol is not evidence about that point.

The channel’s calibration comes from SI-11. Our record for SI-11 Tian Zong has genuine point-specific research in myofascial shoulder pain — and reports the negative half of it: a study measured pressure-pain threshold at SI-11 and found the sensitisation correlation at SJ-14, LI-15 and SI-09, not at SI-11. If the channel’s best-studied point produces that, a neighbouring Xi-Cleft point should not be presented as having more.

What this page can state with confidence. Three things, all checkable: the classification and its yang-channel consequence, confirmed against our own indication data; the posture required to find it; and the name’s connection to its eye indication. None depends on research that does not exist.

A note on searching for it. “SI 6” and “Yanglao” searches return protocol trials and unrelated material — and note that yanglao is the ordinary Chinese word for elderly care and pensions, so this point’s name returns a large volume of social-policy and gerontology literature having nothing to do with acupuncture. That is one of the more heavily polluted point-name searches in this library, alongside Shangqiu (a city) and Zhishi (a herb).

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (classification, location and indication records; SI-11's research findings queried from our own data).