ST-08 (Tou Wei) Head Corner

What does ST-08 Tou Wei do?

ST-08 is the highest point on the Stomach channel and a meeting point of the Stomach and Gall Bladder channels with the Yang Qiao (Yang Motility) Vessel. It sits at the corner of the forehead, and both its recorded actions are local to the head.

• Eliminates wind and alleviates pain — the headache action, and the reason ST-08 appears in almost every classical prescription for pain at the temple and forehead
• Benefits the eyes — blurred vision, eye pain and watering

Three systems meet here, which is why it reaches further than a Stomach point should. The Stomach channel accounts for the forehead; the Gall Bladder channel accounts for the temple and the side of the head; the Yang Qiao Vessel is classically associated with the eyes and with the opening and closing of the eyelids. A point where all three cross is used for the whole frontal-temporal region rather than for one channel’s line through it.

“Wind” here means what it means elsewhere in this library — the classical category for complaints that arrive suddenly, move, and affect the head and surface. It is the traditional rationale, not a mechanism, and this record presents it as such.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (channel, category and action records — the three-way meeting classification taken verbatim from our own data), cross-referenced against multiple online sources.

What is ST-08 Tou Wei used for?

ST-08 is used for headache and for eye complaints — blurred vision, eye pain and watering. Our own indication record is reproduced here in full; it is short and entirely local.

• Headache — particularly frontal and temporal
• Blurring of vision
• Eye pain
• Watering of the eyes (lacrimation)

How it sits among the head points. ST-08 is the outermost of the frontal group. DU-24 Shen Ting is on the midline at the hairline and ST-08 is 4.5 cun lateral to it — our own location record uses DU-24 as the reference. GB-14 Yang Bai lies below it above the pupil, Yin Tang between the eyebrows, and Tai Yang at the temple. All are held here, and all four are used for frontal headache with different emphases.

For the eye indications it is used with the periorbital points — BL-02 Zan Zhu at the inner brow, Yu Yao mid-brow, SJ-23 Si Zhu Kong at the outer brow — and with the distal eye points GB-37 Guang Ming and LIV-03 Tai Chong. All held here.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (indication and location records; neighbouring head and eye points queried from our own data), cross-referenced against multiple online sources.

Where is ST-08 Tou Wei located, and why are there three methods?

ST-08 is at the corner of the forehead — 4.5 cun lateral to DU-24 Shen Ting and 0.5 cun inside the front hairline. Our own record is unusual in giving three different locating methods for it, and that multiplicity is worth keeping rather than flattening into one.

• By measurement — 4.5 cun lateral to DU-24 Shen Ting, 0.5 cun within the anterior hairline
• By the hairline corner — where the frontal and temporal hairlines meet
• By muscle action — the corner of the forehead where movement of the temporalis can be felt

Why more than one method exists. The anterior hairline is not a fixed landmark: it recedes, it varies between people, and in some it is absent. A point defined by the hairline therefore needs a measured fallback, and a point at a “corner” needs a way to find that corner when the hair does not mark it. Our record keeps all three because each fails in a different situation. A reader should treat them as alternatives that should agree, not as a disagreement in the source.

On the name. “Tou Wei” means Head Corner — positional and exact. The Stomach channel begins below the eye and its course reaches its highest point here before descending; the name marks that corner.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (location record including all three methods, retained unchanged; DU-24's position queried from our own data).

• A Manual of Acupuncture (p. 135): At the corner of the forehead, 4.5 cun lateral to Shenting DU-24 and 0.5 cun within the anterior hairline. <br /><br /> There are three methods to locate this point: <br />i. Find the meeting point of a horizontal line drawn 0.5 cun within the anterior hairline, and a vertical line drawn 0.5 cun posterior to the hairline of the temple <br />ii. Locate Toulinqi GB-15 which lies directly above the pupil when the patient is looking directly forwards, and Shenting DU-24 which lies on the midline, 0.5 cun posterior to the anterior hairline. Touwei ST-8 lies on the continuation of a line drawn between these two points and twice its distance <br />iii. 0.5 cun superior to the upper line of origin of the temporalis muscle, 0.5 cun posterior to a vertical line drawn directly above Taiyang (M-HN-9).
• Chinese Acupuncture and Moxibustion (p. 147): On the lateral side of the head, 0.5 cun above the anterior hairline at the corner of the forehead, and 4.5 cun lateral to the midline of the head.

How is ST-08 Tou Wei needled?

The standard texts record subcutaneous (transverse) insertion to roughly 0.5–1.0 inch. What follows is a neutral record of what the reference literature documents, not instruction for a reader.

• Angle and depth as recorded: subcutaneous, 0.5–1.0 inch. Transverse only — the frontal bone lies immediately beneath, so there is no perpendicular option; the same is true of the other scalp and forehead points in this library, including DU-23, DU-24 and GB-14.
• Moxibustion: our own record does not state it as applicable at this point, and none is asserted here. Several sources traditionally treat the point as unsuitable for moxibustion given its position at the hairline; this record notes that without adopting it as our own classification.
• Regional anatomy: the point lies over the temporalis muscle at its upper anterior edge, with the frontal branches of the superficial temporal artery and vein and the auriculotemporal nerve in the region. The scalp is vascular, and bleeding or bruising from superficial insertion is the ordinary consideration here rather than any deep-structure risk.

Hazard, stated proportionately. This is a low-hazard point: bone lies immediately beneath, and the recorded technique is transverse. It carries none of the considerations that apply to the deep-orbit points a short distance away — BL-01, ST-01 and Qiu Hou — and this record does not import them. No study measuring a safe depth at ST-08 could be located, and none is borrowed. No case report naming ST-08 as the site of an injury was located, and none is asserted.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (needling record, retained unchanged), cross-referenced against multiple online sources; regional anatomy from standard anatomical description.

Is there research on ST-08, and what should a reader know?

No trial isolates ST-08. Where the point appears it is one component of a migraine or headache protocol — often alongside Tai Yang, GB-20 and LIV-03 — and a study that includes a point in a protocol is not evidence about that point. ST-08 does rank in the acupoint-selection literature for headache, which is evidence about what practitioners choose rather than about what the point does.

The distinction matters more here than usual, because headache is one of the conditions where acupuncture has a substantial trial literature. That literature is about protocols; attributing its results to any single point in the protocol, including this one, would misrepresent it. This library draws the same line on ST-35, the most-used point in knee osteoarthritis trials and one with no trial isolating it either.

A point worth knowing for its position rather than its evidence. ST-08 marks the top of the Stomach channel and the corner where the frontal and temporal regions meet — which is why it appears in prescriptions for the whole frontal-temporal area rather than for a single channel’s line. Its value in a reference is in the classification and the three locating methods, both of which are checkable, rather than in a research claim that does not exist.

A note on searching for it. “ST 8” and “Touwei” searches return protocol trials and, as repeatedly found elsewhere in this library, unrelated material matched on the code or on a surname. Any claim attached to this point should be checked against what a study actually measured.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (classification, location and indication records); no unverifiable or retracted source is cited.