DU-02 (Yao Shu) Lumbar Shu

What does DU-02 Yao Shu do?

DU-02 benefits the lumbar region and legs, and dispels wind-damp. Its name means Lumbar Shu, and that name is the first thing to clear up on this page.

• Benefits the lumbar region and legs
• Dispels wind-damp — the classical account of aching, heavy, weather-sensitive low back and leg symptoms

A name trap: “Shu” here does not mean Back-Shu point. The Back-Shu points are a specific classical set, each associated with one organ, and every one of them sits on the inner Bladder line 1.5 cun lateral to the midline — BL-13 for the Lung, BL-15 for the Heart, BL-23 for the Kidney, and so on. DU-02 is on the midline and is not one of them. Worth noting for anyone working from our data directly: our category fields carry the Yuan, Luo, Xi-Cleft and Hui-Meeting designations but do not store a Back-Shu category at all — those points are identified here by their position on the inner Bladder line and by the organ named in each one’s own record. Shu in this name carries its more general sense of a transporting or connecting place. Our library records comparable name traps at BL-07, whose tian does not make it a Window of Heaven point, and BL-08, whose luo does not make it a Luo-Connecting point.

Where it sits in the Governing Vessel’s lower run. DU-01 is below it at the coccyx; DU-02 occupies the sacral hiatus; DU-03 and DU-04 follow in the lumbar spine. The whole stretch shares a recorded emphasis on the low back and legs, and their action lists overlap accordingly — DU-02 and DU-03 both record dispels wind-damp and benefits the lumbar region and legs, in the same words.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (vessel, action and translation records; the DU-01 to DU-04 run and the BL-07 and BL-08 name-trap records queried against our own data; the absence of a stored Back-Shu category confirmed by querying every category field), cross-referenced against multiple online sources.

What is DU-02 Yao Shu used for?

DU-02 is used for low back pain and stiffness, for wasting and weakness of the legs, for haemorrhoids, for irregular menstruation, and for epilepsy. Our own indication record is reproduced here in full.

• Pain and stiffness of the lower back
• Muscular atrophy of the lower extremities
• Haemorrhoids
• Irregular menstruation
• Epilepsy

The list reads as its position. Low back and legs are local and segmental; haemorrhoids belong to the region shared with DU-01 just below; irregular menstruation belongs to the lower burner the sacrum overlies. Only epilepsy sits outside that logic, and it recurs along the whole Governing Vessel — our DU-01 and DU-06 records carry it too.

An honest note. Wasting or weakness of the legs requires medical assessment — progressive leg weakness can indicate nerve or spinal-cord involvement and is not a symptom to work through. Low back pain with leg weakness, numbness in the saddle area, or any change in bladder or bowel control is a medical emergency and needs immediate care. Epilepsy requires diagnosis and prescribed management. Rectal bleeding needs assessment before it is attributed to haemorrhoids. This record documents classical use and should not delay any of that.

How it is combined. With DU-01 Chang Qiang below and DU-03 Yao Yang Guan above on the same midline. With BL-23 Shen Shu and BL-25 Da Chang Shu laterally — those are true Back-Shu points, in contrast to this one. With BL-31 to BL-34, the sacral foramen points, alongside it. All held here.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (indication record; the DU-01, DU-03, DU-06, BL-23, BL-25 and BL-31 to BL-34 records queried from our own data), cross-referenced against multiple online sources.

Where is DU-02 Yao Shu located?

DU-02 is on the midline at the base of the sacrum, in the SACRO-COCCYGEAL HIATUS — a real gap in the bone that can be felt as a notch just above the tailbone.

• On the midline, in the sacro-coccygeal hiatus
• DU-01 Chang Qiang lies below, between the coccyx tip and the anus; DU-03 Yao Yang Guan lies above at the fourth lumbar vertebra

This is a bony opening, not a bony surface, and that is the whole character of the point. Every other point on this stretch of the Governing Vessel sits in a depression below a spinous process, with solid bone beneath. DU-02 sits in the sacral hiatus — the natural gap at the lower end of the sacral canal, formed where the last sacral arch fails to close. It is a genuine landmark that can be palpated, flanked by the two sacral cornua, and it is the reason this point is located by feature rather than by counting vertebrae.

Why that makes it easier to find than its neighbours. The lumbar Du points are located by counting spinous processes, and miscounting is the commonest error on the back. DU-02 is found by feeling for a notch. Where a point has a true landmark, this library says so — the same advantage noted on ST-02 at the infraorbital foramen and BL-09 at the occipital protuberance.

On the name. “Yao Shu” — Lumbar Shu. Yao is the lumbar region or the small of the back, the same character as in DU-03 Yao Yang Guan (Lumbar Yang Pass) and in the extra point Yao Yan. Positional, and as noted above, not a Back-Shu designation.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (location and translation records, retained unchanged; the DU-01 and DU-03 positions and the ST-02 and BL-09 landmark records queried from our own data).

• A Manual of Acupuncture (p. 535): On the midline, in the sacro-coccygeal hiatus.
• Chinese Acupuncture and Moxibustion (p. 227): In the hiatus of the sacrum.

How is DU-02 Yao Shu needled?

Our own record states OBLIQUE UPWARD insertion of 0.5–1.0 inch, with moxibustion applicable — and the upward obliquity is the defining feature, because this point sits over an opening in the bone rather than over the bone itself. What follows is a neutral record of what the reference literature documents. It is not instruction, and this page does not teach technique.

• Angle and depth as recorded: oblique, directed upward, 0.5–1.0 inch. Our record specifies the direction, which most records in this stretch do not.
• Moxibustion: recorded as applicable.
• Regional anatomy: the sacral hiatus is the lower opening of the sacral canal, closed by the sacrococcygeal ligament and flanked by the sacral cornua. Within the canal lie the epidural space and the sacral nerve roots, with the filum terminale and the dural sac ending higher — typically around the second sacral level in adults, and lower in infants and young children.

Why this point is anatomically unlike its neighbours, stated plainly. At DU-03, DU-05, DU-06 and DU-07 the vertebral arch lies beneath the needle and bone stops it. At DU-02 there is a gap in the bone. The sacral hiatus is the same opening used in medicine as the route for caudal epidural injection, which is a direct indication that a needle placed through it enters the epidural space. The recorded shallow oblique angle along the ligament, rather than a perpendicular one into the opening, is what distinguishes the point’s documented technique from that route. The dural sac ends lower in children, so the margin differs with age.

What is not claimed. No study measuring a safe depth at DU-02 could be located, and none is borrowed. The paediatric CT study this library uses measures the Governing Vessel points DU-09 to DU-14 — skin to the epidural layer, a definition that would be directly relevant here — but it does not include DU-02, and no figure from it is carried across. No case report naming DU-02 was located, and none is asserted.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (needling record including the recorded upward obliquity, retained unchanged; the point list of PMID 26922245 / PMC4769822 queried and confirmed not to include DU-02), cross-referenced against multiple online sources; regional anatomy from standard anatomical description.

Is there research on DU-02, and what should a reader know?

No trial isolates DU-02. Where the point appears it is one component of a low-back protocol, and a study that includes a point in a protocol is not evidence about that point.

Low back pain has one of the largest acupuncture literatures in existence, and a reader will find no shortage of trials naming points in this region. Almost all of them use multi-point protocols built around BL-23, BL-25 and local ashi points. Evidence about a protocol is not evidence about a point within it, and none of that literature is claimed here.

What this page can state with confidence. DU-02 sits in the sacral hiatus, a genuine opening in bone — making it the one point in this stretch of the Governing Vessel where bone does not lie beneath the needle, and the reason its recorded angle is oblique and directed upward. It is located by a palpable landmark rather than by counting vertebrae, which its neighbours are not. And despite the shu in its name it is not a Back-Shu point; those all sit 1.5 cun lateral to the midline, and our category fields do not record a Back-Shu designation at all — confirmed by query.

A note on searching for it. “GV 2”, “DU 2” and “Yaoshu” searches return protocol trials and unrelated material, and there is a specific trap: “Yao Shu” is easily confused with the many BL-channel point names ending in -shu, which are Back-Shu points. Our library codes this vessel DU- while much of the literature uses GV-. Any claim attached to this point should be checked against what a study actually used.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (location, action and translation records; the DU-01 to DU-07 run and the BL-23 and BL-25 records queried, and every category field checked for a Back-Shu designation).