Clinical Presentation

Dizziness, tinnitus, vertigo, poor memory, hardness of hearing, night-sweating, dry mouth and throat at night, lower backache, ache in bones, nocturnal emissions, constipation, dark scanty urine, infertility, premature ejaculation, tiredness, lassitude, depression, slight anxiety. With pronounced Empty-Heat: five-palm heat, feeling of heat in the evening, malar flush, menopausal hot flushes, thirst with desire to drink in small sips, pronounced anxiety in the evening, nocturnal emissions with dreams.

Treatment

Principle: nourish Kidney-Yin

Combination Points (and notes)

• Ren-4's dual behaviour is a good teaching point in itself: without moxa it tonifies Kidney-Yin, but with moxa the very same point tonifies Kidney-Yang instead — technique, not just point selection, determines the outcome.
• A completely peeled, dry tongue with a deep midline crack always indicates severe Kidney-Yin deficiency — a reliable tongue signature to check for independent of the presenting complaint.

Clinical Presentation

Soreness and weakness of the lower back, weak knees, clear frequent urination, weak-stream urination, abundant urination, dribbling after urination, incontinence of urine, enuresis, urination at night, nocturnal emissions without dreams, premature ejaculation, spermatorrhoea, tiredness, feeling cold, cold limbs; in women, prolapse of uterus, chronic white vaginal discharge, a dragging-down feeling in the lower abdomen, recurrent miscarriage.

Treatment

Principle: reinforce and stabilize Kidney-Qi, raise Qi, tonify Kidney-Yang

Combination Points (and notes)

• This pattern is memorably summarized as everything 'leaking out' — frequent urination, incontinence, premature ejaculation, seminal emissions, urethral discharge — a single unifying image worth teaching before the point-by-point detail.
• Du-20 (raising sinking Qi) and Jinggong (firming the Sperm Gate) show the two directions this pattern is treated from: lifting what has sunk, and closing what has become unfirm.

Clinical Presentation

Shortness of breath on exertion, rapid and weak breathing, difficulty in inhaling, chronic cough and/or asthma, spontaneous sweating, cold limbs, cold limbs after sweating, swelling of the face, thin body, mental listlessness, clear urination during an asthma attack, lower backache, dizziness, tinnitus.

Treatment

Principle: tonify and warm the Kidneys, stimulate the Kidney's receiving of Qi, stimulate the descending of Lung-Qi

Combination Points (and notes)

• A clean differentiator from ordinary Kidney-Yang deficiency: here the focus is squarely on breathing — chronic asthma, breathlessness, difficulty inhaling — rather than backache and cold being the leading complaint.
• LU-7 + KI-6 (opening the Ren Mai) recurs here exactly as in Lung-Yin deficiency, but for a different purpose — restoring the Kidney's grasp of Qi rather than nourishing Yin — a good example of the same point combination serving different clinical goals.

Clinical Presentation

In children: poor bone development, late closure of the fontanelle, deafness, mental dullness or retardation. In adults: softening of bones, weakness of knees and legs, poor memory, loose teeth, falling hair or premature greying of hair, weakness of sexual activity, lower backache, infertility, sterility, primary amenorrhoea, dizziness, tinnitus, deafness, blurred vision, absentmindedness, decreased mental sharpness.

Treatment

Principle: nourish the Essence, tonify the Kidneys

Combination Points (and notes)

• Essence-deficiency symptoms group into three memorable areas: Brain (poor memory, dizziness), Bones (weak bones), and Hair (loss of hair, premature greying) — a useful three-part checklist when screening for this pattern.
• Du-4 is conditional, not routine — used only when the Essence deficiency sits on a background of pronounced Yang deficiency, and moxa generally is skipped if there is marked Yin deficiency with Empty-Heat instead.

Clinical Presentation

Oedema, especially of the legs and ankles, cold feeling in legs and back, fullness and distension of the abdomen, soreness of lower back, feeling cold, scanty clear urination. Water overflowing to the Heart adds palpitations, breathlessness, cold hands. Water overflowing to the Lungs adds thin watery frothy sputum, cough, asthma and breathlessness on exertion.

Treatment

Principle: tonify and warm the Kidneys, transform Water, warm and tonify Spleen-Yang (and Heart-Yang or Lung-Qi if Water has overflowed to Heart or Lungs)

Combination Points (and notes)

• A specific needling technique here goes beyond reinforce/reduce: use thick needles and leave the points open after withdrawal so a few drops of fluid can escape — a physical, not just energetic, approach to draining oedema.
• The point set branches cleanly into a fixed base (tonify Kidney-Yang/Spleen-Yang, reduce to transform Water) plus one add-on module depending on which organ the Water has overflowed to — Heart (Du-14, BL-15) or Lungs (LU-7, BL-13, Du-12).

Clinical Presentation

Malar flush, mental restlessness, insomnia, night sweating, low-grade fever, afternoon fever, five-palm heat, feeling of heat in the afternoon and/or evening, scanty dark urine, blood in the urine, dry throat especially at night, thirst with desire to drink in small sips, dizziness, tinnitus, hardness of hearing, lower backache, nocturnal emissions with dreams, excessive sexual desire, dry stools.

Treatment

Principle: nourish Kidney-Yin, clear Empty-Heat, calm the Mind

Combination Points (and notes)

• The Method here is a clean two-group split — reinforce the six Yin-nourishing points (KI-3, KI-6, KI-9, KI-10, Ren-4, SP-6), reduce everything else — worth teaching as the template for every Yin-deficiency-with-Empty-Heat pattern.
• 'Positively no moxa' is emphatic phrasing worth remembering — a reminder that Empty-Heat patterns are the clearest case where moxa would actively work against the treatment.

Clinical Presentation

Dizziness, tinnitus, hardness of hearing, lower backache, dull occipital or vertical headache, insomnia, numbness or tingling of limbs, dry eyes, blurred vision, dry throat, dry hair and skin, brittle nails, dry vagina, night sweating, dry stools, nocturnal emissions, scanty menstruation or amenorrhoea, delayed cycle, infertility.

Treatment

Principle: nourish Kidney- and Liver-Yin

Combination Points (and notes)

• Reconstruction note: this pattern's own point list was garbled in extraction, so the four carried-over points (KI-3, KI-6, Ren-4, in addition to SP-6) reflect the fact that Kidney-Yin symptoms here are treated with the same points already given under Kidney-Yin deficiency — worth double-checking this pattern's full point set against the original text before teaching it as definitive.
• The headache location is a genuine differentiator taught elsewhere on this deck: occipital headache relates to the Kidney, vertex headache to the Liver channel, and temporal throbbing headache signals that Liver-Yang has actually started to rise on top of the Yin deficiency.

Clinical Presentation

Palpitations, mental restlessness, insomnia, dream-disturbed sleep, anxiety, poor memory, dizziness, tinnitus, hardness of hearing, lower backache, nocturnal emissions with dreams, a feeling of heat in the evening, dry throat at night, thirst with desire to drink in small sips, night sweating, five-palm heat, scanty dark urine, dry stools.

Treatment

Principle: nourish Kidney- and Heart-Yin, clear Heart Empty-Heat, calm the Mind

Combination Points (and notes)

• HE-5 and BL-15 stand out as the only two points here that reduce rather than reinforce — both work by clearing/conducting away Heart-Heat, while every other point nourishes Yin or calms the Mind directly.
• This is the classic 'Water not controlling Fire' picture — Kidney-Yin deficient below fails to keep Heart-Fire in check above, producing the combination of Kidney signs (backache, tinnitus) with Heart signs (palpitations, insomnia, a Heart-crack tongue) together.

Clinical Presentation

Dry cough which is worse in the evening, dry throat and mouth, thin body, breathlessness on exertion, lower backache, night sweating, dizziness, tinnitus, hardness of hearing, scanty urination.

Treatment

Principle: nourish Lung- and Kidney-Yin, nourish Body Fluids

Combination Points (and notes)

• LU-7 + KI-6 (opening the Ren Mai) is the same combination used in Kidneys failing to receive Qi, but here it's applied to nourish Yin and restore Lung-Kidney communication rather than to grasp Qi — the same pairing serving a different clinical purpose depending on the pattern.
• Metal (Lung) and Water (Kidney) support each other directly in Five-Element theory, which is why this combined pattern is so common — a chronic dry cough that never fully resolves is worth checking against Kidney-Yin deficiency signs even when the presenting complaint is purely respiratory.

Clinical Presentation

Lower backache, cold and weak knees, sensation of cold in the back, feeling cold, weak legs, bright-white complexion, impotence, premature ejaculation, low sperm count, cold and thin sperm, decreased libido, tiredness, lassitude, abundant clear urination, scanty clear urination, urination at night, apathy, oedema of the legs, infertility in women, loose stools, depression, poor appetite, slight abdominal distension, desire to lie down, early morning diarrhoea, chronic diarrhoea.

Treatment

Principle: tonify and warm Spleen- and Kidney-Yang

Combination Points (and notes)

• Unlike Kidney-Yang deficiency, Water overflowing, every single point here is reinforced — no reducing component at all, since this pattern is pure Deficiency without an Excess Water/Dampness component to drain.
• Three points (ST-37, ST-25, BL-25) are dedicated specifically to stopping diarrhoea — worth adding onto the base Kidney-and-Spleen-Yang tonification set only when diarrhoea, rather than just cold and backache, is the dominant complaint.