My Passion to Help
By Dr. Michael Gorman 

            From my earliest memories of life, I can remember being sick all the time.  I remember having a cold about 2 weeks out of every month, having horrible earaches and headaches all the time as a kid, and feeling tired most of the time.  I most of all remember my nose being eternally stuffed up and running and how miserable it made me feel.  As a little kid, I had to go to the allergy doctor every week for my usual arsenal of painful shots that didn't seem to do anything except hurt my arm for a few days.  And then there were the actual allergy tests that involved literally scratching the skin off of my arm and putting different substances on my arm to see if they would cause a reaction.  Never mind the reaction of pain that I encountered each and every week for years.  So much for "First, do no harm" in medicine.  But I was told I was getting better and that it would take time.  As I got into grade school, I guessed that all of my sicknesses along the way must have been normal for a young kid.  But I continued to struggle being sick often and tired a lot of the time, but had the usual bursts of energy that most kids do and nevertheless had a relatively positive attitude towards life and a lot of fun and laughs. 

            When I got to high school, things continued but I had figured out how to manage and compensate pretty well for my fatigue and sicknesses.  I even starting running cross country and track and excelling at it.  As I ran more and got into better shape, I was able to feel even better.  As a matter of fact, I was one of the best runners in my league as only a freshman and they told me that I had the potential to become one of the best in the state and probably receive a college scholarship.  Running became my entire life and I devoted myself to whatever it took to become the best runner I could.  Unfortunately, one day during my sophomore year I developed a slight cough that then turned into a bigger cough and eventually turned into asthma.  I was told that I would never be able to run at the elite level that I had hoped, but that with drugs, an inhaler, and a mask to warm the air, I might be able to do some competing.  As if my dreams were not shattered enough, the mask I wore made me look like a horse, and to a 15 year-old, not exactly the cool thing to do.  For the next two years, I was totally depressed over the fact that I couldn't take a deep breath and thus couldn't run at the level that I did even as a freshman.  And my fatigue, brain fog, and colds continued.

            When I got to college, the same things continued for me, only my health seemed to affect my concentration with studying much more, and thus I struggled through some of my classes.  I kept being told and thus thinking that I must be getting older and that now my worse feelings overall must be related to my age, as I was almost in my twenties.  Isn't that to be expected?  I'm not a kid anymore.  The worse I felt, the more I learned to compensate and even keep some of how I felt to myself.   

            Since I was always plagued with different injuries, along with being told that I was a head case by many doctors, coaches, and family and friends, I ended up with a dual bachelors degree in psychology and sports medicine.  I didn't know what to do with the psychology degree per se, but knew in my heart that I was very interested in all that material, and secretly thought I could learn some things about myself.  I worked in the athletic training room along with the sports medicine classes that I took, so I learned a lot about treating injuries, but still was unable to diagnose myself.  I worked with some of the most elite athletes in the country at Villanova University in their sports medicine department, and then at Holy Redeemer Hospital in physical therapy.  My previous injuries and chronic sickness were not able to be explained by traditional medicine or anything that I could get my hands on to study.  I became obsessed not only by my own health questions, but of the athletes and patients that I was treating and not able to help.   

            While working at Villanova University, I was assigned to take the notes for the orthopedic surgeons that would see the more difficult and complex athletes that were not responding to traditional athletic training and physical therapy procedures.  I was so excited to do this because I figured that I would learn a lot from the doctors, which I did.  However, I also learned that Villanova had a chiropractic physician on staff at that time that was seeing some of the athletes as well.  I was also assigned to take the notes for that doctor.  My experience with the M.D's was that most of the time they would tell me that we (athletic trainers) knew more than them about the functional athletic injuries that they were looking at and that they could either give them drugs or give them surgery, that's what they do.  Being confused and not knowing much yet about chiropractic I would ask if these athletes might be a good candidate for the chiropractor and they said things like, "I don't know what that guy is going to do for them".  Well, I found out first hand what that guy could do for them.  He would do a much more thorough exam and explain everything he was doing to me.  It made perfect sense to me with my background.  He would do everything that we did and then always take it to the next level and show me why and what he was doing.  Then I would see the immediate difference both subjectively and objectively in the athlete right before my eyes.  It was then that I first started to learn how much politics plays a role in medicine, even at the big time Division One college sports arena, where you would think that they would simply do whatever is the best for their scholarship athletes, but it doesn't work that way.  This role in politics I would find grew to completely unbelievable levels as I grew with my knowledge of politics and medicine and researched the history and truth in traditional medicine in the United States.

            So off to Chiropractic College I went, thinking that I would come back armed with all the answers that I needed, along with the hope that some of my personal health questions might be answered.   This seemed like the perfect match for me and I was excited.  I was going to Chicago to attend the most medically oriented chiropractic college, because I wanted to be the best chiropractor that I could.  Its curriculum mirrored the best medical schools in the country, with the exception of learning about surgery and medications, where chiropractic adjustments and nutrition were substituted.  I couldn't have been at a better place at that time, given my background in traditional therapies. 

            As I progressed through my first two semesters, I really struggled with my class load.  In undergraduate college a full semester is 15 credits, where here I was taking 25-30 credits of much harder science classes such as anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, neurology, microbiology, histology, embryology and probably some other "ologies" that I forgot to mention or suppressed the memories.  The main reason for my struggle, aside from the usual stress that everyone was under, was that I was feeling very fatigued and my fatigue, brain fog, and allergy symptoms had come back full force.  This had a major impact on my ability to study and concentrate, both in and out of classes.  I struggled just to get by, even with all the motivation and previous experience that I had.  

Then at the end of my first semester, it dawned on me that I am at the most medically oriented chiropractic college so I should finally be able to deal with my chronic health issues and get them resolved once and for all.  I made an appointment to go to the student clinic. 

            When I arrived at the clinic, I was full of hope and excitement.  I filled out several pages of detailed health questionnaires and was given the most thorough health physical exam and blood work up that I had ever had.  But when I went back for my results I was astonished with the diagnosis. There was nothing wrong with me!  This is what I had been told for my entire life, while KNOWING IN MY HEART that there was definitely something very wrong that was being missed.  But they were making the same mistake that traditional medicine currently makes; they were assessing and testing for disease.  I did not have any diseases- yet.  If the best, most medically oriented chiropractic school was going to tell me there is nothing wrong with me, I started to believe it and think that maybe I was a nut.  I continued to struggle and the depression became almost overwhelming.  Then the questions of "Do I drop out of chiropractic if I am struggling?" and "Is this what chiropractic is all about?" came up.  Then I was introduced to Applied Kinesiology and my life changed forever!

            My roommate was two years ahead of me and had been studying AK for awhile.  After sharing with him some of my problems, we had agreed for him to take me on as a patient, so I could get some help and he could learn from my issues while being in the clinic.  We did that and the rest is history.  He used AK to show me that I had various food allergies and that I was eating myself into most of my symptoms, so I changed my diet.   I also had many emotional blocks in my body that were able to be diagnosed and treated successfully with another similar technique, Neuro-Emotional Technique.  Ever since I have not been sick and feel great most of the time.  In particular my asthma, allergies, fatigue, and pain are gone and I feel better.  I have more energy than I did when I was in high school.  Of course I threw myself into studying AK myself right away, taking post-graduate seminars about 3 weekends a month and working for two different AK doctors.  I went from barely passing to doing well in school for the rest of Chiropractic College and beyond.  Finally, a technique that teaches the doctor how to look at the whole person: Physically, Nutritionally, and Emotionally- and even more importantly, how these all integrate and specifically affect each other.  My personal story is why I am so passionate about helping people!  I continue to be driven to always learn more as I am attracting more and more difficult and complex patients desperate for answers to their health issues.  Many people are told that there is nothing wrong with them or that it is all in their head.  In addition to my specific niche in high performance athletes and sports medicine, I really want to devote my life to being a resource for providing a Solution to all patients and returning them back to their Optimal Health thus the name Gorman Optimal Health Solutions, Inc.