When I grew up I was often ill. I had many infections and my respiratory tract was weak, e.g. I suffered from pertussis for six months as a child. I was on sick leave 40 % of the time in secondary school, almost exclusively because of infections.
Congenital vitamin B-12 deficiency
In 1993 I was diagnosed with pernicious anemia, a congenital lack of the IF enzyme needed for the uptake of vitamin B12. Untreated B12 deficiency can lead to severe neurological damage and one of the symptoms is infections. My doctor told me that I would need B12-injections for the rest of my life, something I wouldn’t accept why I saw another doctor for a second opinion. She arrived at the same conclusion and said that being born without the IF enzyme is like being born without an arm – the arm will not grow out later on. But I still wasn’t satisfied with the answer so I saw a third doctor. We went through the same procedure and took the same tests. The same results again – pernicious anemia. I gave up and reluctantly accepted the situation.
My voice disappeared after two whiplash injuries
A couple of years later I started to learn Zhineng Qigong but for different reasons I didn’t manage to hold on to the training then. After a long break I took up qigong training on my own. This was in 2010 and in 2011 I decided to be more serious with my training and started to go to EZQ’s evening training and participate in courses. The main reason for that at this point was the whiplash injuries that I got from falling down a staircase in 2003 and from a traffic accident in 2008. I am a singer and noticed, especially after the second accident, that my voice stopped to function normally. My vocal range decreased and the quality of my voice became unstable and I experienced difficulties to perform my job satisfactorily. I also experienced visual disturbance, I had facial muscle spasms and sometimes severe pain in different parts of my body. I became more and more desperate and thought I would have to quit my carreer as a singer.
My voice returned and the pain disappeared during the winter course
In 2013 I participated for the first time in a longer course, the winter course in Karlskoga. One day it felt like a hand grabbed some muscles in my neck and moved them around. I became taller and could, for the first time in 10 years, place my head on top of the body without lifting my sternum a lot – a necessary skill for a singer! The breathing for singing started to find its way towards the back again and the voice slowly returned. Today I have reconquered almost the enire repertoire I sang before the accidents, the whiplash pain, the visual disturbance and the spasms are gone and I sing much better than I have ever done!
The pernicious anemia healed in conjunction with a summer course
Much empowered by the, for me, invaluable results from the winter course I immediately signed up for the 18-day summer course in Nossebro the same year. During a return visit to my doctor the following autumn my test results showed that I no longer suffered from pernicious anemia and that I could quit taking injections! All the test results, except two, were markedly better than what is considered to be normal, one result was in the middle and one in the lower half of the scale. This is considered to be impossible but like my doctor said: “If I don’t believe the test results I shouldn’t be a doctor!”.
Carolina Friberg