Ten Years of Nearly

By Dr. Chris Cormier, DC

For about a decade, I was good at my job and it was not quite working.

I want to be careful with that sentence, because it is easy to read as either false modesty or self-criticism and it is neither. People got better. The work was sound. It simply was not producing what I thought it should produce, and I could not have told you why.

This essay is about that state, because I think an enormous number of people are living in the health version of it right now.

What “nearly” actually feels like

Failure is clarifying. If something does not work at all, you stop doing it and look for something else. The signal is unambiguous and it forces a decision.

Nearly does not force anything. Nearly just continues.

That is what makes it the hardest state to leave. Nothing is wrong. You have no complaint anyone would take seriously. You are doing the things and the things are working, more or less, and the gap between what you are getting and what you suspect is possible is not large enough on any given day to do anything about.

So you continue. For a decade, in my case.

The health version

I meet people in this state constantly and they almost always apologise for taking up my time.

They sleep reasonably. They eat reasonably. They move. They are not ill and they have nothing a doctor would write down. They just do not feel the way they think they are supposed to feel — and because they are doing everything right, they have concluded that this must be what right feels like.

That conclusion is the problem. It is reached quietly, it sounds mature, and it closes the question.

What I eventually found

Here is the part that mattered, and it is not what I expected.

What was missing was not a better version of what I was already doing. I did not need to do the same things harder or more carefully. What was missing was a variable nobody was measuring.

In my case it turned out to be how well nerves were actually functioning, pathway by pathway — not as a diagnosis, but as a thing you could assess, find shortfalls in, and work on. As the NIH’s neurological institute puts it, “all sensations, movements, thoughts, memories, and feelings are the result of signals that pass through neurons.” Every one of them. And in ten years of good training, nobody had ever shown me how to check that directly.

It was not hidden because it was obscure. It was hidden because it was not on anybody’s list. I wrote a book called The Hidden Diagnosis for that reason, and I still think the title is the most accurate thing about it.

The general version, which is the useful part

I am not writing this to tell you about nerves. I am writing it because the shape of that experience generalises, and the shape is what I would want you to have.

If you are doing the right things and getting adequate results, the explanation is rarely that you need more discipline. It is usually that something relevant is not being measured — and things that are not measured do not get fixed, because nobody knows they are there.

So the question I would ask, in your situation rather than mine, is a simple one:

What has nobody ever actually looked at?

Not what should you try next. Not what should you add. What has never been examined at all — and would you even know if it were off?

Why the gap exists at all

It is worth understanding how this happens, because it is nobody’s fault and that matters for how you go about it.

Anyone with real expertise got it by learning a particular way of working thoroughly and then practising it. That is how competence is built, and it is why an experienced person is better than an inexperienced one. The whole system depends on it.

The cost is that everybody’s list is the list they were given. Things outside it are not ignored — they are simply never raised, by anyone, which looks identical from the inside to their not existing.

I had that blind spot for a decade while being conscientious the entire time. I would be surprised if I do not have another one now.

What I would do in your position

Not add anything. Most people in this state already have a long list and adding to it is the easy move that changes nothing.

I would get one thing measured that has never been measured. Whatever that is for you — and if nothing comes to mind, that itself is informative. Twenty years of healthcare and nothing has ever been checked that you did not already know about.

For most people the honest answer is nerve function, simply because almost nobody has ever had it assessed and it sits underneath so much. That is the work described in what is Quantum Neurology, done at The Nerve Health Institute. Once is informative, whatever it shows.

And if you would rather start free, start free. Breathing, water, morning light, sleep — the whole of that is on BodyCharger, and where circulation and oxygenation turn out to be part of your picture, that is EBOO Prime.

The thing I actually want to say

Nearly is not a verdict. It is a state with a cause, and causes can be found.

I spent ten years inside one without knowing it had a name, doing good work the whole time, and the day it changed was not the day I tried harder. It was the day somebody showed me something I had never been shown how to look at.

If you have quietly decided that how you feel now is simply how you are, I would gently suggest that is a conclusion rather than a finding — and that there is a difference.

Frequently asked questions

I am doing everything right but still do not feel well. What should I do?

Stop adding things and get something measured that has never been measured. If you are doing the right things and getting adequate results, the issue is rarely discipline — it is usually that something relevant is not being looked at, and unmeasured things do not get fixed.

How do I know what I am missing?

Ask what has never been examined at all, rather than what to try next. If nothing comes to mind, that is informative in itself — it usually means years of care in which nothing was checked that you did not already suspect.

Why do good practitioners miss things?

Because everyone’s list is the list they were trained on, and that is also the thing that makes them good. Items outside it are not dismissed — they are never raised, which from the inside looks exactly like their not existing. I had a decade-long blind spot while being conscientious throughout.

Is feeling just okay normal?

Common, certainly. Whether it is your normal is a different question, and it is one worth keeping open rather than settling. Deciding that this is simply how you are is a conclusion, not a finding.

Where should I start?

With something free if you like — breathing, water, morning light, sleep. And with one proper measurement of something nobody has ever looked at. For most people that is nerve function, because almost nobody has ever had it assessed.