A deep abdominal point on the Spleen channel (SP), Fushe (SP-13) works in the lower belly — untangling painful masses, moving stuck Qi and warming the lower abdomen when Cold or stagnation have taken hold.
Meridian
Spleen channel
Pinyin name
Fushe
Contraindications
⚠️ Caution is needed with needling depth: in thin patients, deep insertion risks penetrating the peritoneal cavity. If the spleen or liver is known to be substantially enlarged, deep needling in this area should be avoided. Keep to the recommended depth and use careful technique.
Name & story
The name 府舍 Fushe means something like "Residence of the Fu" or "Dwelling of the Bowels" — fu referring to the hollow organs that sit just beneath this point. It is a fitting image: the point sits right at the entrance to the lower abdomen, like a gate keeper to the inner chamber where the intestines reside. Press here and you are knocking at the door of the body's deepest digestive territory.
Point family & character
Fushe (SP-13) belongs to the Spleen channel (SP). It is a Meeting point — also called a crossing point — where the Spleen channel meets the Yin Linking vessel (Yin Wei Mai). This connection to the Yin Linking vessel gives it a broader reach across the Yin channels of the body.
Five-element dynamics
The Spleen is the Yin organ of the Earth element — the body's great transformer, turning food and drink into Qi and Blood (Xue). When Cold settles in the lower abdomen or Qi becomes stuck and masses form, the smooth work of the Earth element is disrupted. Fushe (SP-13), sitting right over the lower belly, helps restore that smooth flow — warming, moving and clearing the obstructions that Earth, when weakened or invaded, tends to accumulate.
Location
Fushe (SP-13) is found on the lower abdomen, 4 Cun lateral to the midline — at the palpable lateral border of the rectus abdominis muscle. It sits 4.3 Cun below Daheng (SP-15). A reliable landmark: the 4 Cun lateral line on the abdomen runs along the outer edge of the rectus abdominis, which can be felt when the patient tenses the belly slightly.
Anatomy & fascia
The point lies at the lateral border of the rectus abdominis muscle, in the lower abdomen.
Needling
The needle is inserted perpendicularly (straight in).
Safe depth
0.5 to 1 Cun. ⚠️ Caution: in thin patients, deep needling may penetrate the peritoneal cavity. Deep needling at this location may also reach a substantially enlarged spleen or liver.
Moxa, cupping & Tui Na
The golden tip
If you experience cold, cramping pain in the lower belly or feel a heavy, stuck sensation there, gentle clockwise massage over the lower abdomen in the area of this point can help move Qi and ease discomfort. Keeping the lower abdomen warm — with a warm pack or a belly band — is a simple and effective self-care measure that supports the point's warming action.
For education only — not medical advice. Consult a qualified practitioner.
Moxa is well suited to this point, particularly when the presentation involves Cold in the lower abdomen — cold pain, cold diarrhoea, or cold masses. Gentle warming with a moxa stick over the area can help dispel Cold and move Qi.
Functions
Moves Qi and regulates the intestines; Warms and benefits the lower Jiao; Disperses painful abdominal masses (ji ju); Alleviates Shan disorder.
Indications
Abdominal fullness and pain, painful abdominal masses (ji ju disorders), Shan disorder (a traditional category covering certain types of lower abdominal pain and hernia-like conditions), constipation, cold and pain of the lower abdomen, cold or Damp diarrhoea, dysenteric disorder, sudden turmoil disorder, pain of the lateral costal region, pain of the thigh. Also indicated for copious sweating, inability to raise and move the four limbs, and a sensation of heat in the hypogastrium with sighing.
Mind & spirit (Shen)
The sources note a propensity to sadness and sighing as part of this point's picture — and this makes sense in the language of Chinese medicine. The Spleen, when burdened, can pull the mind into heaviness and worry. When Qi is stuck in the lower belly and the bowels are not moving freely, a kind of emotional stagnation follows — a heaviness, a tendency to sigh, a melancholy that is not quite grief but sits like a stone. By moving the Qi downward and through, Fushe (SP-13) can ease that stuck, heavy feeling in the mind as much as in the body.
Point combinations
With Chongmen SP-12 — for abdominal fullness and abdominal masses (ji ju), as recorded in the classical text Supplementing Life.
Clinical spotlight
What makes Fushe (SP-13) distinctive is its indication for ji ju — painful abdominal masses, a classical TCM category covering accumulations and obstructions felt in the belly. This, combined with its action on Shan disorder and its meeting with the Yin Linking vessel, gives it a character suited to deep, stubborn pathology in the lower abdomen. It is not a commonly used everyday point, but in the right clinical picture — cold abdominal masses, severe lower abdominal pain, obstinate constipation with stagnation — it becomes a precise and valuable choice.