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Here’s an extraordinary fact for you: New Mexico is the first–and, to my knowledge is still the only–state to add acupressure to the EMS scope of practice. I attended an acupressure seminar at this year’s EMS state conference, and learned points for treating shortness of breath, high blood pressure, anxiety, nausea, and other common complaints. One of the instructors, Deb Boehme, had some especially compelling stories about using acupressure in the field. She does disaster relief work, and talked about being in New Orleans in Katrina’s aftermath, when supplies and medications had run out while the patients were only multiplying. A girl was brought to the medical tent with a bad asthma attack–a potentially fatal situation–and there was no medication to treat her. Deb used acupressure to break the attack and return the girl’s breathing to normal, demonstrating the power of this ancient modality to the incredulous western physician in the medical tent. Touching points on the girl’s back and chest stopped the inflammation taking over her lungs, and reopened her rapidly closing air passages. This is something that science will tell you can’t really happen.

Modalities like acupressure are incredibly democratic. They are the people’s medicine. Any person can be taught to locate points for common ailments, and can heal themselves with simple touch. It’s empowering to literally take your healing into your own hands like that, to trust yourself with something you previously ascribed to the unreachable, vaguely mystic realm of The Doctor.

A few weeks ago, I felt myself coming down with the crud, that seasonal head cold or flu-y ick that usually gets me at least once every time the weather turns cold. I had the sore throat that always, inevitably, and inexorably means I’m about to feel pretty poopy for at least a few days. You know that sore throat–once it appears, you can’t evade what’s coming. Or so I thought. Some meditation, some nasal irrigation, some pressure on my thymus points and spleen points, and the next morning I woke, not to mucus or cough or fever, but to nothing. The sore throat was gone, and nothing but normal good health had followed it. Science will tell you this didn’t really happen.

Two simple acupressure points on my back have done what no amount of ibuprofen, heating pads, bourbon, masturbation, or fervent hoping have ever done: consistently cured menstrual cramps, and in just a matter of minutes. This is monumental. And–you guessed it–science will tell you it didn’t really happen.

I’ve been asked many times why I went into EMS. The answer has really only come in retrospect, but it goes something like this: I have always been interested in medicine. I thought long and hard about going to medical school or nursing school, even going so far as to get into a program and then pulling out just before classes started. I couldn’t have stated this at the time, but the reason I was unconsciously holding back from committing to this path was that it wasn’t medicine I was really interested in–it was healing that drew me, and that, ironically, is not something western medicine does very well. But before I figured that out, I did commit to EMS. What kept me from turning away from it, too? Probably the fact that EMS and emergency medicine are the one area in which I believe western medicine actually is appropriate and can offer something of great value to patients. But for day-to-day good health, I’m coming more and more to rely almost solely on so-called “alternative” modalities. Kinesiology saved me when endocrinology and internal medicine abandoned me. Polarity restores me, and acupressure staves off illness and pain. Meditation is like vitamins, but free. Food is medicine, and my dollars go to local farmers rather than drug companies. I am happier and healthier than I have ever been. Long live the woowoo.

The interwebs have made it easier than ever to gain knowledge, to broaden horizons, to connect with like-minded folks. It’s where I learned the cramps points, and it’s where I found a supplier of fermented cod liver oil to replace my synthetic vitamin D tablets. It’s a vast resource, and a tool to use in your own empowerment. Learn what you can, and learn to trust what you know and can do. The proverb, updated, should read: Person, heal thyself. Because you really can.