ST-06 (Jia Che) Jawbone

What does ST-06 Jia Che do?

Jia Che ST-06 is the principal point of the jaw. It sits on the belly of the masseter — the thick chewing muscle that bulges when the teeth are clenched — and its recorded work is to eliminate wind and benefit the jaw and teeth, and to activate the channel and alleviate pain. Sacred Lotus sources & references record those two actions directly. It carries no five-shu, yuan, luo, xi-cleft, back-shu or front-mu classification; what it does carry is a place in the classical Sun Si-miao Ghost Point set, and a position that makes it the single most-used point on the lower face.

• Eliminates wind and benefits the jaw and teeth — the defining action. "Wind" here covers the sudden and one-sided: a face that stops moving on one side, a jaw that clamps shut, a cheek that swells. It is the recorded basis for ST-06's use in facial paralysis, in trismus and in toothache of the lower jaw.
• Activates the channel and alleviates pain — the local action. The Stomach channel of Foot Yang Ming runs up over the jaw and cheek to the face, and ST-06 lies squarely on that course at the angle of the mandible. Pain, tightness and restricted movement of the jaw are its everyday territory.
• Relaxes the masseter and frees the jaw — a plainer statement of the same action, and the one that matches what the point is physically over. The masseter is one of the strongest muscles in the body for its size, and a needle in its belly is what the tradition reaches for when the jaw will not open, will not close comfortably, or hurts on chewing.
• Reduces swelling of the cheek and face — the recorded action behind its classical indications of mumps and swelling of the cheek. The parotid gland lies behind and around the point, which is the anatomical reason the classical texts pair this point with swellings of that region.

What gives ST-06 its unusual clinical weight is not a category but a technique. More than almost any other point on the body, it is used as one end of a through-needling pair: a long needle laid under the skin from ST-06 forward toward Di Cang ST-04 at the corner of the mouth, so that a single needle traverses the whole lower face along the channel. Both ends of that technique are documented in our own records, and the arrangement is set out under practice below.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (channel, Sun Si-miao Ghost Point classification and existing action record; the ST-04 record queried directly); Deadman & Al-Khafaji, A Manual of Acupuncture (p. 133); Chinese Acupuncture & Moxibustion (p. 146); cross-referenced against multiple online sources.

What is ST-06 Jia Che used for?

Jia Che ST-06 is used above all for facial paralysis and for disorders of the jaw — toothache, a clenched jaw, pain on chewing, and swelling of the cheek. It is one of the three or four points most consistently selected in the published trial literature for both peripheral facial paralysis and temporomandibular disorder. The indications carried in Sacred Lotus sources & references are facial paralysis, toothache, swelling of the cheek and face, mumps and trismus; the standard reference literature sets them out more fully below. They describe traditional use, not proven treatment, and the reference facts about the region are set out under needling.

• Facial paralysis with deviation of the mouth and eye (Bell's palsy)
• Toothache, particularly of the lower teeth
• Clenched jaw and difficulty opening the mouth (trismus)
• Pain, clicking or restricted movement of the jaw joint
• Pain on chewing and aching of the chewing muscles
• Swelling of the cheek and face
• Mumps and swelling of the parotid region
• Facial spasm and twitching
• Numbness of the face
• Loss of voice and difficulty speaking after stroke
• Stiffness of the neck with difficulty turning the head
• Grinding of the teeth
• Swelling and pain of the gums

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (existing indication record); Deadman & Al-Khafaji, A Manual of Acupuncture (p. 133); Chinese Acupuncture & Moxibustion (p. 146); point-selection data from PMID 38092550 and PMID 38357796.

Where is ST-06 Jia Che, and how is it used in practice?

Jia Che lies about one finger-breadth forward of and above the angle of the jaw, on the bulge of the masseter muscle. The way it is found is the definition: clench the teeth, and the muscle stands out under the finger; relax them, and a small depression appears in the same spot. Sacred Lotus sources & references give it exactly that way, and Deadman & Al-Khafaji place it approximately one fingerbreadth anterior and superior to the angle of the jaw at the prominence of the masseter. It is a point located by an action rather than by a measurement, which is unusual and makes it one of the easier points on the face to find reliably.

In practice ST-06 is used in three ways. Needled perpendicularly and shallowly it is a local point for the jaw, the masseter and the lower teeth. Needled subcutaneously toward Di Cang ST-04 it becomes the posterior end of the great through-needle of the lower face, used for facial paralysis. And it is treated with moxibustion, which our record records as applicable and which is much used where the jaw and cheek are cold, stiff or slow to recover.

What is the Jia Che to Di Cang through-needle?

It is the classical technique most associated with this point, and Sacred Lotus sources & references document it from both ends — which is worth saying, because it means the two records agree rather than one asserting something about the other. Our ST-06 record documents subcutaneous insertion with the needle tip directed toward Di Cang ST-04; our ST-04 record, held here, documents subcutaneous insertion of 1.0 to 1.5 inches with the tip directed toward Jia Che ST-06. A single long needle laid flat under the skin joins the corner of the mouth to the angle of the jaw, following the Stomach channel across the whole lower face. Di Cang, "Earth Granary", is itself a meeting point of the Stomach and Large Intestine channels with the Yang Motility and Conception Vessels — so the through-needle links a heavily classified point at the mouth to the muscular point at the jaw. The reason the technique exists is the reason facial paralysis is treated locally at all: the complaint is a whole territory of face rather than a spot, and one needle threaded through it addresses the territory.

This is not merely a textbook habit. A data-mining analysis of 1,695 published articles on acupuncture for peripheral facial paralysis, covering 124 points used 5,456 times, found that Dicang ST-04 with Jiache ST-06 was one of the two highest-frequency point pairs at every stage of the condition — acute, resting and recovery — the other being Dicang ST-04 with Yangbai GB-14. The points of the Stomach channel of Foot Yang Ming were the most frequently used of any channel across all stages (Zhongguo Zhen Jiu 2023;43(12):1457–1464, PMID 38092550).

Which points is ST-06 combined with?

• With Di Cang ST-04 — the through-needling partner described above, and ST-06's constant companion in facial paralysis.
• With Xia Guan ST-07 — two points above on the same channel, in the hollow below the cheekbone in front of the ear, over the jaw joint where ST-06 is over the jaw muscle. ST-06 with ST-07 is the standard local pair for temporomandibular disorder, and a systematic review and meta-analysis of acupuncture for orofacial pain identified He Gu LI-04, Jiache ST-06 and Xiaguan ST-07 as the points used most commonly in that literature (Disabil Rehabil 2024;46(24):5700–5716, PMID 38357796).
• With He Gu LI-04 — the Yuan-Source point of the Large Intestine channel on the hand, and the tradition's principal distal point for the face and mouth. Local-plus-LI-04 is the basic structure of nearly every facial prescription in this literature.
• With Yi Feng SJ-17 — in the hollow behind the earlobe, over the point where the facial nerve leaves the skull. In electroacupuncture protocols for Bell's palsy the two commonest electrode pairs are ST-06 with ST-04 and SJ-17 with ST-07 — the arrangement used in a stratified randomised trial of 220 patients (Zhen Ci Yan Jiu 2026;51(5):630–638, PMID 42185063). Our SJ-17 record carries the facial-nerve anatomy of that point from its own side.
• With Yang Bai GB-14, Si Bai ST-02, Quan Liao SI-18 and Cheng Jiang REN-24 — the rest of the standard facial-paralysis set, covering forehead, under-eye, cheekbone and chin. All are held in Sacred Lotus sources & references. A review of the treatments used in 33 higher-quality randomised trials of peripheral facial paralysis named the best-supported point options as ST-04, ST-07, ST-06, REN-24, LI-20, SI-18, SJ-17, GB-14, ST-02, GB-20, DU-26, Yu Yao and LI-04 (Zheng H et al., Am J Chin Med 2009;37(1):35–43, PMID 19222110).
• With Nei Ting ST-44 — the Ying-Spring point of the same channel on the foot, the classical distal choice where toothache is attributed to Stomach heat.
• With Ting Gong SI-19 and Yang Ling Quan GB-34 — the arrangement used in a randomised comparison of acupuncture frequency for temporomandibular disorder pain in 42 patients, which needled bilateral LI-04 and GB-34 with ipsilateral SI-19, ST-06 and ST-07, and found three sessions a week more effective than one or two (Zhongguo Zhen Jiu 2025;45(4):453–459, PMID 40229155).

What is a Sun Si-miao Ghost Point, and why is ST-06 one?

Sacred Lotus sources & references classify ST-06 as a Sun Si-miao Ghost Point — the point's only formal category. The set is attributed to the seventh-century physician Sun Si-miao and was recorded for the treatment of what the classical texts describe as possession, mania, epilepsy and disordered speech: the conditions the period attributed to "ghosts", and which modern readers will recognise as covering severe mental and convulsive disorder. Twelve records in this library carry the label, and they were queried directly rather than recalled: DU-26 Shui Gou, DU-16 Feng Fu, DU-23 Shang Xing, REN-01 Hui Yin, REN-24 Cheng Jiang, LU-11 Shao Shang, SP-01 Yin Bai, LI-11 Qu Chi, P-07 Da Ling, P-08 Lao Gong, BL-62 Shen Mai and ST-06 Jia Che. The classical set is usually given as thirteen, the last member varying between sources, and rather than guess at it this record states the number we hold and leaves it there.

Why the jaw point belongs to a set about the mind is worth a sentence, because it is not arbitrary. Two of the presentations the set addresses — a clenched jaw and an inability to speak — are jaw problems in appearance whatever their cause, and ST-06 is the point of the jaw. Reading the twelve together also shows the pattern of the set as a whole: it is built from the extremities, the midline and the openings of the face, which is a coherent classical logic even where the disease category is not one modern practice uses.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (both location records, channel, Sun Si-miao Ghost Point classification and the complete set of records carrying that label, queried directly; the ST-02, ST-04, ST-05, ST-07, ST-44, SJ-17, SI-18, SI-19, GB-14, GB-34, LI-04 and REN-24 records queried directly); Deadman & Al-Khafaji, A Manual of Acupuncture (p. 133); Chinese Acupuncture & Moxibustion (p. 146); PMID 38092550; PMID 38357796; PMID 42185063; PMID 19222110; PMID 40229155; cross-referenced against multiple online sources.

Where is ST-06 located?

• A Manual of Acupuncture (p. 133): Approximately 1 fingerbreadth anterior and superior to the angle of the jaw at the prominence of the masseter muscle.
• Chinese Acupuncture and Moxibustion (p. 146): One finger-breadth (middle finger) anterior and superior to the lower angle of the mandible where m. masseter is prominence when the teeth are clenched, and depressive when it is pressed.

How is ST-06 Jia Che needled, and what lies beneath it?

Stated plainly: ST-06 is a comparatively low-hazard facial point. It lies on the belly of the masseter muscle with the ramus of the mandible — solid bone — directly behind it. There is no body cavity, no organ and no great vessel in the needle path, and the depth our records carry is a shallow 0.3 to 0.5 inch perpendicular, or a subcutaneous insertion directed forward toward Di Cang ST-04. The structures worth naming are the parotid gland behind the point and the branches of the facial nerve crossing the masseter, and they are named as documented anatomy rather than as a warning: this point is not in the class of ST-05 Da Ying, whose own record carries an explicit instruction to avoid the artery, or of SJ-17 Yi Feng, which sits over the trunk of the facial nerve as it leaves the skull. Everything below is recorded as neutral reference data describing what the textbooks and the published anatomical literature state. It is not instruction, and this page does not teach technique. Needling is carried out only by a qualified, licensed practitioner.

The angle and depth the texts record

• Sacred Lotus sources & references record two documented techniques at this point: perpendicular insertion of 0.3 to 0.5 inch, or subcutaneous insertion with the tip of the needle directed toward Di Cang ST-04. Moxibustion is recorded as applicable.
• The through-needle is documented from both ends in our own data. The ST-04 record, held here, specifies subcutaneous insertion of 1.0 to 1.5 inches with the tip directed toward Jiache ST-06 — the same technique described from the mouth end. The two records agree, and the longer figure at ST-04 reflects that the needle is being laid along the face rather than into it.
• Deadman & Al-Khafaji (p. 133) and Chinese Acupuncture & Moxibustion (p. 146) record comparable perpendicular and transverse ranges, and both describe the point being located with the teeth clenched and then needled with the jaw relaxed.
• Sensation. The reference literature records a distending or aching sensation spreading through the cheek and jaw. A needle in the masseter is in a dense, strong muscle, and local ache is the expected response rather than a sign of anything wrong.

The documented anatomy of the region

• The masseter, and bone behind it. ST-06 sits on the belly of the masseter, which arises from the zygomatic arch and inserts along the outer surface and angle of the mandible. The ramus of the mandible lies directly behind the point. That bony backstop is the single most important safety fact about ST-06 and the reason its recorded depths are short: there is nowhere for a needle at this location to go.
• The parotid gland and its duct. The parotid — the large salivary gland in front of and below the ear — overlies the posterior part of the masseter and extends toward the angle of the jaw, and its duct runs forward across the masseter's surface at about the level of the earlobe to open inside the cheek. ST-06 lies at the anterior-inferior margin of that territory. This is documented anatomy and it is also clinical background: the swelling of the cheek and "mumps" recorded among this point's classical indications are disorders of this very gland, which is why a point over its edge acquired those indications in the first place.
• The branches of the facial nerve. The facial nerve emerges from the skull behind the jaw, passes through the parotid gland and fans out into branches that cross the masseter to reach the muscles of expression — the buccal branch running forward toward the corner of the mouth and the marginal mandibular branch running along the lower border of the jaw. Both cross the region ST-06 occupies, and the buccal branch runs roughly along the line of the ST-06-to-ST-04 through-needle. This is the nerve whose weakness the point is most used to treat, so it is worth being exact about the relationship: at ST-06 the nerve is present as fine peripheral branches lying superficial to the masseter, not as the thick trunk it forms behind the jaw. Our SJ-17 Yi Feng record carries the trunk-level caution, because SJ-17 sits directly over the stylomastoid foramen where the nerve leaves the skull; ST-06 does not, and that distinction is the honest one.
• The vessels are not directly beneath. The facial artery and vein cross the lower border of the mandible at the anterior border of the masseter — which is the location of Da Ying ST-05, one point forward. Our own ST-05 record accordingly carries an explicit "avoid puncturing the artery" instruction, and ST-06's record carries none. Two adjacent points on the same channel, one with a vascular caution and one without, is exactly the kind of distinction this field is bad at making and worth making here.
• No imaging study measuring a safe needling depth at ST-06 could be located, and none is quoted. None is needed in the way it is at the thoracic, abdominal and orbital points: the mandible lies behind the point and there is no cavity to enter. Two systematic reviews of the safe-depth literature — 33 studies in the first, 47 in the second — concluded in any case that measured depths for the same point differ greatly between subject groups and methods, and that "safe depth" has never been standardised (J Altern Complement Med 2011;17(3):199–206, PMID 21417806; Evid Based Complement Alternat Med 2013;2013:740508, PMID 23935678).

What the case literature documents

• The ordinary events are minor. Bruising and local aching are what the reference literature records at facial muscle points. Bruises on the face are conspicuous, which is why firm pressure after withdrawal is the routine precaution the references describe, and why the question of blood-thinning medication matters more on the face than on the limbs. A meta-analysis of prospective clinical studies found that about half of all recorded acupuncture adverse events across the whole repertoire were bleeding, pain or flare at the needle site (Bäumler P et al., BMJ Open 2021;11:e045961, PMID 34489268).
• Honest limit. We could not source any published case report of injury at ST-06, and none is asserted. A search of the indexed literature for reported parotid or facial-nerve injury attributed to acupuncture at this point returned nothing. Where a point is low-hazard, the useful thing is to say so plainly rather than to borrow a warning from a neighbouring point in a different class.

Risk in proportion

The same meta-analysis estimated serious adverse events in acupuncture at approximately 1 per 10,000 patients and around 8 per million treatments, placing it among the safer treatments in medicine (PMID 34489268). Systematic reviews of the Chinese case literature find that serious events concentrate at points over the chest, abdomen, neck and orbit, and attribute them chiefly to improper technique (He W et al., J Altern Complement Med 2012;18(10):892–901, PMID 22967282; Zhang J et al., Bull World Health Organ 2010;88(12):915–921C, PMID 21124716, PMC2995190). ST-06 is in none of those groups. Its short recorded depth is a function of the bone behind it, not of a hazard in front of it.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (existing needling and location records; the ST-04, ST-05 and SJ-17 needling records queried directly); Deadman & Al-Khafaji, A Manual of Acupuncture (p. 133, surface and deep anatomy of the masseteric region); Chinese Acupuncture & Moxibustion (p. 146); PMID 21417806; PMID 23935678; PMID 34489268; PMID 22967282; PMID 21124716 (PMC2995190) — each verified resolvable and checked for retraction status before citation.

What does the name Jia Che mean?

Jia Che means "Jawbone" — jia, the cheek or jaw, and che, a cart or vehicle. Sacred Lotus sources & references translate it simply as Jawbone, which is what the compound came to mean; read literally it is closer to "jaw cart" or "cheek carriage". Jia che is in fact an old anatomical name for the mandible itself — the bone that carries the lower teeth and swings like a vehicle on its hinge — and the point takes its name from the bone it lies against. As with the Back-Shu points and with Shang Wan on the abdomen, this is a name that describes rather than pictures, and it is one of the most straightforward in the repertoire: the point on the jawbone.

Two of its immediate neighbours use the same plain register. Xia Guan ST-07, two points above, means "Below the Joint" — the joint being the jaw hinge, with Shang Guan GB-03 as the corresponding point above it. Da Ying ST-05, one point forward, means "Great Reception". Read in order along the channel, the names walk the reader around the lower face.

Is there research on ST-06 Jia Che?

ST-06 is among the most heavily represented points in the modern trial literature for two conditions — peripheral facial paralysis and temporomandibular disorder — and the point-selection analyses name it specifically. What does not exist is a trial isolating it: every study uses it inside a prescription, and the two best systematic reviews of those conditions both report low confidence in the underlying evidence.

• Point-selection analysis in facial paralysis, where ST-06 appears in the top pair. A data-mining study retrieved articles on acupuncture for peripheral facial paralysis published between 2012 and 2021 from five databases, including 1,695 articles covering 124 points used 5,456 times, and analysed selection by stage, syndrome type and symptom. The points of the Stomach channel of Foot Yang Ming were the most frequently used at every stage, and the high-frequency point pairs at every stage were Dicang ST-04 with Yangbai GB-14, and Dicang ST-04 with Jiache ST-06. The acute stage carried the highest point usage — 2,224 uses across 88 points (Zhongguo Zhen Jiu 2023;43(12):1457–1464, PMID 38092550). An earlier review of the treatments used in 33 higher-quality randomised trials reached the same conclusion about which points are best supported, naming ST-04, ST-07 and ST-06 first (Am J Chin Med 2009;37(1):35–43, PMID 19222110). Both measure what was chosen, not whether it worked.
• The efficacy evidence in Bell's palsy, honestly stated. A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials comparing acupuncture with other therapies for Bell's palsy included 14 trials and 1,541 individuals and found a higher effective response rate with acupuncture (relative risk 1.14, 95 per cent confidence interval 1.04–1.25, P = 0.005) — but with severe heterogeneity (I² = 87 per cent) and a high risk of bias in methodological quality across the included studies, and incomplete data on complications. The authors' own conclusion is the one to carry: there was insufficient evidence to support the efficacy and safety of acupuncture, and the results should be interpreted cautiously (Li P et al., PLoS One 2015;10(5):e0121880, PMID 25974022, PMC4431843). ST-06 is a component of the prescriptions in that literature, not a variable in it.
• A large stratified trial in which ST-06 is an electrode. Two hundred and twenty patients with Bell's palsy were stratified by facial-paralysis severity and randomised to electroacupuncture alone or electroacupuncture plus intradermal needling. The shared electroacupuncture protocol applied stimulation to two point pairs — ST-06 with ST-04, and SJ-17 with ST-07 — with SJ-17, ST-04, ST-06, GB-14, ST-07, Qian Zheng and bilateral LI-04 as the main points. The combined therapy outperformed electroacupuncture alone for severe paralysis (House-Brackmann grades V and VI) on cure rate at 6, 12 and 24 weeks and on recovery time, but showed no advantage for moderate paralysis (Zhen Ci Yan Jiu 2026;51(5):630–638, PMID 42185063). The result belongs to the added technique, not to ST-06.
• Temporomandibular disorder, where ST-06 is one of the three commonest points. A systematic review and meta-analysis of acupuncture for orofacial pain searched six databases and included 52 studies, of which 45 (86.5 per cent) had a high risk of bias. It identified He Gu LI-04, Jiache ST-06 and Xiaguan ST-07 as the points used primarily in temporomandibular disorder. Meta-analysis found acupuncture significantly reduced pain intensity in myogenous temporomandibular disorder and reduced medial pterygoid tenderness and jaw dysfunction in mixed presentations compared with sham or no treatment — but the overall certainty of evidence was rated very low for all outcomes by GRADE, and the authors state the results should be interpreted with caution (Mohamad N et al., Disabil Rehabil 2024;46(24):5700–5716, PMID 38357796). A separate randomised trial in 42 patients used ST-06 within a five-point protocol to compare treatment frequency, finding three sessions a week better than one or two (Zhongguo Zhen Jiu 2025;45(4):453–459, PMID 40229155).
• Imaging work in which the point appears. A resting-state functional MRI study of 55 patients with acute Bell's palsy and 48 healthy controls used a ten-point protocol including Jiache ST-06 and Dicang ST-04, and reported changes in low-frequency fluctuation amplitude and regional homogeneity in sensory, motor and emotion-related brain regions after treatment (Front Neurosci 2025;19:1647538, PMID 41069516, PMC12504244). A ten-point protocol and an uncontrolled pre-post imaging comparison; it says nothing about ST-06 individually.

What is missing should be said plainly: there is no sham-controlled randomised trial of ST-06 alone for facial paralysis, jaw pain, toothache or any other of its uses. What the literature does establish is that ST-06 is one of the points practitioners and trialists consistently reach for in these conditions, and that the overall evidence for acupuncture in both of them is of low or very low certainty. Both facts belong on the page.

How does ST-06 compare with the points around it?

Di Cang ST-04 at the corner of the mouth is ST-06's through-needling partner and the point it is paired with more than any other; where ST-06 is over the chewing muscle, ST-04 is at the mouth's own corner and carries a much richer classification, as a meeting point of the Stomach and Large Intestine channels with the Yang Motility and Conception Vessels. Da Ying ST-05 lies between them at the anterior border of the masseter, where the facial artery crosses the jaw — and unlike ST-06 its record carries an explicit artery caution. Xia Guan ST-07, above ST-06 in front of the ear, is over the jaw joint rather than the jaw muscle and is a meeting point of the Stomach and Gall Bladder channels; ST-06 and ST-07 divide the jaw's work between muscle and joint and are used together constantly. Yi Feng SJ-17 behind the earlobe is the other great facial-paralysis point of the region and sits over the trunk of the facial nerve — a genuinely different and stricter anatomical situation, set out in its own record. Quan Liao SI-18 on the cheekbone and Ting Gong SI-19 in front of the ear complete the local set. For readers looking for the distal partners, He Gu LI-04 at the hand and Nei Ting ST-44 at the foot are the two the classical literature reaches for. All are held in Sacred Lotus sources & references.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (name, translation, channel, Sun Si-miao Ghost Point classification and the full set of records carrying it, and the ST-02, ST-04, ST-05, ST-07, ST-44, SJ-17, SI-18, SI-19, GB-14, GB-34, LI-04 and REN-24 records, all queried directly); Deadman & Al-Khafaji, A Manual of Acupuncture (p. 133); Chinese Acupuncture & Moxibustion (p. 146); PMID 38092550; PMID 19222110; PMID 25974022 (PMC4431843); PMID 42185063; PMID 38357796; PMID 40229155; PMID 41069516 (PMC12504244) — each verified resolvable and checked for retraction status before citation; cross-referenced against multiple online sources.