GB-08 (Shuai Gu) Valley Lead

What does GB-08 Shuai Gu do?

GB-08 sits in the temple, one cun above the ear, and is a meeting point of the Gall Bladder and Bladder channels. Its recorded actions split unusually: two are what a temporal head point would be expected to do, and the third is not.

• Eliminates wind, benefits the head and alleviates pain — the headache action; GB-08 is a principal point for one-sided head pain
• Harmonises the diaphragm and Stomach, and alleviates vomiting — a digestive action from a point on the side of the head
• Treats alcohol intoxication — a specific and unusual classical indication

Why a temple point has a Stomach action. The classical explanation runs through the Shao Yang — the Gall Bladder channel’s relationship with the middle burner and with rebellious qi rising — and through the observed pairing of one-sided headache with nausea, which is how migraine commonly presents. Whether or not one accepts the mechanism, the pairing itself is a real clinical observation, and the point’s indication list reflects it.

On the alcohol indication. It is old, specific, and appears in the classical record; this library’s standard is to report such things rather than quietly drop them. It should be read as a record of historical use. Acute alcohol intoxication can be a medical emergency, and nothing here suggests it be managed with acupuncture or that care be delayed. The same framing is applied on the collapse and poisoning indications elsewhere in this library.

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

What is GB-08 Shuai Gu used for?

GB-08 is used for one-sided headache, for dizziness, for vomiting, and for convulsions in children. Our own indication record is reproduced here in full.

• Migraine and one-sided headache
• Vertigo and dizziness
• Vomiting
• Infantile convulsion

The list is coherent with the actions. Headache and dizziness follow the wind-eliminating action; vomiting follows the Stomach-harmonising one. The pairing of one-sided headache with nausea is exactly the presentation the point is classically chosen for.

How it sits among the temporal points. Tai Yang, the extra point at the temple, is the best-known point of this region and the highest-demand point in this library. GB-20 Feng Chi at the base of the skull is the principal point for headache with neck involvement. SJ-23 Si Zhu Kong sits at the outer eyebrow, and GB-14 Yang Bai above the pupil. All are held here, and all appear together in prescriptions for head pain — which is precisely why a trial of that combination is not evidence about any one of them.

For the paediatric indication, note that infantile convulsion is a classical diagnostic category, not a modern one, and that convulsions in a child are a medical emergency.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (indication record; the temporal and head points queried from our own data), cross-referenced against multiple online sources.

Where is GB-08 Shuai Gu located?

GB-08 is in the temple, in a slight depression one cun directly above the apex of the ear. Folding the ear forward brings the apex to a definite position, which is what makes this one of the more reproducible head points.

• 1 cun above the ear apex, in the hair, in a slight hollow
• The ear apex is found by folding the ear forward — a soft-tissue landmark rather than a counted measurement
• The point lies within the temporalis muscle, and clenching the jaw makes the muscle’s edge palpable

Why the landmark is better than most. Many head points are located from the hairline, which recedes, varies and is sometimes absent — our ST-08 record keeps three separate locating methods for exactly that reason. The ear apex does not recede. A point measured from it is therefore more reliably placed than one measured from the hairline, which is worth knowing when reading prescriptions that use both.

On the name. “Shuai Gu” is rendered Valley Lead or Leading Valley. The “valley” is the depression the point sits in; the “lead” is usually read as the channel leading upward over the head from here.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (location and translation records, retained unchanged; ST-08's three-method locating problem queried from our own data for the comparison).

• A Manual of Acupuncture (p. 427): In the temporal region, in the slight depression 1 cun directly above the apex of the ear.
• Chinese Acupuncture and Moxibustion (p. 211): Superior to the apex of the auricle, 1.5 cun within the hairline.

How is GB-08 Shuai Gu needled?

The standard texts record subcutaneous (transverse) insertion to roughly 0.3–0.5 inch, with moxibustion applicable. What follows is a neutral record of what the reference literature documents, not instruction for a reader.

• Angle and depth as recorded: subcutaneous, 0.3–0.5 inch. Transverse only — the skull lies immediately beneath, so there is no perpendicular option. The same is true of the other scalp points in this library, including ST-08, DU-23, DU-24 and GB-14.
• Moxibustion: recorded as applicable.
• Regional anatomy: the point lies over the temporalis muscle. The superficial temporal artery and vein and the auriculotemporal nerve run in this 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 — BL-01, ST-01 and Qiu Hou — or to the nape points where the foramen magnum is a genuine concern, and this record does not import them. No study measuring a safe depth at GB-08 could be located, and none is borrowed. No case report naming GB-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 GB-08, and what should a reader know?

No trial isolates GB-08. Where the point appears it is one component of a migraine or headache protocol, typically alongside Tai Yang, GB-20 and LIV-03. A study that includes a point in a protocol is not evidence about that point.

This caveat carries more weight for headache than for most conditions. Migraine and tension headache have among the largest acupuncture trial literatures of any indication, including Cochrane reviews. That literature is about protocols. Attributing its results to GB-08 — or to Tai Yang, or to GB-20 — individually would misrepresent what was actually tested. 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.

What makes GB-08 worth a page. Two things that are checkable rather than claimed: its classification as a meeting point of the Gall Bladder and Bladder channels, and its unusually reliable landmark — one cun above an ear apex that, unlike a hairline, does not move with age. Its indication list is also internally coherent, pairing one-sided head pain with nausea in the way that condition actually presents.

A note on searching for it. “GB 8” and “Shuaigu” searches return protocol trials and, as repeatedly found throughout 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.