I was trained in Qigong at Acupuncture and Integrative Medicine College in Berkeley, CA. During my Medical Qigong training, each class included methods to help us learn to sense and assess Qi, and then work with it to direct healing. With each class, something remarkable happened that pulled me deeper and deeper into learning more about Qigong. This event was one that made my mouth drop because it defied much of the medical logic I learned in nursing school.

Medical Qigong has protocols and procedures for different ailments and diseases - just like we have in Western Medicine. In this class, we were learning the Qigong methods used to treat emotional and/or psych disorders. There is a step-by-step process of what you do to treat these conditions. In this class we were learning how to treat stress and anxiety.

I was practicing the recommended process on my classmate, Judy. She was laying on the massage table, eyes closed. I was at the head of the table. I pointed my fingers together and mentally focused my thoughts to visualize, or pretend, I was holding a needle between my pointer finger and thumb. I then gently placed my pointed fingers on my my classmates neck to release the stress and anxiety in her.

I then HEARD a hissing sound come out of her neck! It was as if air was being released from an over-inflated tire. I then experienced my left fingers starting to get cold - ice cold! My fingers on my left hand were now becoming numb because it was COLD AIR that was coming out of that pretend needle!

I called my instructor over to ask about this and all she said was, "Good! Keep it up!"  So I did, until the hissing sound stopped.

At the end of the treatment, Judy said she never felt better! She didn't hear the hissing sound - she just felt GREAT as if she was now light as a feather.

I was stunned. I knew there was no physical stress valve that I was holding, and I knew that physically, no air was hissing out of her neck, even though I heard it and felt it. The feedback and change in Judy was remarkable and spoke volumes to me about how effective this had been. There really was something with this Qigong! We were tapping in and accessing a person's Qi and directing it towards healing. This was amazing and had real results.

Sometimes you don't know whether to trust the information you are getting on recommended treatments for your medical situation. Here are some online resources I trust and use to find out more about medical problems and treatment options. 

• Medline: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/ 
• MedlinePlus: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ 
• Natural Medicines: https://naturalmedicines.therapeuticresearch.com/
• Dietary Supplement Database http://www.dsld.nlm.nih.gov/dsld/ 
• Office of Dietary Supplements: http://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/list-all/ 
• Herbs at a Glance by NIH http://nccam.nih.gov/health/herbsataglance.htm
  
• NIH Health Topics http://nccam.nih.gov/health/atoz.htm 
• Andrew Weil, MD http://www.drweil.com/ 
• Medscape: http://www.medscape.com/today 

Sometimes the information at one trusted site may not jive with another trusted site, so in those instances, I may do a meditation, or just tune in and sense what my feelings are saying about the matter.  I also may share the conflicting information with my client and allow them to decide. After all, our bodies usually let us know in one way or another whether the path and choice is correct for them or not.