SP-17 (Shi Dou) Food Hole

What does SP-17 Shi Dou do?

SP-17 dissipates accumulation of food and fluid and promotes digestion — a chest point with, unusually, a digestive action, matching its name “Food Hole”.

• Dissipates accumulation of food and fluid — breaking up stagnant food and retained fluid
• Promotes digestion — the Spleen’s governing role, here reached from a point on the chest wall

A digestive action on the chest — the name explains it. The other three Spleen chest points above it (SP-18, SP-19, SP-20) carry chest-and-qi actions; SP-17 alone carries a food-and-digestion action, and its name, Shi Dou (“Food Hole”), says so directly. It is the digestive member of the Spleen’s chest cluster, the Spleen’s organ role surfacing on the trunk.

The lowest of the four Spleen chest points. The Spleen channel crosses the side of the chest through four points, one per intercostal space, all 6 cun lateral to the midline: SP-17 in the 5th space (lowest), SP-18 in the 4th, SP-19 in the 3rd, SP-20 in the 2nd (highest). They share a common chest-fullness indication; SP-17 adds the digestive note.

On the name. “Shi Dou” means Food Hole or Food Cavity — shi food, dou a hole, hollow or receptacle. Among the more literal names: the point’s action is food, and it is named for it.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (channel, action, location and translation records; the SP-18, SP-19 and SP-20 records queried against our own data), cross-referenced against multiple online sources.

What is SP-17 Shi Dou used for?

SP-17 is used for fullness and pain in the chest and the side (hypochondriac region). Our own indication record is reproduced here in full.

• Fullness of the chest and hypochondrium (the side of the trunk below the ribs)
• Pain of the chest and hypochondrium

The shared chest indication, with a digestive undertone. Chest-and-side fullness and pain is the indication common to all four Spleen chest points; at SP-17 it carries the digestive sense of its action — the fullness of food and fluid stagnation felt in the chest and upper abdomen, not only qi constraint.

An honest and important note. Chest pain must never be assumed to be muscular — it requires medical assessment to exclude cardiac and other serious causes. Pain with breathlessness, sweating, or pain spreading to the arm or jaw is a medical emergency. New or persistent pain in the side also warrants assessment. This record documents classical use only; it is not a basis for treating chest pain without a diagnosis.

How it is combined. With the Spleen chest points above it, and with REN-12 Zhong Wan and ST-36 Zu San Li for the digestive action, and P-06 Nei Guan for the chest. All held here.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (indication and action records; the P-06, REN-12 and ST-36 records queried from our own data), cross-referenced against multiple online sources.

Where is SP-17 Shi Dou located?

SP-17 is on the side of the chest, in the fifth rib space, six cun out from the midline.

• In the 5th intercostal space (the gap between the 5th and 6th ribs)
• 6 cun lateral to the anterior midline — well out toward the side of the chest
• The lowest of the four Spleen chest points; SP-18 lies one space above, at nipple level

Counted by ribs, placed on the 6-cun line. The Spleen chest points sit 6 cun lateral to the midline — the outermost chest line, out toward the mid-axillary region — and are told apart by which rib space they occupy. SP-17 is in the 5th space, one below SP-18 at the 4th (nipple) level. Counting down from the nipple space fixes it. The intercostal space, not a measured height, is the landmark.

On the name. “Shi Dou” — Food Hole, for its digestive action, as noted above.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (location and translation records, retained unchanged; the SP-18 record queried from our own data).

• A Manual of Acupuncture (p. 201): On the lateral side of the chest, in the fifth intercostal space, 6 cun lateral to the midline.
• Chinese Acupuncture and Moxibustion (p. 161-162): In the 5th intercostal space, 6 cun lateral to the anterior midline.

How is SP-17 Shi Dou needled, and why only shallowly and obliquely?

Our own record states OBLIQUE insertion of 0.3–0.5 inch — deliberately shallow and angled — with moxibustion applicable. What follows is a neutral record of what the reference literature documents. It is not instruction, and this page does not teach technique — and on the chest wall that caution is at its most serious.

• Angle and depth as recorded: oblique, 0.3–0.5 inch. The angle and the shallow depth are the whole point: an oblique needle skims along the chest wall rather than driving through it.
• Moxibustion: recorded as applicable.
• Regional anatomy: the point lies in the 5th intercostal space; the intercostal nerve and vessels run under each rib; and immediately deep to the chest wall lie the pleura and the lung.

Hazard, stated plainly — this is the reason for the oblique needling. The serious risk at any chest point is pneumothorax — puncturing the lung, which can collapse it. A perpendicular or deep needle here can reach the pleura; the recorded oblique, shallow technique exists precisely to prevent that. Our record carries no arterial caution at SP-17, and it is not among the nine points that do — the governing hazard here is the lung, not a vessel. This is emphatically a practitioner’s point and not one for self-treatment.

What is not claimed. No study measuring a safe depth at SP-17 could be located, and none is borrowed; the oblique-and-shallow rule stands in its place. No case report naming SP-17 was located.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (needling record, retained unchanged including the oblique angle; the nine arterial cautions queried from our own data), cross-referenced against multiple online sources; regional anatomy from standard anatomical description.

Is there research on SP-17, and what should a reader know?

No trial isolates SP-17. Where the point appears it is one component of a protocol, and a study that includes a point in a protocol is not evidence about that point.

What this page can state with confidence. SP-17 Shi Dou (“Food Hole”) is the lowest of the four Spleen chest points, in the 5th intercostal space, 6 cun lateral to the midline. Alone among them it carries a digestive action — dissipating food and fluid accumulation — which its name records. Like all chest points, it is needled obliquely and shallowly to avoid the lung beneath.

A safety note that outranks any TCM claim. Chest pain is a symptom to have diagnosed, and this point sits over the pleura. Both facts make SP-17 a practitioner’s point.

A note on searching for it. “SP 17”, “SP-17” and “Shidou” searches return protocol trials and unrelated material. Any claim attached to this point should be checked against what a study actually used.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (action, indication, location and needling records; the four Spleen chest points and the nine arterial cautions queried, against our own data).