Yaotongdian (EX-UE7): Hand Pressure Points for Sudden Lower Back Pain

Where Yaotongdian Sits

These are two points on the back of each hand, almost always used as a pair. The Vietnamese name of the pair says plainly what the tradition uses them for. The first word is the lower back, the second is pain and the third is a point. Neither belongs to any of the fourteen main channels drawn on the old charts. They sit in the category the classical literature calls extra points — spots found useful in practice and recorded outside the channel system.

Turn the back of your hand toward you. Four long bones run from your wrist out to the knuckles, and between each pair there is a groove. The first point sits in the groove between the bones of the first and middle fingers. The second sits in the groove between the bones of the ring and little fingers. Both lie halfway between the crease at your wrist and the row of knuckles. The middle groove is not used — skipping it is how you know you have the right two.

What lies underneath is mostly muscle and tendon: a small fan-shaped muscle filling each groove, and over the bones the tendons that straighten the fingers. There is very little padding, which is why these spots feel surprisingly sore for their size.

The nerve supply explains why the two feel different. The thumb side, including the first point, is served by the skin nerve of the thumb side of the forearm (the superficial branch of the radial nerve). It carries fibres from the sixth and seventh nerve roots of the neck. The little-finger side is served by a nerve from the little-finger side of the forearm (the back branch of the ulnar nerve). It comes from the eighth nerve root of the neck and the first of the upper back. Two nerves, two sets of spinal segments, one small hand. Most people find one point noticeably sharper than the other.

Why This Spot

There is an anatomical observation here that needs no theory. The back of the hand is thinly covered, richly supplied with nerve endings, and served by two nerve trunks feeding four segments of the spinal cord. Pressure there sends a sharp, unmistakable signal into the nervous system from a place nowhere near the lower back. When attention has narrowed onto a spasm in the muscles of the lower back (the lumbar muscles), a strong competing signal is not nothing.

The second thing is movement, and it may matter more than the pressure. The traditional way of using these points is not to sit still and press. It is to press while gently moving the lower back — a small rotation, a careful lean, a slow attempt to stand more upright than a minute ago. A back that has seized up is guarding, and guarding tightens the longer nothing moves. The pressure gives you something to hold on to while you test a movement you would otherwise avoid. Whether the benefit comes from the point or the movement, nobody working on a hand can separate the two.

In this tradition the points are described as a place to reach when the lower back has suddenly locked. They are an emergency measure for the first minutes, not a course of care for weeks.

What the Old Texts Say About Yaotongdian

These two points are not in the third-century catalogues, and it is better to say so than to invent a lineage for them. The Systematic Classic of Acupuncture and Moxibustion (Zhenjiu Jiayi Jing), compiled by Huangfu Mi in the third century, organised its points onto the channels. A point sitting on no channel had no place in that scheme. The same is true of the Illustrated Manual of the Bronze Man (Tongren Shuxue Zhenjiu Tujing) of 1026. What the classics do contain is the principle these points rest on, older than the points themselves.

That principle is stated most memorably in the Song of the Four Command Points, a mnemonic verse preserved in Ming-dynasty compilations. It instructs the reader that for trouble in the lower back and spine one should seek a point behind the knee. That is the whole argument of the verse. The old practitioners worked at a distance from the place that hurt, and had done so for centuries before anyone wrote the rhyme down.

The second thread is the tender point. In the seventh century Sun Simiao wrote about what he called ashi points in his Essential Formulas Worth a Thousand Gold Pieces (Qianjin Yaofang). The name comes from the sound a patient makes when the practitioner's thumb lands on the sore spot. His instruction was to press around until the patient responds, and to work where the response is, chart or no chart. Extra points like these two very probably entered the tradition by that route: found by thumbs, confirmed by patients, written down later.

The Great Compendium of Acupuncture and Moxibustion (Zhenjiu Dacheng), assembled by Yang Jizhou in 1601, gives space to points outside the channel system. It is in that later literature that these two acquired the name they carry now. Their history is shorter and more modest than that of the palm and wrist points. Vietnamese practice took them up in the same role. It teaches them alongside gentle movement of the back, the detail most often lost when points are copied from one book into another.

Points That Work With Yaotongdian

The point at the outer end of the palm crease. Close your hand into a loose fist and a crease appears across your palm. Follow it out to the little-finger edge of your hand. The point sits where the crease ends, on the outside edge, where the pale skin of the palm meets the darker skin of the back of the hand. In the old teaching this is the strongest of the hand points for the lower back, and the one to keep using through the following days.

The point behind the knuckle of the first finger. Find the knuckle of your first finger and slide a little behind it toward your wrist, staying on the thumb side. You will drop into a small dip. Worth adding when the ache sits lower and broader across the back rather than in one locked band. If your back aches most days rather than seizing suddenly, the full guide to that dip is the better page.

One companion, not both.

If the ache in your lower back is long-standing rather than sudden, the foot point for lower back pain is the page to read next.

How to Press Yaotongdian With Your Thumb

Getting Into Position

Sit if you can, but do not force yourself into a chair if sitting is what hurts. Standing with one hip against a kitchen counter works, and so does lying on your back with knees bent. Let the working hand rest on your chest or a table, so neither arm is holding itself up.

How to Find It

Spread the fingers of one hand and look at the back of it. The four long bones stand out, with three grooves between them. Ignore the middle one. Put the pad of your other thumb into the groove on the thumb side, and the pad of your first finger into the groove on the little-finger side. Slide both along until halfway between the wrist crease and the knuckles, then let the working hand relax and close a little.

Press gently and explore an area no bigger than a fingernail, a millimetre or two at a time. You are feeling for a dip between the bones that gives slightly under the pad, often with a fine ropy or gritty texture. The right spot announces itself with a sharp, bright soreness rather than a dull ache — sharper than most hand points, which surprises people the first time. A sudden electric shock running into a finger means you have caught a nerve; come off, move a little, try again.

How to Press It

The easiest grip is a pinch. Put your thumb on one of the two points and your first finger on the other, both on the back of the hand. Curl the remaining fingers underneath to support it. Squeeze gently, pressing both points at once, straight down toward the bones.

Now the part that matters. While holding the pressure, move your lower back — slowly, and only within the range that does not hurt. Shift your weight from one foot to the other. Turn a few degrees to one side and back. Try to come a little more upright. Small movements, unhurried, breathing out as you move. Hold for five to ten seconds, release, move again, press again. Never press harder to force a movement the back is refusing to make.

How Much Pressure

Firm enough to feel clearly sore, and no further. These points are sharper than most, so the line is easier to cross. If you are holding your breath, you are pressing too hard; breathing should stay slow and through the nose. If the shoulder on the working side has climbed toward your ear, ease off. And if pressure on your hand is making your back tighten rather than loosen, back off by half.

How Long

Roughly a minute on each hand, in short rounds rather than one continuous squeeze — press for five to ten seconds, release, move the back, press again. Six or eight rounds per hand, both hands. In an acute episode you can repeat every hour or two, but stop if the skin becomes tender or marked. If three or four sessions have produced nothing, more are unlikely to.

When to Do It

These points are for the moment it happens. The catch on standing from a chair, the sudden lock while putting on socks, the bend to the bottom shelf that ends with a person frozen at forty-five degrees. They are also useful first thing in the morning, when a stiff back is at its worst. They are also used last thing at night if the back is making it hard to settle.

What This Won't Do

Read this part properly. It matters more than the rest of the page.

Pressure on the back of your hand will not repair a disc, reverse wear in a spinal joint, or resolve a structural problem in your back. It does not change what is happening in the spine at all. At its best it takes the edge off an episode and gives you room to start moving again, and movement is what most ordinary back trouble needs. If your back has hurt for months or years, you need a proper assessment and most likely a programme of movement and strengthening supervised by someone who has examined you. No hand point replaces that, and anybody who tells you otherwise is not being straight with you.

There is also a set of circumstances where this is not a matter for pressure on a hand at all, and where the right response is to be seen urgently. If your back pain began after a fall, a road accident, or any other impact, go and be examined — do not press anything and wait to see. The same applies if the back pain comes with any of the following. Numbness or tingling in one or both legs. Weakness in a leg or foot, including a foot that catches or drags when you walk. Numbness in the area that would touch a saddle, between the legs or around the back passage. Any loss of control of your bladder or bowels, or a new inability to pass water. That last group is a medical emergency and needs a hospital the same day, not tomorrow. Seek attention promptly, too, for back pain with fever, unexplained weight loss, pain clearly worse at night, or back pain in anyone with a history of cancer. And keep taking exactly what your doctor prescribed. This is something you do in addition, never instead.

Safety First

Do not press over broken skin, a rash, a burn, a bruise, an open sore, a recent scar, or any part of the hand that is hot, red and swollen. If you take a blood-thinning medicine or bruise easily, use lighter pressure and shorter rounds, and stop if marks come up — the back of the hand bruises readily. If you have had surgery on the hand, or there is metalwork in it, ask the surgeon first. People with reduced feeling in the hands, from diabetes or a nerve problem, should press more lightly, because the usual warning may not reach them.

Stop at once if pressing makes your back pain worse, produces numbness or tingling, or brings on any warning sign above. Please read the full safety guide before you begin.

Questions People Ask

Where is the Yaotongdian (EX-UE7) pressure point? Yaotongdian (EX-UE7) is a pair of points on the back of each hand, halfway between the wrist crease and the knuckles. One sits in the groove between the bones of the first and middle fingers. The other sits in the groove between the ring and little finger bones. The middle groove is not used.

How long should I press Yaotongdian? Press for five to ten seconds, release, move your back gently, and press again. Keep going for roughly a minute on each hand, which is six or eight rounds, then do both hands. In an acute episode you can repeat every hour or two. If three or four sessions change nothing, more are unlikely to.

There are two points on each hand. Do I press both? Yes, and it is usually easiest to press both at once. The thumb of the other hand covers one groove and the first finger covers the other, and you squeeze gently from above. If one of the two is clearly more tender than its partner, give that one the extra time.

Should I press the hand on the same side as the pain? In practice, work both hands. Many people find the hand on the painful side is the sorer of the two, but the difference is not reliable enough to build a rule on, and both hands take less than three minutes together.

Am I supposed to move my back while pressing? Gently, yes. That is the traditional way of using these points, and it is the part most people leave out. Small, slow movements within a range that does not hurt. Never push into pain to prove a point.

My back pain has been there for years. Is this any use? These points are traditionally reached for in the acute moment — the seizing up, the sudden catch on standing. For long-standing back pain they may take the edge off an episode, but a back that has hurt for years needs a proper assessment and usually needs movement, strength work and time. Pressure on a hand is not a substitute for any of that.

Other Points in This Library

Each of these sits within reach of the same hand. They are often worked in the same sitting.

This page shares general information about a traditional practice. It is not medical advice and does not replace what your doctor has given you. If you are pregnant, managing a health condition, or unsure whether this applies to you, check with your doctor first.

The whole inner edge of the foot, laid out on one page with photographs, is in The Foot Map — the free book. For every point in this library, see the full pressure point index.

(Point shown: EX-UE7 · Yaotongdian · Yêu Thống Điểm.)