Insertion of needles

Dear Dr. King.

In the process of manipulation of needles at the chest and head specially, the insertion is always at oblique or horizontal direction.My question is this: Should the needle insert right at the acupoint or at a point some appropriate distance away ( say 1 cm or 2)? If it is the former, the needle may hit out of the target i.e. the acupoint or perhaps, it might hit other acupoint as well.

Your comments, please.

chenkc

Dear Chenkc,
First of all, I think that not all the points on the chest and head are needled obliquely or horizontally, for instance, Taiyang can be needled either obliquely or perpendicularly; so is Zhongfu.
Usually it's dependent on the individual acupuncture physician to decide whether to insert the needle right at the acupoint or at a point some appropriate distance away for every would have different experience of the understanding on the location of the acupoints.
What I want to stress is that if you can have a good arrival of Qi, no matter the needle hit or hit out of the target, there would be a good therapeutic effect. To do acupunture, there is a saying in traditional Chinese medicine that: The point can be missed, but never the meridian!