Yanggu

What is SI5?

SI5 (Yanggu) is a point on the little-finger side of the wrist, in the hollow between the knobby end of the ulna and the wrist bones.

It belongs to the Small Intestine channel, which traditional Chinese medicine traces from the little finger, up the back of the arm, across the shoulder blade and up to the ear. SI5 is one of the channel's classical "five shu" points, so it appears in every standard point list and most teaching curricula.

Traditionally it was used for wrist and hand problems along that channel, and also for complaints at the far end of it: ear ringing, jaw and neck swelling, toothache and fever. Those uses come from classical texts and clinical custom, not from modern testing.

Here is the honest verdict. There is essentially no human research on SI5 by itself for any of these claims. What research exists uses it as one point inside a multi-point acupuncture protocol, which tells you nothing about what this single spot does under a fingertip.

Two things worth separating, and this page will not repeat them in every section. First, a long traditional record is not evidence that a point works; people used points for centuries before anyone ran a controlled trial. Second, a long traditional record is not evidence that a point is safe either. Safety depends on your wrist, your skin and your health conditions, which no classical text knew about.

What SI5 is reasonable for is this: a specific, easy-to-find spot on a sore or stiff wrist that you can press gently yourself, with low risk if your skin is intact and nothing is injured. Treat it as comfort and self-massage with a traditional name attached, not as treatment. If your wrist pain, ear symptoms or jaw swelling are new, worsening or came after an injury, the point is not the answer and a doctor is.

Where is SI5 and how do you find it?

SI5 sits in the small dip on the little-finger side of the wrist, between the bony knob at the end of the ulna and the wrist bones just beyond it.

• Start with the right hand position. Rest the arm you are mapping on a table, palm down, hand relaxed and flat. Use the thumb of your other hand to explore.
• Find the ulnar styloid. Run a finger along the little-finger edge of your forearm towards the hand. You will meet a rounded bony bump just before the wrist. That is the end of the ulna, the forearm bone on the little-finger side.
• Drop off the far side of that bump. Slide your thumb a few millimetres towards the hand, past the bump. Your thumb falls into a soft hollow between that bone and the small wrist bones beyond it.
• Check it against the wrist crease. The hollow sits at roughly the level of the wrist crease, on the back-of-hand side of the little-finger edge, not on the palm side.
• Confirm by moving the hand. Tip your hand gently towards the little finger and back. You should feel the hollow open and close slightly under your thumb.

Measurement note: classical texts place SI5 in this depression without a cun measurement, because the bony landmark does the work. If you want a rough check, it is about one thumb-width towards the hand from the peak of the ulnar bump.

If your thumb is landing on hard bone, you are on the ulna itself and need to move a few millimetres closer to the hand. If you feel a pulse or a buzzing, pins-and-needles feeling running into your little finger, you have drifted too far onto the palm side where nerve and artery run. Move back towards the top of the wrist.

How do you apply pressure to SI5?

1. Settle the arm first. Rest your forearm on a table or your lap, palm down and hand loose. A tense wrist makes the hollow harder to find and the pressure less comfortable.
2. Place the thumb tip. Set the pad of your opposite thumb in the hollow just past the bony bump on the little-finger side of the wrist. Use the pad, not the nail.
3. Press straight down, gently. Build pressure slowly over two or three seconds. Aim for a firm, slightly achy feeling, around three or four out of ten. This is a thin, bony area, so less force is needed than on a thigh or shoulder.
4. Hold or circle. Either hold steady for 30 to 60 seconds, or make small, slow circles in the hollow for the same time. Keep breathing normally.
5. Release and repeat. Ease off over a couple of seconds, rest for 10 seconds, then repeat two or three times. Two or three minutes per wrist is plenty.
6. Do the other side if you like. There is an SI5 on each wrist. Working both is common practice and costs nothing.
7. Space it out. Once or twice a day is reasonable. There is no benefit to grinding at it for twenty minutes.

Stop immediately if the pressure causes sharp pain, a buzzing or electric feeling, numbness in the little finger, or pain that lingers after you let go. Those are signs you are on a nerve or on something irritated, not signs the point is "working".

Use fingers and thumbs only. Nothing on this page involves needles, skin-breaking, burning herbs or suction cups, and none of those should be attempted at home. Keep nails short, keep the skin intact, and do not press through a glove, splint or dressing.

What is SI5 traditionally used for?

• Wrist pain and stiffness. This is the most sensible traditional use, because the point sits directly on the ulnar side of the wrist joint. No trial has tested finger pressure at SI5 for wrist pain. Gentle self-massage of a stiff wrist is generally comfortable and low risk, which is a fair reason to try it and a poor reason to expect much.
• Tinnitus and ear fullness. Classical texts link the Small Intestine channel to the ear and list SI5 for ringing and hearing complaints. Modern research on acupuncture for tinnitus is mixed and mostly low quality, and none of it isolates SI5. Do not expect ear symptoms to change.
• Jaw, cheek and neck swelling. The channel passes through the jaw and neck, so these appear in old indication lists. There is no human evidence for SI5 here. Swelling in the jaw or neck can mean infection or something else needing assessment, so it is a symptom to show a doctor rather than press.
• Toothache along the lower jaw. A traditional distal use, meaning a point far from the painful area. No controlled evidence supports SI5 for dental pain, and toothache almost always has a cause that needs a dentist.
• Fever and "heat" patterns. SI5 is classed as a Fire point and appears in old protocols for febrile illness. This is a pattern-based traditional idea, not a tested effect. Fever should be assessed on its own terms.
• Mental restlessness and agitation. Some classical lists include manic or agitated states. There is no modern human evidence for this, and these are not conditions to self-treat.

Across all of these, the honest summary is the same: reasonable traditional pedigree, almost no human testing of this specific point, and nothing here that should replace a diagnosis.

Are there tips for using SI5 effectively?

• Find the bone before you find the point. Locate the bony knob at the end of the ulna first, then slide just past it. Hunting for a "tender spot" without the landmark usually lands you somewhere else entirely.
• Use less force than you think. The wrist is thin and bony. Pressure that feels mild on a calf muscle can bruise here, especially if you are older or on blood-thinning medicine.
• Warm the wrist first. A minute under warm water or a warm cloth makes a stiff wrist more comfortable to work on and helps you feel the hollow.
• Keep the hand relaxed. If you clench your fist or brace your arm, the tendons tighten over the area and the dip disappears under your thumb.
• Pair it with gentle movement. For a stiff wrist, slow circles and side-to-side movement of the hand, done after pressing, are more likely to help than pressure alone.
• Keep a simple note. If you are using it for wrist stiffness, write down the date and how your wrist feels. Two weeks of notes tells you more than a hopeful impression.
• Set a stopping rule in advance. Decide that if nothing has changed after two or three weeks, you stop and get the wrist looked at. Open-ended self-treatment delays real answers.
• Match it to the right problem. Local self-massage suits a mildly achy, overused wrist. It does not suit a wrist that is hot, swollen, locked or painful after a fall.

One general tip that matters more than any technique detail: acupressure studies are mostly small, short and unblinded, so expectation plays a large part in what people report. That does not make a few comfortable minutes worthless. It does mean you should hold your conclusions loosely.

What do people get wrong with SI5?

• Expecting a cure. The commonest error is treating SI5 as a fix for tinnitus, toothache or arthritis. No acupressure point cures these, and no honest source will promise an outcome.
• Pressing on the bone itself. Many people land on the peak of the ulnar bump rather than the hollow just past it. Hard bone under the thumb means you are on the wrong spot and will only make the area sore.
• Drifting to the palm side. Slide too far towards the palm and you reach the area where the ulnar nerve and artery pass. Tingling, buzzing or a pulse under the thumb means move back towards the back of the wrist.
• Confusing it with the neighbouring points. SI4 sits further towards the hand, near the base of the little-finger bone, and TE4 sits in the middle of the back of the wrist. SI5 is specifically the little-finger-side dip beside the ulnar bump.
• Using far too much force. Digging a nail or a hard tool into a thin, bony wrist causes bruising and skin damage, not benefit. Firm thumb pad pressure is the ceiling.
• Pressing an injured wrist. People press through pain after a fall or a sprain. A wrist that hurts after an injury needs imaging to rule out a fracture, not massage.
• Ignoring numbness. Pins and needles in the little finger that keeps coming back is a nerve sign. Repeatedly pressing the area can irritate it further and delays proper assessment.
• Using it instead of a diagnosis. Pressing a point for weeks while a swelling, a toothache or new hearing loss goes unexamined is the real harm in self-acupressure.

What does the research on SI5 actually say?

There is essentially no human research on SI5 on its own, for any use. We could not identify a controlled trial testing finger pressure at this single point against a sham or control for wrist pain, tinnitus, jaw pain or anything else.

Where SI5 appears in the literature, it appears as one point inside a larger needling protocol, typically alongside other wrist and arm points in studies of stroke rehabilitation, hand and wrist pain, or ear complaints. Those studies needled multiple points at once. Even where such a protocol reports a benefit, the design cannot tell you which point contributed, or whether finger pressure at the same spot would do anything at all.

That matters because of how the wider acupressure evidence looks. Most trials are small, short, and unblinded, meaning participants knew they were being treated. Expectation and attention reliably shift self-reported symptoms such as pain and tension, so outcomes measured by questionnaire are easy to inflate. A handful of uses have stronger backing, nausea at PC6 being the clearest example in the whole field, but SI5 is nowhere near that standard.

So the honest grade for SI5 is "insufficient" on the human evidence axis, while its traditional standing is solid: it is a classical five shu point taught in standard curricula and listed in the old texts. Those are two separate things, and the traditional record does not carry over into the evidence column.

In practical terms: you are not using a proven method, and you should not spend money on courses or devices on the strength of claims about this point. Gentle self-massage of a mildly stiff wrist is cheap and low risk, and that is the reasonable frame. If a new source claims a trial has proven SI5 for a named disease, check whether the study tested SI5 alone or a whole protocol. It is almost always the latter.