SJ-17 (Yi Feng) Wind Screen

What does SJ-17 Yi Feng do?

Yi Feng is the great ear point of the San Jiao channel: its defining action is to benefit the ears, and it is the point most consistently reached for in tinnitus, deafness and discharge from the ear. It is also a Meeting Point of the San Jiao and Gall Bladder channels, which is why its reach extends beyond the ear itself to the whole side of the face and jaw.

• Benefits the ears and opens the ear orifice — the leading action, applied to tinnitus, sudden or gradual deafness, reduced hearing and discharge from the ear. The San Jiao channel passes behind and around the ear, and Yi Feng sits at the point where it does so.
• Eliminates wind — the action its name announces. In channel terms it is used where wind is held to have struck the side of the face, producing sudden distortion of the mouth and eye.
• Clears heat — for red, hot, swollen or painful presentations at the ear, cheek and jaw.
• Activates the channel and alleviates pain — for toothache, jaw pain, clenched jaw (trismus) and pain radiating around the ear.
• Reduces swelling and dissipates nodules — recorded for swelling of the cheek and for scrofula, the classical term for chronic swollen nodes in the neck.
• Benefits the face as a local point in facial paralysis — it is one of the standard local points in that presentation, and appears in that role in published trial protocols (PMID 40103385, 39943750).

Why the Gall Bladder connection matters. Because Yi Feng is a meeting point of two channels rather than a San Jiao point alone, the Gall Bladder channel — which also circles the ear and covers the side of the head — is treated at the same needle. That is the mechanism behind its use for one-sided facial and temporal complaints as well as for the ear proper, and it is why it sits alongside GB-02 Ting Hui and GB-12 Wan Gu in so many prescriptions.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (channel, category and existing action record); Deadman & Al-Khafaji, A Manual of Acupuncture, SJ-17 (p. 408); Chinese Acupuncture & Moxibustion (p. 207); PubMed PMID 40103385, 39943750; cross-referenced against multiple online sources.

What is SJ-17 Yi Feng used for?

Yi Feng is used above all for disorders of the ear — tinnitus, deafness and discharge — and, second to that, for facial paralysis and pain around the jaw. The indications carried in Sacred Lotus sources & references are tinnitus, deafness, otorrhoea, facial paralysis, toothache, swelling of the cheek, scrofula and trismus; the wider reference literature sets them out as follows.

• Tinnitus (ringing in the ears)
• Deafness and reduced hearing, including sudden hearing loss
• Otorrhoea — discharge from the ear
• Earache and pain behind the ear
• Facial paralysis with deviation of the mouth and eye (Bell's palsy)
• Twitching of the eyelid and facial spasm
• Toothache, particularly of the lower teeth
• Clenched jaw (trismus) and difficulty opening the mouth
• Swelling of the cheek and the parotid region, including mumps
• Scrofula — chronic swollen nodes of the neck
• Dizziness
• Difficulty swallowing, as a supporting point in post-stroke protocols

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (existing indication record); Deadman & Al-Khafaji, A Manual of Acupuncture, SJ-17 (p. 408); Chinese Acupuncture & Moxibustion (p. 207); cross-referenced against multiple online sources.

How is SJ-17 Yi Feng used in practice?

Yi Feng lies immediately behind the earlobe, in the soft hollow between the back edge of the jawbone and the bony mastoid prominence behind the ear — the tender dip a person finds by pressing just behind the lobe and drawing the lobe forward. It is a local point, worked on the affected side for one-sided ear or facial complaints and on both sides where the presentation is bilateral. Practically no ear prescription omits it.

Which points is SJ-17 Yi Feng combined with?

• With SI-19 Ting Gong, GB-02 Ting Hui and SJ-21 Er Men — the three points in front of the ear. Yi Feng behind and these three in front form the classical ring around the ear for tinnitus and deafness; a single needle is sometimes threaded between the front three.
• With SJ-03 Zhong Zhu and SJ-05 Wai Guan — the distal points of its own channel, added so that the channel is treated along its length rather than only at the ear.
• With GB-20 Feng Chi and GB-12 Wan Gu — its neighbours at the base of the skull, for ear complaints accompanied by headache, neck stiffness or dizziness.
• With ST-04 Di Cang, ST-06 Jia Che, ST-07 Xia Guan, GB-14 Yang Bai, SI-18 Quan Liao and LI-04 He Gu — the local facial group for facial paralysis. A randomised trial in acute Bell's palsy used precisely this pattern: Yi Feng with SI-18, GB-14, ST-06 and ST-04 on the affected side and LI-04 on the sound side (PMID 40103385).
• With ST-07 Xia Guan, LI-04 He Gu and ST-36 Zu San Li — the combination used with warm needling at Yi Feng in a real-world cohort of acute idiopathic facial palsy (PMID 39943750).
• With SI-19 Ting Gong, GB-11 Tou Qiao Yin, DU-20 Bai Hui, DU-14 Da Zhui and SJ-03 Zhong Zhu — the tinnitus protocol used in an electroacupuncture imaging study (PMID 38585348).

Which points sit nearest to SJ-17 Yi Feng?

Two extra points held in Sacred Lotus sources & references are located by reference to Yi Feng itself. Yi Ming lies one cun behind it, and An Mian lies midway between it and GB-20 Feng Chi. A reader who has located Yi Feng has therefore located the whole cluster behind the ear, and the three are easily confused — Yi Feng is the ear point, Yi Ming the eye point and An Mian the sleep point.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (location, existing use record, and the Yi Ming and An Mian records); Deadman & Al-Khafaji, A Manual of Acupuncture, SJ-17 (p. 408); Chinese Acupuncture & Moxibustion (p. 207); PubMed PMID 40103385, 39943750, 38585348; cross-referenced against multiple online sources.

Where is SJ-17 located?

• A Manual of Acupuncture (p. 408): Behind the earlobe, between the ramus of the mandible and the mastoid process, in the depression just superior to the palpable transverse process of the first cervical vertebra.
• Chinese Acupuncture and Moxibustion (p. 207): Posterior to the lobule of the ear, in the depression between the mandible and mastoid process.

How is SJ-17 Yi Feng needled in the textbooks?

Reference record only — this sets down what the standard texts document, not instruction for a reader. Sacred Lotus sources & references and Chinese Acupuncture & Moxibustion record perpendicular insertion of 0.5 to 1 cun at Yi Feng, and record moxibustion as applicable. Deadman & Al-Khafaji record the same depth range, with the needle directed towards the opposite ear or the tip of the tongue depending on the presentation being treated.

• Angle documented: perpendicular into the hollow behind the earlobe; for ear disorders the texts describe the needle directed slightly forwards, towards the opposite ear.
• Depth documented: 0.5 to 1 cun.
• Sensation documented: a distending or numb sensation around the ear, sometimes spreading to the tongue or across half the face.
• Moxibustion: recorded as applicable; a warm-needle method at this point was used in a published cohort of acute facial palsy (PMID 39943750).

What are the safety considerations at SJ-17 Yi Feng?

This is one of the most anatomically demanding points on the head, and the reason is the facial nerve. The facial nerve leaves the skull through the stylomastoid foramen, which lies deep to Yi Feng between the mastoid process and the styloid process, and immediately fans out into the parotid gland to supply the muscles of the face. The point sits directly over that exit. The following are recorded as neutral reference facts.

• The facial nerve lies deep to the point. Deep or forceful needling in this region carries a documented risk of injuring it — the same nerve whose weakness the point is so often used to treat. This is the specific reason the recorded depth range is short and the recorded manipulation gentle.
• The parotid gland occupies the region. The point overlies the posterior part of the gland, and the great auricular nerve and the posterior auricular artery and vein run superficially across it. Local bruising and tenderness are the events reported there.
• Deeper and further forward lies the carotid sheath, carrying the internal carotid artery and internal jugular vein, together with the styloid process — which is why the texts describe insertion into the hollow rather than angled deeply forwards.
• No cavity risk. There is no pneumothorax or organ hazard at this point; the hazard here is neural and vascular, and it is entirely a function of depth and angle.
• No measured safe-depth study specific to this point was located. We searched the indexed literature for a cadaveric or imaging study establishing a safe needling depth at SJ-17 and did not find one, so the depth figures above are recorded as the textbooks give them and not presented as a validated safety threshold.

Acupuncture is carried out only by qualified, licensed practitioners under standard clean-needle practice; this record documents the reference literature and is not a technique guide.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (existing needling record); Deadman & Al-Khafaji, A Manual of Acupuncture, SJ-17 (p. 408); Chinese Acupuncture & Moxibustion (p. 207); PubMed PMID 39943750; cross-referenced against multiple online sources.

What does the name Yi Feng mean?

Yi Feng means "Wind Screen" — yi is a screen or shield, feng is wind. The image is the ear itself: the auricle stands in front of the point like a screen, shielding the hollow behind the lobe from the wind. The name is doubly apt, because the point's traditional business is exactly that of expelling wind that has struck the side of the face — the sudden, one-sided distortion of the mouth and eye that Chinese medicine has always attributed to wind. It is a name that records the anatomy and the action in two characters.

Is SJ-17 Yi Feng a meeting point?

Yes. Our record classifies Yi Feng as a Meeting Point of the San Jiao and Gall Bladder channels. A meeting point is one where two or more channels converge, so that treating it treats every channel that passes through — which is why Yi Feng can be used for Gall Bladder-channel presentations on the side of the head as well as for its own San Jiao channel. It is not a five-shu, yuan, luo, xi-cleft, back-shu or front-mu point; its classification is entirely the meeting-point one, and its clinical importance rests on position rather than on category. Three of its near neighbours on the same channel carry the same classification: SJ-15 Tian Liao, SJ-20 Jiao Sun and SJ-22 He Liao are all recorded as meeting points, so the whole run of the channel around the ear is territory shared with the Gall Bladder channel.

How does SJ-17 Yi Feng compare with the other ear points?

SI-19 Ting Gong, GB-02 Ting Hui and SJ-21 Er Men are the three points stacked in front of the ear, at the tragus; Yi Feng is the one point behind it. In practice the front three are treated as near-interchangeable and are often needled through one another, while Yi Feng is added as the posterior counterweight — so a full ear prescription approaches the ear from both sides. GB-12 Wan Gu lies further back and lower, behind the mastoid, and belongs more to the neck than the ear. SJ-16 Tian You, one segment up the same channel, is a Window of the Sky point concerned with the head and sense organs generally rather than the ear specifically. Readers should also keep Yi Feng distinct from the extra point Yi Ming behind it, whose classical business is the eyes.

Is there research on SJ-17 Yi Feng?

The honest answer is that no published trial isolates Yi Feng as a single point. It appears constantly in multi-point protocols for facial palsy and tinnitus, which is real evidence that trialists select it and no evidence at all of what it contributes on its own. The point-relevant literature we can verify is as follows.

• Bell's palsy, acute stage. A randomised controlled trial of 60 patients with acute Bell's palsy compared routine acupuncture — Yi Feng (TE17) with SI-18, GB-14, ST-06 and ST-04 on the affected side and LI-04 on the sound side — against oral prednisone with methylcobalamin, tracking facial muscle strength and fatigue by surface electromyography alongside House-Brackmann and Sunnybrook facial nerve scores (Zhen Ci Yan Jiu 2025;50(3):327–333, PMID 40103385). Yi Feng is one needle of six in that protocol.
• Idiopathic facial palsy, timing of treatment. A real-world cohort of 198 patients, propensity-score matched to 70 per group, compared acupuncture-moxibustion begun in the acute phase against the recovery phase. Warm needling at Yi Feng (TE17), ST-07, LI-04 and ST-36 was the acute-phase protocol (Zhongguo Zhen Jiu 2025;45(2):133–138, PMID 39943750). A cohort study, not a randomised trial.
• Subjective tinnitus. A randomised trial of 92 patients used Yi Feng (TE17) on the affected side within a governor-vessel protocol, compared with ginkgo and mecobalamin tablets (Zhongguo Zhen Jiu 2024;44(6):648–652, PMID 38867626). A separate imaging study gave electroacupuncture including Yi Feng to 34 tinnitus patients and reported changes in resting-state functional connectivity of the insula, with 34 matched healthy controls scanned but untreated (Front Neurol 2024;15:1373390, PMID 38585348, PMC10995322). Neither design can attribute anything to this point specifically, and the imaging study's control group received no intervention.

Trials of acupuncture for tinnitus or facial palsy that include Yi Feng among six or ten needles report on the whole protocol, and are not cited here as though they reported on this point.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references; Deadman & Al-Khafaji, A Manual of Acupuncture, SJ-17 (p. 408); Chinese Acupuncture & Moxibustion (p. 207); PubMed PMID 40103385, 39943750, 38867626, 38585348 (PMC10995322) — each verified resolvable and checked for retraction status before citation; cross-referenced against multiple online sources.