Tai Yang Greater Yang, Supreme Yang, Great Sun

What does Tai Yang do?

Tai Yang is an extra point, so it belongs to no channel and carries no channel-theory actions of its own — everything below is drawn from documented clinical use rather than from channel mechanics. In that documented use it serves above all to relieve one-sided (temporal) headache and to treat disorders of the eye, and it is the extra point most consistently selected in published acupuncture protocols for headache.

• Relieves temporal and one-sided headache — its single most frequent recorded use, including migraine and the headache older sources describe as arising from rising Liver yang or accompanying raised blood pressure.
• Treats disorders of the eye — red, swollen and painful eyes, blurred or dim vision, and eye strain. Its position at the temple places it in the immediate region of the orbit.
• Reduces local swelling and pain — recorded for toothache and for facial pain including trigeminal neuralgia.
• Serves as a local point in facial paralysis — deviation of the eyes and mouth, where it is one of a group of local face points rather than the sole point.
• Clears heat when pricked to bleed — the traditional bloodletting technique at this point is applied to acute heat-pattern headache and to sudden redness and swelling of the eye. This is an effect tied to the technique, not a channel action.

Why this framing matters: because Tai Yang sits outside the fourteen channels, reference texts describe what it is used for rather than what it does to a named channel or organ. A claim that Tai Yang "regulates" or "descends" a specific channel should be treated with caution — no channel runs through it.

Source: Deadman & Al-Khafaji, A Manual of Acupuncture, extra points (p. 567); Chinese Acupuncture & Moxibustion (p. 242); Sacred Lotus sources & references; cross-referenced against multiple online sources.

What is Tai Yang used for?

Tai Yang is used mainly for headache on one side of the head and for conditions of the eye. The indications carried in Sacred Lotus sources & references are headache, eye diseases, and deviation of the eyes and mouth; the wider reference literature sets these out as follows.

• One-sided (temporal) headache
• Migraine
• Headache accompanying raised blood pressure
• Red, swollen and painful eyes
• Blurred or dim vision, and eye strain
• Deviation of the eyes and mouth (facial paralysis, Bell's palsy)
• Trigeminal neuralgia and other facial pain
• Toothache
• Dizziness

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references; Deadman & Al-Khafaji, A Manual of Acupuncture (p. 567); Chinese Acupuncture & Moxibustion (p. 242).

How is Tai Yang used in practice?

Tai Yang is one of the most important and most widely used of all the extra points, and a first-choice local point for temporal headache and migraine. It lies at the temple, in the tender hollow a short distance behind the midpoint between the outer end of the eyebrow and the outer corner of the eye — a depression most people can locate on themselves. It is usually treated on both sides.

Which points is Tai Yang combined with?

• With Feng Chi (GB-20) — the pairing that recurs most consistently across migraine trials. A systematic review of the protocols used in randomised controlled trials of acupuncture for migraine recommended bilateral Feng Chi (GB-20) and Tai Yang (EX-HN5) as core points of a standardised protocol (PMID 20626050).
• With Shuai Gu (GB-08) — the classic local pair for temporal headache; Tai Yang is often threaded backwards along the temple toward Shuai Gu (GB-08).
• With Si Zhu Kong (SJ-23) and Zan Zhu (BL-02) — the surrounding orbital points, added for eye disorders and for headache felt behind or around the eye.
• With He Gu (LI-04) — the standard distal point for the face and head, added to most local facial prescriptions.
• With Tai Chong (LIV-03) — where the presentation is framed as rising Liver yang, with irritability, dizziness and one-sided head pain.
• With Yang Bai (GB-14), Si Bai (ST-02) and Ying Xiang (LI-20) — the local group used for facial paralysis with deviation of the eyes and mouth.

Where does Tai Yang sit among the extra points?

Among the head-and-neck extra points held in Sacred Lotus sources & references — a group that also includes Yin Tang at the glabella, An Mian behind the ear and Er Jian at the ear apex — Tai Yang is the one that has entered mainstream trial protocols most firmly. Where Yin Tang is the calming point of the forehead, Tai Yang is the pain point of the temple; the two often appear in the same headache prescription and are easily conflated by readers because both are extra points on the face.

Source: Deadman & Al-Khafaji, A Manual of Acupuncture (p. 567); Chinese Acupuncture & Moxibustion (p. 242); Zheng H et al., Am J Chin Med 2010;38(4):639-50, PMID 20626050, DOI 10.1142/S0192415X10008111; Sacred Lotus sources & references; cross-referenced against multiple online sources.

Where is Tai Yang located?

• A Manual of Acupuncture (p. 567): At the temple, in the tender depression approximately 1 cun posterior to the midpoint between the lateral extremity of the eyebrow and the outer canthus of the eye.

How is Tai Yang needled?

Reference texts record four documented approaches at Tai Yang: perpendicular insertion of 0.5 to 0.8 cun; transverse insertion directed backwards towards Shuai Gu (GB-08) of 1 to 1.5 cun; oblique insertion directed forwards of 0.3 to 0.5 cun; and pricking to bleed. These figures are set down here as neutral reference facts, exactly as the textbooks record them — they are not instructions, and needling is carried out only by a qualified, licensed practitioner.

What are the safety considerations at Tai Yang?

• It is a vascular point. Tai Yang overlies the superficial temporal artery and vein, with the middle meningeal artery deeper, beneath the bone. Bruising and haematoma are the events most often reported locally, and the references record that firm pressure with a sterile swab after withdrawal helps prevent them.
• Depth is constrained by the anatomy. The recorded perpendicular depth is shallow, and reference sources describe gentle manipulation only.
• Bloodletting is a separate technique. Pricking Tai Yang to bleed with a fine lancet or three-edged needle is a traditional method reserved for acute presentations — heat-pattern or hypertension-type headache, and sudden redness and swelling of the eye — releasing a small amount of blood. It is a practitioner-only procedure requiring sterile single-use instruments, and is recorded here as reference rather than as a method to attempt.
• Moxibustion is not applied at this point in the standard references.

Source: Deadman & Al-Khafaji, A Manual of Acupuncture (p. 567); Chinese Acupuncture & Moxibustion (p. 242); Sacred Lotus sources & references.

What does the name Tai Yang mean?

Tai Yang means "Greater Yang", "Supreme Yang" or "Great Sun". The temple is among the most yang regions of the most yang part of the body, and the reading "Great Sun" suits a point whose leading uses concern the head and the eyes — light, brightness and vision. The name is shared with the Tai Yang stage of the six-channel (Shang Han Lun) system and with the Tai Yang channels of the Bladder and Small Intestine; the point is connected to neither, and that coincidence of name is a common source of confusion.

Is Tai Yang a channel point?

No. Tai Yang is an extra point — in the modern extra-point numbering, EX-HN5 (older texts write M-HN-9). Extra points sit outside the fourteen channels: they were recorded for an observed clinical effect rather than derived from channel theory, so they carry no five-shu, yuan, luo, xi-cleft, back-shu or front-mu classification. That is why our record shows no channel and no point categories, and why its actions are framed as documented uses.

Is there research on Tai Yang?

No high-quality trial isolates Tai Yang as a single point, and we will not present the literature as though one did. What exists is of two kinds:

• Protocol reviews. A systematic review of the acupuncture protocols used in randomised controlled trials of migraine extracted the point selections across the included trials and recommended bilateral Feng Chi (GB-20) and Tai Yang (EX-HN5) within a standardised protocol. That is evidence Tai Yang is consistently chosen by trialists, not evidence of its independent effect (Zheng H et al., Am J Chin Med 2010;38(4):639-50, PMID 20626050).
• Single case reports of bloodletting. A 2026 case report followed one patient with a periorbital venous malformation treated by weekly bloodletting at Tai Yang, with serial ultrasound; the authors reported reduced swelling and stated the finding is for clinical reference only (Zhang Y et al., Front Ophthalmol 2026;6:1787288, PMID 42389711, PMCID PMC13318595). A single uncontrolled case cannot establish effectiveness.

Trials of acupuncture for migraine that include Tai Yang among fifteen or twenty needles report on the whole protocol, not on this point, and are not cited here as if they did.

How does Tai Yang compare with nearby points?

Shuai Gu (GB-08) lies above the ear within the hairline and is the channel point of the temporal region; Tai Yang is the extra point of that same region, and the two are frequently joined by a single threaded needle. Si Zhu Kong (SJ-23) sits at the outer end of the eyebrow, in front of Tai Yang, and is the closer point for the eyebrow and lateral orbit. Tou Wei (ST-08) lies higher, at the corner of the forehead hairline. Readers looking for the calming forehead point want Yin Tang, not Tai Yang.

Source: Deadman & Al-Khafaji, A Manual of Acupuncture (p. 567); Chinese Acupuncture & Moxibustion (p. 242); PMID 20626050; PMID 42389711; Sacred Lotus sources & references; cross-referenced against multiple online sources.