I attended my first course in Zhineng Qigong in October of 2005. I felt right away that this method suited me. I’ve gained so much from the training!
I suffer from neuropathic pain in my right hand, arm, and shoulder. It started in autumn 2001 as tendonitis caused by overstrains. It was treated with different medicines, ointments and so on but it didn’t get better. I was examined in a lot of different ways but frustratingly enough nothing was found. I was forced to explain to the doctors that I really had pain, and that it was hard not being able to do anything with your right arm when you’re right handed. Moreover I’m a person who enjoys working with my hands; I’ve always enjoyed cooking for example. I felt that all of that was taken away from me. I couldn’t do what I wanted without being afraid to hurt myself even more. The way the situation was met by others was also hard to face because they didn’t understand. I didn’t understand myself what was going on.
I wasn’t diagnosed until two years after that when I after a lot of turns got to a neurologist. At first he prescribed epilepsy medication and after that a new medicine for neuropathic pain. They work quite well but I still have pain sometimes. The medicines have also side effects: sleepiness and dryness of the mouth and they are also very expensive. Qigong on the other hand doesn’t have any side effects and it gives so much more than just reduction of the pain.
Qigong makes me calm and relaxed. That’s good when you consider my injury. The training also gives me a positive feeling. I feel that I can get results. During the winter I’ve felt that I can handle the pain better. It surfaces from physical efforts or stress. Earlier I would have tried to take it easy and rest when the pain surfaced but maybe not succeed in it. Problems filled my thoughts and the pain controlled my life in a lot of ways. When the pain nowadays surface I just think “Right, now it’s there, ok.” Then the thought disappears and I don’t think about it again.
Now I’m going to try and stop taking the medicines because I don’t want to be dependent on them. I have stopped completely with one medicine and the other, that I normally take both morning and evening, I’ve taken only in the evening. First I had some pain but I was able to train anyhow. During a Qi- regulation something happened. It tingled back and forth it the arm, as it does when I have pain there, but I used the positive thinking we’ve learned. Now the pain has stopped.
My arms are also stronger and during this 9-day course, I’ve managed to do all the armtraining successfully..
Qigong is helping me in many ways. Life had stopped but now I feel that it goes on.
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