Stomach 30 : St30 QiChong: Rushing Qi

Tucked away down near your groin is Stomach 30, QiChong, a very important acupuncture point on your Stomach channel.

As you’ll see, it has many functions. All of them help your body manufacture Qi and Blood and assist health in your lower abdomen, especially with the health of your uterus.

Acupuncture theory says this is because it is one of the places that the ‘Extra-ordinary’ vessel Chong Mo first emerges.

• An important point on, or meeting point with Chong Mo
• A Sea of Nourishment (Water and Grain) point

Location of Stomach 30 QiChong

Level with the superior edge of the pubic bone, 2 cun units lateral to the mid-line. It can also be found halfway from the midline to the lateral border of the rectus abdominis muscle at that level.

Needling Stomach 30

Needle this point with the patient preferably lying supine, with a pillow under his knees. However, this is not always possible.

Sometimes this is the appropriate point for someone with great abdominal pain and distension, who finds it very hard to lie down.

Insert the needle perpendicularly to the skin to a depth of between one-half, and one and a half (maximum), cun. You can also insert slightly further, up to 2 cun, if the needle is slanted towards the genitals. Be aware that needling deeply here may damage the spermatic cord. 

Needling too deeply may also puncture the bladder – so make sure the patient empties his bladder beforehand!

NB! Stomach 30 is medial to the common iliac artery which runs lateral to it and has a large pulse. Be careful!

Sensation:

Apart from a distending sensation locally, the sensation may spread up the Liver channel to Liver 14 Qimen, or sometimes down to Liver 11 Yinlian.

Moxa

 3 – 7 cones  Moxa here can be very comforting and effective in cases of Cold in the lower abdomen.

Actions

• Regulates Qi in the lower half of the abdomen – the ‘lower burning space’
• Regulates the Chong Mo, the Penetrating Vessel, Sea of Blood
• Tonifies the Sea of Nourishment, particularly if used with Stomach 36, Zusanli.
• Lowers Qi rushing upwards ‘rebelliously’ (see below)

Indications

• Being the point where Chong mo emerges, this point is potentially able to harness what are called pre-Heaven and post-Heaven energies. Pre-Heaven energy is that which you inherited: post-Heaven is what you’ve made yourself through your life. If that latter is not keeping you well, this point may be able to summon more of the good qualities you inherited to sustain you.
• This can be looked at another way, which is that, being a point on the Sea of Blood, in which your Shen or personality rests, and which is also the Sea of the 12 channels, this point can help to put it all back together if you – your health and well-being – are falling apart. In the same way it can help women recover after a hysterectomy, or anyone after a traumatic wound or surgery in the abdomen, the lower abdomen particularly.
• In situations like that, you get anxious. If very anxious, tension rises upwards, Qi ascends rebelliously, and you may get what is called ‘Running Piglet disorder’. This is a wonderfully picturesque description of what you may feel. Actually, it can be terrifying – like dying. Stomach 30 Qi chong (chong means ‘rushing’) is great for that. Of course you don’t need to wait for that to happen before using it to ‘lower’ rebellious Qi.

Reproduction

• If you’ve had time to read the page on Chong Mo, you’ll realise its importance healthy reproduction. Stomach 30 can be used to help distribute your inherited energy to your genital and reproductive organs.
• Likewise, this point can be used when there seems to have been no change after much treatment. It is as if you tap into a deeper well.
• Because of its links to the Sea of Blood, and because a branch of Chong Mo goes down the leg, particularly down the Liver channel to the big toe, it can be used for Liver Blood deficiency issues which include poor eyesight and muscle tiredness, especially in the legs.
• Like Liver 3, this point can help move the menses and ease Qi stagnation in the lower abdomen causing painful periods and heavy bleeding ie menorrhagia.
• It is a local point for treating both male and female genitals, including pain, along with other points such as Stomach 28, for instance, for the ovaries and retraction or pain and inflammation of the testicles.

Chong Mo channel

• I think about it like this. The Chong Mo vessel was the prime mover when the fertilized cell that grew to be you first implanted itself in the wall of your mother’s womb. Chong Mo’s first action was to lay down foundations. In your body as it began to grow these were in the form of supportive fascia or membranes and fatty tissues. These enabled your organs to grow, supported and wrapped protectively. So any problems with these fascia may be treated here.
• Likewise, problems with fascia anywhere in the body, including pleurisy and retained placenta. See also note below.
• Consequently, if Qi is stagnating in your abdomen, causing pain and distension, it may be because Qi cannot move smoothly through these membranes. Stomach 30 can help to un-stagnate that Qi, which may have been causing colic, distension, intestinal gas, excess bleeding, constipation, energy loss, irritable bowel syndrome and infertility.
• Often, this Qi stagnation within the membranes of your abdomen can cause pain into your thighs and low back, sometimes violent pain. This is a great point for that. If you know anything about the homoeopathic remedy Sepia  you may recognise similarities.
• Being a point at the junction of the body and the legs, it has many other qualities, and can be used in cases of paralysis.
• As a point on the Sea of Nourishment, it may be useful where either the patient does not have a proper appetite or does not absorb what is eaten, or both. For example, some conditions like anorexia, poor digestion and elimination might fit this.

Comment

• I doubt that I’ve ever really used this point either properly or enough. It has so many different functions, all tied up with the ancient Chinese thinking about the action of Chong Mo, for which in many ways it is the chief point.
• One of the difficulties is that it is not the easiest point to get to, requiring the patient to disrobe to some extent, and being fairly close to the genitals. You should explain carefully why you want to use it before doing so.
• One of Chong Mo’s pathways rises up to the neck, throat and face and another rises up the spine with the Conception Vessel. Once I had a patient with acute neck pain: she found even swallowing agony, let alone turning her head. I tried all sorts of acupuncture treatments without much success.  One day she arrived in agony from what seemed like intestinal cramps and distension. I treated her for the distension using Stomach 30 and within a few seconds of inserting the needle the neck pain cleared, completely! (The abdominal pain went too.) So I reasoned that she had had some kind of fascial inflammation in her neck. Of course, the Stomach channel also passes up the neck. Still, I’d certainly tried local points on the Stomach channel when treating her neck pain. It seems that her abdominal pain led me to the right point.

A little theory

• For practitioners unfamiliar with the theory of Chinese medicine Stomach 30 is not an obvious point to use when treating many of the conditions for which it is so useful. They should definitely read up on the theory.
• It is an important point for treating Blood disorders, often forgotten or overlooked for that purpose, at least by me.
• Although not suggested in any books or courses I’ve attended, it seems to me to be like a source point for Chong Mo. So perhaps it may be used to reinforce Chong mo treatments at other points, for instance between Kidney 11 and 21, on the abdominal pathway of the vessel.
• Stomach 29, Guilai, has some properties a little like Stomach 30 Qichong and I wonder if the pathway of Chong Mo is actually not specifically to the point described on this page but to its general area.
• I don’t think I have ever used this point on its own, although there is no reason why. But when using it, I usually want to give the point a vector, using other points.