Frequently asked questions
What is AcuiQ?
A searchable index of acupuncture point selections taken from published studies and clinical texts. You search a symptom; it shows you what sources prescribed for it and links you to those sources. No account, and nothing recorded that identifies you. It also sells ~1.5mm press needles and a range of printable guides and references.
Is there a tool to look up acupuncture points by symptom?
AcuiQ is one: a free index at acuiq.com of the acupuncture point selections that published studies and clinical texts prescribed for a symptom, each listed with its source. Type a symptom on the home page or pick one from the A–Z symptom directory, and each result shows the points, where each one is, and the citation to check. There is no account, and AcuiQ does not diagnose or choose points for you.
How does AcuiQ work?
You enter one or more symptoms. AcuiQ resolves them to indexed concepts, matches them against its catalogue of published point selections by text similarity, and returns the closest entries with their sources. It does not build a treatment plan and does not differentiate the cause of a symptom – see what the tool does not do for what that means in practice.
Where do the point selections come from?
From published sources. Of the 6,887 entries in the index, 5,699 were extracted from studies and each links the paper it came from; 855 are prescriptions recorded in clinical texts and case reports, cited by name; 329 come from acupuncture websites; and 4 lost their source in extraction. Each result card says which kind it is. Only research in people is indexed, and only entries whose source reported a benefit reach the search. Full methodology.
How does AcuiQ match symptoms?
By text similarity. Your terms are resolved to symptom concepts, expanded over their variant spellings and narrower terms, and compared by fuzzy string matching against each indexed entry's symptom list; there is no model, and nothing is learned from your searches. Where no entry matches, the search falls back to points that list your symptom among their indications, labelled as an index lookup with no score.
How does AcuiQ rank results?
By how much of your search an entry covers, multiplied by a weight for the kind of source it came from: study-reported 1.0, clinical text or case report 0.9, website 0.7, unsourced 0.6. Every entry naming more than one point is listed above every single-point entry, whatever the two score, so a card lower down can show a higher percentage than one above it. The percentage on a card is that weighted score; it is not clinical confidence and not a claim that the points work. Nothing AcuiQ sells changes the order. Full methodology.
What can AcuiQ not do?
It cannot tell you which points to use. It does not diagnose, does not differentiate the pattern behind a symptom (the step that decides point selection in Chinese medicine), takes no history, and does not record why a source chose a point; it matches the words you type against what sources prescribed. No practitioner reviews individual entries, so a result is a pointer to its citation and not a treatment plan. What AcuiQ does not do sets out each limit.
Which acupuncture points are used for tension headache?
A 2021 review of 128 published papers on tension-type headache, by Lu and colleagues in Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine, found GB20, GV20, Taiyang (EX-HN5), LI04 and LV03 to be the points those papers used most often. AcuiQ’s tension-type headache page lists the 20 point selections it indexes for the condition, each with the paper it came from. Which of them, if any, fits a particular headache is a question for a practitioner: AcuiQ records what sources prescribed and does not diagnose.
Can an AI assistant search AcuiQ?
Yes, anonymously and with no API key. AcuiQ runs an MCP server at acuiq.com/api/mcp, whose search_symptoms and search_protocols tools return the entries the site shows with their sources, and a REST API described in an OpenAPI spec. Every symptom, point and wiki page also has a markdown version at its own address plus .md. The agent reference lists the endpoints, limits and licence.
Who publishes AcuiQ?
AcuiQ. The index is compiled, corrected, and published in-house, and no entry is written from clinical experience – each one records what a published source prescribed and carries its citation. Who maintains it, what that does not amount to, and the commercial-interest disclosure.
Is my data private with AcuiQ?
There is no account and no login. Each search adds one tally to the symptom it matched, with no visitor attached. Analytics run without cookies. The privacy policy lists everything recorded.
How much does AcuiQ cost?
Searching is free. There is no account and no subscription. What is for sale is listed in the shop, each item priced on its own page. Digital ones are bought once and updated free for life.
What products can I buy through AcuiQ?
Press needles by the box, illustrated self-treatment guides (the full book or a single-condition mini-guide), a practitioner edition, the complete point reference, print-resolution point charts, and a licence for the whole corpus as data. Everything is listed in the shop and checks out through Stripe; every digital item includes free updates for life.
What are press needles?
Press needles are tiny (~1.5mm) acupuncture needles on 3M backing tape that can be worn discreetly for extended periods.
Is self-acupuncture with AcuiQ safe?
Press needles insert shallowly and are designed for self-application. AcuiQ itself is a reference index, not a treatment recommendation: it shows you what published sources prescribed, and it never differentiates the cause of your symptom. If a complaint is new, severe, or persistent, see a qualified practitioner rather than self-treating from a search result.
Can I do acupressure at home safely?
AcuiQ cannot answer that for your case. It records what published sources prescribed, and its safety pages set out what those sources and large safety surveys recorded: reading a point warning, the points classical texts forbid in pregnancy and what happens after a treatment. A new, severe or persistent symptom needs a practitioner, not a search result.
How often should I practice acupressure?
AcuiQ cannot set a frequency for you. Where the studies behind a symptom report how many sessions they ran and over what period, that symptom's page lists those figures as a record of the trials, not a recommendation. A qualified practitioner can set a frequency for your case.
How do I find the correct acupoint location?
Acupoints are located using anatomical landmarks like bones, muscles, and tendons. Our detailed images show each point on muscular, dermal, and skeletal views. Use the "cun" measurement system (1 cun = width of your thumb) for precise positioning.
What are meridians?
The channels classical Chinese medicine groups the acupoints into. The classical system has 12 primary meridians, each named for an organ (Lung, Heart, Liver and so on), and 2 extraordinary vessels, the Governing and Conception, that carry points of their own. AcuiQ lists every point it catalogues on each, with the published protocols that cite it.
What is acupuncture and how does it work?
A practice from Chinese medicine in which thin needles are inserted at named points on the body. Classical theory places those points on channels called meridians and describes needling as moving qi along them; that is the tradition's own account. Whether acupuncture works is what the trials in the index set out to test, and the literature is not yet in a condition to answer it: nothing in this literature ever fails sets out why.
How can I get started with AcuiQ?
Search a symptom – no login, nothing tied to you. You get the point selections published for it, each with its source. Press needles are available if you choose to self-treat, but read what the tool does not do first.