魚際 Yuji
“Fish Border” · LU10
Hand Taiyin · 10 of 11 · ying-spring
Where. On the thumb mound of the palm, halfway along the thumb bone, where palm skin meets the skin of the back of the hand.
For. A dry or sore throat, a hoarse voice, cough.
Press. Firm thumb pressure, about a minute, then the other hand.
魚際者，火也。在手大指本節後內側散脈中按 · Press with me
Six slow breaths
About a minute. Press as you breathe out, ease as you breathe in.
鄰 · Neighbouring leaves
Finding Yuji on Your Hand
Open one hand in front of you, palm up and relaxed, and look at the base of the thumb: a thick, rounded mound of muscle fills that corner of the palm and slopes down toward the wrist. Anatomists call it the thenar eminence, and it is the landscape that holds LU10. Start at the knuckle where the thumb joins the palm — the joint that lets the thumb sweep across the hand — and walk a fingertip back along the bony outer edge of the mound, toward the wrist crease. Halfway along that stretch of bone sits the point: the catalogue describes it as lying behind the first knuckle of the thumb, at the midpoint of the long thumb-side bone, right along the outer margin of the mound.
To confirm you are in the neighborhood, press gently along that edge with the pad of your opposite thumb. Many people notice a distinct spot of tenderness near the middle of the ridge — sharper than the muscle just above or below it — and traditional teaching treats that sensitivity as a common landmark. Notice the skin as well: the palm side of the hand is softer and paler, while the back of the hand is thinner and usually a shade darker. The line where the two kinds of skin meet runs along the very edge of the mound, and classical texts place the point exactly on that boundary. If you curl the thumb inward toward the little finger, the mound firms up and its border stands out clearly, which makes judging the midpoint much easier.
A Ying-Spring Point of the Lung Channel
The lung channel is traditionally mapped as a line of eleven points that begins high on the chest, travels down the inner front of the arm, crosses the wrist crease, and ends beside the thumbnail of the thumb. LU10 sits second from the end of that journey, just beyond the wrist-crease neighbor LU9 and below the thumbnail-edge point LU11. Within the old five-phase framework that classifies the points along each channel, Yuji belongs to the group called ying-spring points — a name that pictures qi and blood welling up like water gathering at the lip of a spring.
Traditional teaching assigns each category a temperament. Spring points are classically associated with clearing heat, so the lung channel’s own spring point is reached for in tradition when complaints carry a hot, dry quality: a throat that feels parched and scratchy rather than merely tired, a voice gone rough, a cough that is irritating and unproductive. These are frameworks inherited from premodern physiology, not verified mechanisms — they record how practitioners organised their observations, and they explain why this particular spot kept company with throat and voice complaints across the centuries.
What Tradition Reaches For
The recorded indications for LU10 fall into two clusters. The first gathers the upper-airway complaints the point is best known for: dry and sore throat, loss of voice, and cough. Classical practice tends to select it when a dry, hot quality dominates — after days of talking, in the scratchy early stage of a cold, or during a lingering dry cough — and teachers paired it with rest, warm fluids, and moist air rather than offering it as a stand-alone remedy. Framed plainly: the point was traditionally used for these complaints alongside ordinary self-care, not instead of it.
The second cluster needs clearer eyes. The dataset also records coughing blood and swelling and pain of the fingers among the classical indications. Both belong to history’s record; neither is a self-care matter today. Blood appearing in a cough or in material coughed up always calls for prompt medical assessment, whatever the suspected cause — and the same is true of breathing difficulty or finger swelling that follows an injury. Read these entries as a map of what earlier practitioners observed and catalogued, and let modern medicine handle anything carrying that weight.
Why the Name Means Fish Border
The Chinese name written 魚際 — Yújì in pinyin — translates literally as fish border. The image is anatomical: the rounded thenar mound, plump and pale, reminded classical writers of the belly of a fish lying along the edge of the hand, and the mound itself came to be called simply the fish. The second character, ji, means border or margin, and it marks where that fish-shaped prominence meets the thinner, darker skin running along the outside of the hand.
Put together, the name doubles as a set of directions. Find the fish — the mound at the base of the thumb — then find its border, the line where palm skin gives way to back-of-hand skin, the junction classical texts describe as the meeting of red and white. The point waits at the middle of that shoreline, level with the midpoint of the bone beneath. Generations of students memorised hundreds of points through images like this one, and for most people the picture makes the location stick far better than any measurement could: press the middle of the fish’s edge, and you have arrived.
Gentle Self-Care Acupressure
Sit comfortably and support the hand you are working on, palm up, in the other hand. Place the pad of your thumb on the midpoint of the mound’s outer edge, where you found the tender spot earlier. Press in toward the underlying bone with a firmness that feels useful but never sharp — most people describe the right level as distinctly noticeable yet easy to breathe through. Hold the pressure steady, or work in slow, small circles, letting the thumb sink and ease in a rhythm that follows your breath. Stay with it for one to three minutes, then switch hands and repeat on the other side, since each thumb carries its own mirror copy of the point.
As a rhythm of self-care, once or twice a day is plenty. People who talk all day sometimes fold it into the pause between meetings; others reach for it during the dry-throat stretch of a cold. Keep expectations modest and honest: acupressure here is a relaxation practice laid on top of the things that actually restore a throat — vocal rest, water, sleep, moist air. If pressing aggravates the area, or if the tenderness you encounter is intense or worsening, treat that as information and stop rather than pushing through.
Cautions and Sensible Limits
The catalogue attaches no specific cautions to this point, which fits its setting over solid muscle and bone, away from the large vessels of the wrist. General limits still apply. Do not press over broken skin, cuts, rashes, sunburn, or any recent bruise, sprain, fracture, or surgery anywhere on the hand or thumb; irritated tissue wants rest, not pressure. Keep the force moderate — bruising the mound serves nobody. If you are pregnant, managing a chronic condition, taking blood-thinning medication, or practising on a child, check with a qualified practitioner before turning any acupressure routine into a habit.
Treat unusual sensations as stop signs. A brief, comfortable ache is expected; sharp or electric feelings, sudden numbness, tingling spreading into the fingers, or soreness that lingers for hours afterward mean you should release immediately and let the area settle. Then escalate symptoms on their own merits: a sore throat with high fever or trouble swallowing, hoarseness that has not lifted after about two weeks of vocal rest, a cough that will not leave, and any appearance of blood in coughed-up material all belong with a licensed clinician promptly. Self-acupressure accompanies care; it never substitutes for it.
Yuji Among Its Neighbors
The closing stretch of the lung channel reads like a short walking tour. LU9, Taiyuan, sits at the radial end of the wrist crease, where the pulse is classically taken; from there the channel climbs the mound to LU10 before ending at LU11, Shaoshang, beside the thumbnail. Traditional teaching gave each station a different emphasis — the wrist point carries pulse and vessel themes, the thumbnail point appears in acute throat presentations — while Yuji held the dry, hot middle ground between them. Reading the three together shows how one small span of anatomy carried distinct roles.
Exploring that ridge with slow, curious pressure is a pleasant way to learn your own map. Travel from the wrist crease up toward the thumbnail, pausing wherever the tissue answers differently, and you will feel the character shift from the soft hollow near the wrist to the firm mid-bone to the dense edge beside the nail. Each point’s own page in this site’s registry carries its identity details; use those pages for specifics, and keep the exploration gentle — the goal is familiarity with your own anatomy, not a workout.
Yuji, LU10, rests at the heart of the thumb-side mound of the palm — the muscular pad that classical writers likened to the belly of a fish. Traditional practice reaches for it when the throat feels dry, the voice frays, or a cough lingers. This guide covers finding the point by touch, the meaning of its name, and how to press it gently at home.
Self-care limits
Frequently asked
- How do I know I have found the right spot?
- Most people notice a small zone of distinct tenderness near the middle of the mound’s outer edge, noticeably sharper than the muscle just above or below it. Sensitivity varies from person to person and even between your own hands, so lean on the landmarks first — behind the thumb knuckle, midway along the bone, on the skin-colour boundary — and treat the tender spot as confirmation rather than proof.
- Can I press it while I have a cold or a sore throat?
- Traditionally the point is matched to exactly that kind of dry, scratchy presentation, and reviews of acupressure research suggest effects in some contexts, with mixed results overall — hold it lightly as a companion habit. Gentle pressure pairs sensibly with rest, fluids, and sleep. Skip pressing entirely if the throat pain comes with high fever, swollen glands, or real trouble swallowing, and see a clinician instead; those symptoms deserve assessment, not home measures.
- Is daily acupressure on Yuji safe?
- For most people, yes — a minute or two of moderate pressure once or twice a day is a low-intensity practice over muscle and bone. Ease off if the area stays sore for hours afterward, avoid it over any broken skin, and remember the point is one thread in a routine of rest and fluids, not a treatment plan.
- My voice disappeared after a weekend of talking. Will pressing this bring it back?
- Acupressure cannot promise recovery, and an honest guide will not pretend otherwise. Traditional practice pairs this point with the things voice teachers recommend anyway: quiet, hydration, steam, patience. If hoarseness lasts beyond about two weeks despite resting your voice, have it looked at by a professional.
- Should I still see a doctor if there is blood in what I cough up?
- Yes, without delay. Coughing blood appears among this point’s historical indications only because classical physicians catalogued serious symptoms alongside everyday ones; it was never something pressure alone addressed. Prompt medical evaluation is the correct response every time, regardless of what self-care you were planning.
Sources
- 01aijiu-mpvue (MIT License), complateXwInfo.json — dataset witness mirrored in content/catalog/lung.ts for the LU10 location, indications, and point class.
- 02WHO Standard Acupuncture Point Locations in the Western Pacific Region (2008) — nomenclature conventions followed by the in-house English wording of the catalogue entry.
Last reviewed
牌記This leaf, for machines
Old books ended with a colophon saying who printed them. Every leaf here carries the same facts as structured data for agents and search, with no layout in the way.
- GET /en/points/lu10/leaf.json
- GET /zh-hant/points/lu10/leaf.json
- GET /zh-cn/points/lu10/leaf.json
- /llms.txt — the index of every leaf
- JSON-LD in the page: MedicalWebPage, MedicalEntity and FAQPage
{
"id": "LU10",
"name": {
"en": "Yuji",
"gloss": "Fish Border",
"zh-Hant": "魚際",
"zh-Hans": "鱼际"
},
"channel": {
"id": "LU",
"order": 10,
"of": 11
},
"location": {
"text": "On the thumb mound of the palm, halfway along the thumb bone, where palm skin meets the skin of the back of the hand."
},
"for": [
"A dry or sore throat",
"a hoarse voice",
"cough"
],
"press": {
"text": "Firm thumb pressure, about a minute, then the other hand.",
"seconds": 60,
"sides": "both"
},
"cautions": [],
"source": "Zhenjiu Jiayi Jing, book 3",
"url": "https://acupoints.com/en/points/lu10",
"lastReviewed": "2026-08-24"
}