Educational information, not medical advice — ask your doctor or midwife.
Xiao Ji is a small thistle. Herbalists use the dried plant, stem and leaf and all. In Chinese medicine it is used to cool the blood and to help slow bleeding.
The best known use is blood in the urine. It is also used for nose bleeds, blood in the stool, and coughing up blood. Fresh juice or crushed leaf is sometimes laid on cuts and boils.
Human proof is thin. Most of what we know comes from lab and animal work. Long use in a tradition is not proof that a herb works, and we say that here once rather than in each part of this page.
The short answer: no one is sure.
Lab work points to plant chemicals called flavonoids. In test tube and animal work they seem to shorten the time blood takes to clot. They may also tighten small blood vessels.
Whether any of this helps a person who is bleeding has not been shown in good human trials. In Chinese medicine the idea is different. Xiao Ji is seen as a cold herb that clears heat from the blood, so the blood stays in its vessels.
Xiao Ji comes as dried cut herb, sold loose for tea. The tea is usually a decoction, which means the herb is boiled for 20 to 30 minutes.
Other forms are fresh juice pressed from the plant, powders, granules, and the charred herb (Xiao Ji Tan), which tradition favours for bleeding.
It is also one part of a classic mixed formula, Xiao Ji Yin Zi. Injected herbal forms are sold in some countries. Do not use those.
Xiao Ji has been used in China for well over a thousand years. Early notes on it appear in Tang era herb books, and it stays in Chinese herb texts today.
It is usually paired with, or swapped for, its larger cousin Da Ji. The two are often listed side by side in the same chapter.
In parts of China the young spring shoots are eaten as a wild green. That is food use, not medicine.
See a doctor before you start, not after, if you have blood in your urine, blood in your stool, or you are coughing up blood. These signs need a proper cause found.
Get medical help the same day for a nosebleed that will not stop after 20 minutes of pressure, for black or tar-like stools, or for periods so heavy you soak a pad each hour.
Call emergency services if you feel faint, cold and clammy, or short of breath while bleeding, or if you get a rash with swelling of the face, mouth or throat after taking the herb.
Evidence grades and traditional-use labels are explained in our methodology. Nothing here is medical advice.
Reviewed by the HealisticMD editorial team How we grade evidence →
The published evidence for Xiao Ji is weak or absent. That usually means no controlled trial has tested it, not that a trial found it ineffective — the two are different, and we grade only what has been published.
What it is typically used for, usual dose, cautions, and the study behind it where real trial data exists.
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