**Welcome to Our Practice**

SHORT VERSION :)

Hi, I’m Dr. Stephen Nenninger, but you can call me Steve. At 28, I headed West to study Naturopathic Medicine, battling a painful condition called ulcerative colitis that started when I was 22. It was exhausting—dozens of bathroom trips day and night. Conventional doctors offered drugs that made me sicker or surgery to remove my colon, with one even shouting I’d be dead in six months if I didn’t comply. I walked out.

Instead, I found a naturopathic doctor who believed I could heal, a first for me. Though I didn’t improve much after 18 months, I enrolled in naturopathic medical school. Despite the amazing professors and classmates, I graduated still sick. I built a thriving practice in New York, helping many with colitis and Crohn’s, yet my own health lagged. I managed symptoms with a restrictive diet—gluten-free, dairy-free, and more—but it wasn’t true health.

Then my teenage son got mononucleosis, followed by liver and pancreatic inflammation, and a devastating autoimmune diagnosis: primary biliary cholangitis. None of my usual tools worked. After a year of research, I stumbled on a study about helminths (worms) in ancient Nordic and Viking stool. These strong, vibrant people had worms—how? This led me to helminthic therapy. Within months of trying therapeutic hookworms, I felt incredible. My son’s lab results normalized after his dose, and they’ve stayed that way.

Dr. Alanna Pisani, my partner in practice, has her own story. After a decade as an occupational therapist in hospitals, she fell ill with severe mononucleosis. Doctors couldn’t help, and she ended up in the ER with swollen organs and worsening symptoms. Told to rest and sent home, she came to me. Together, we restored her health, and her hospital experience and intuition became vital to our work.

Our practice is different. We don’t do pre-set treatment plans, required visits, or custom-labeled supplements—those feel too rigid and profit-driven. We focus on you as an individual, not an average. We don’t take insurance, which frees us to use the tools we believe in. We only take cases we think we can help and people we’ll enjoy working with. Your experience—how you feel—is our best diagnostic tool. If we need tests, we use affordable options like LabCorp, not expensive panels.

There are no guarantees, but we offer hope and a fresh approach when conventional methods fail. We’ve seen remarkable results, like my son’s recovery and my own, and we pour our hearts into every case. When it works, it’s magic. When it doesn’t, it’s tough, but we keep learning and pushing forward.

We’re here for the “chronic incurables,” the ones who’ve tried everything else. If that’s you, let’s talk.

Warmly,

Steve & Alanna

LONGER VERSION

An Introduction to Our Practice

Well ;) my name is Dr. Stephen Michael Nenninger N.M.D., aka Steve. I went out West to study Naturopathic Medicine in 1991 when I was 28 years old. Naturopathic Medicaly school was pretty hard because of how sick I was. Since ago about 22, I had a very boring, painful, torturous, annoying and embarrassing condition called ulcerative colitis. On my worst days I ended up going to the bath room day and night dozens of times, it was exhausting.

I went to conventional doctors to try and get better at first. Their drugs made me really sick and did not help at all. Then the last conventional doctor I went to was in a fancy Park Avenue office with a mahogany dest and leather bound volumes on the wall, and told me that the only solution was to cut out my colon and put me on a life of drugs, or I would die.

Neither option sounded good to me. And I was a little brave or a little stupid. As I turned around and walked out of his office he yelled down the hall, “You’ll be dead in six months”. Well…Instead of dying or getting my colon cut out I went to a naturopathic doctor. He didn’t do very much to help me…except for one absolutley amazing thing…he believed in my ability to heal. The first doctor that did.

After 18 months of working with him and not getting much better I decided to go to naturopathic medical school. I had no money but I figured if I died it wouldn’t matter and if I didn’t the student loans would be worthwhile. It was a great experience and I can’t say enough about my amazing professors and classmates, but I still had colitis when I finished! Ugh. However I began to practice in New York and soon had a full practice. And my patients began to teach me. And I helped and cure many, many cases of colitis and Crohn’s and still was not better myself! What??!!. I was not worst and was incrementally better, but come on!

So I was in practice for 20 years. To manage my symptom, not cure mind you, just manage, I had to be gluten, egg, dairy, nightshade, salicilate, fodmap, fructose free. I could eat very little without symptoms. Does this sound like health? It did not feel like it to me. And my kids who were now in their teens seemed as reactive as I was, in spite of a very naturopathic upbringing. In short, it sucked.

But apparently the univverse was not done with me, and it got worse. My 17year old son got mononucleosis, and developed liver inflamation and pancreatic inflammation, and within a few months was diagnosed with primary biliary colangitis, a horrible autoimmune disease with a horrible prognosis. And all the tools that I had used for similary conditions either did not work or made him worse. Does this sound fun? Remember this was after 20 years of a full practice working with and curing the worse autoimmune conditions. So for a year I read everything I could. Eventually, after reading every research paper on autoimmune diseasem I stumbeled across a paper that discussed how the highest concentration of helmiths and worms in ancient stool was found in Nordic and Viking people. WHAT?

How could the people that were admired for their strength and vitality by both the persians and the Romans be riddled with draining, depleting, life sucking parasites?? It did not make sense. So this began the helminth, helminthic therapy, and practice dedication to therapeutic helminths. Within a few months of working with a researcher we had our first batch of therapeutic helminths ready for application, and I took them. Well… I felt amazing. Within a few months I gave my son a dose and within a few months his laboratory results were NORMAL for the first time in years. And they have continued normal since. Lots of amazing hookworm helminthic therapy stories…

This is in no way a standard naturopathic medical practice but I think there may be a harmonic way to practice. Even in natural and alternative approaches there are still some common practices that I am not fond of, and we have decided not to do in spite of the fact they would be profitable. Basically for me it is anything that boxes me in to a way I have to practice tomorrow if I change my mind today. For example, I don’t like treatment “programs” sometimes presented in video programs, I don’t like pre-set numbers of required visits (often paid in advance), likewise requiring pre-set tests that all patients have to do, and I especially don’t like private and custom labeled medicines because they are just that much harder to stop using i you don’t like the results. It is hard being a naturopathic doctor and these programs are pushed by practice business coaches that teach doctors how to streamline their practice and make it more efficient.

Unfortunately it is the inefficient practice that is most successful a lot of times. I mean, it your friend your friend because they are most efficient in their time with you? Do you love your sweetheart, kids, family or parents because they are most efficient during their time with you. For better or worse the more you streamline your practice the more information you loose about the patient. Is 12X1 equal to 1x12? Simple answer is yes. But are 12 one day vacations the same as 1 twelve day vacation? I don’t think so.

It’s much easier to let go of ten bottles of a product you have tried then one hundered bottles of a supplement that you have custom labeled with your name for your practice and to sell to your patients.

Mostly I don’t like this approach because I don’t think it works. I mean really if we are going to do all of these pre-formatted processes we are moving much closer to a conventional, modern western version of practice and further away from the individualization that naturopathic doctors have traditionally prided themselves on.

What I think works is individualization. To try and understand exactly what a person needs to affect their health in a positive way and exactly how to give it to them in the safest and most efficient way possible.

Also, I don’t think that the conventional approach really yields great results for chronic illnesses either. Too much focus on the what works for most people most of the time does not really matter when it does not work for you and what your going through this time.

I don’t spend a lot of time criticizing modern medicine, it has advantages that we are all aware of and it also has known disadvantages. The main problem with modern pharmaceutical medicines is that they are based on a lot of science, mathematics, and averages. The problem is that the body is not based on these things. An example is that when they were first developing seats for fighter pilots they used averages to design the spacing of the instruments and not one single pilot could reach all of the controls properly. In my experience humans are the same, not only does the average medicine not work for everybody... but the average medicine doesn’t work for anybody. So we treat everyone as an individual. Because it works better.

Difficult and disadvantageous parts about coming to see us:

1) We are not covered by insurance and don’t take any insurance because if you do it really limits what you can do and the tools you can use the help resolve the issues.

Good parts:1) We only take people we think we might be able to help.2) We only take people we will enjoy working with and that will enjoy working with us.3) We are good at solving the problems that people come in with.

Differences in our practice compared to most other practices.1) There is no “plan” pricing. It just seems ridiculous, to me, all of these programs. If I can see you once and give you an answer then why do you need 20 more visits?

We charge for an initial visit and then return visits as needed. Just normal human charging.2) We don’t sell or make money on supplements or testing. That is just a way for natural practitioners and honestly all doctor to profit off of you in most cases. You are the test, you come in, tell us how you feel, that is the test. The most sensitive diagnostic instument is the human brain. If we need external information then there is a very good testing company called LabCorp and their prices are pretty good. You can use the Labcorp app and order the test for yourself and not pay for thousands of dollars of questionable testing.3) No “custom” or “private label” bulk supplements. Many “natural practitioners” are told by marketing experts to boost their profits by selling “custom label” supplements. They charge you multiple times what they are worth. I never did this in practice for one simple reason. If I try a product and don’t like the effect in a person it is a lot easier to throw out a case of supplements then ten cases. And to get private labeling you need to order ten cases. I had ordered bunch of cases from this one company that I was told (sold) was good. I later found out they had citric acid (aka mold) in their supplements and I just tossed out six cases. This would be a lot harder with 60 cases. Plus it all goes bad, etc, etc.4) There is a reason a person’s time is expensive. Time spent doing one thing cannot be spent doing another thing. However it is also the real thing of value in my eyes, not testing, not supplements, etc...but sitting down and understanding the story of the person and the condition. I have 30 years of practice with thousands of people and that is the only thing that works in my opinion.