Ryan Sternagel’s journey into helping others in preventing and healing from cancer began with his son Ryder’s neuroblastoma diagnosis at just eleven days before his first birthday. Ryan and his wife Teddy have since built a healing community that supports people facing childhood cancer, adult cancer, or anyone working to prevent it.

Ryder’s Diagnosis and the Fight Back

Ryan and Teddy were already ahead of most people when Ryder was diagnosed — eating mostly organic, reducing household chemicals, and limiting EMF exposure. So the diagnosis felt like a gut punch. But because they had already been watching health and alternative medicine documentaries, they at least knew where to start looking.

When the diagnosis came in, they asked for a second opinion, which the hospital did not appreciate. Ryder then went septic with a staph bloodstream infection after a Hickman line was placed, and they found themselves inpatient on IV antibiotics. At that point, they did one round of chemotherapy. 

Then Child Protective Services showed up, informing them that as long as they complied with the hospital’s protocol, Ryder would not be taken from them. That was a particularly stressful moment — sitting in a CPS office answering deeply personal questions while their infant son had a stage four cancer diagnosis.

Ryan and Teddy negotiated with the oncology team, asking what parameters would indicate success and whether they could reach those goals in two rounds instead of four. The doctors said it was impossible — but Ryan and Teddy blew those parameters out of the water. The hospital then said it would be eight rounds, not four, and that radiation needed to be discussed. 

On the drive home from that appointment, Teddy simply said, “Should we just move to Utah?” Ryan said yes, and within two weeks they were gone. They chose Utah for its balance of natural health friendliness and personal liberty — a combination harder to find on the West Coast where they had been living.

Post-Diagnosis: What They Did Differently

Ryan and Teddy hit the ground running rather than falling into paralysis, which many families do after a cancer diagnosis. They opened multiple credit cards, ordered supplements overnight, worked with one of the best naturopathic oncologists in the country, and got IV vitamin C. They fought for a feeding tube so they could administer juice and supplements, eventually winning that argument and even setting up a juicer in the hospital room.

Early on, Ryan and Teddy were so focused on Ryder that they neglected themselves. They joke that they looked more like the cancer patients than Ryder did. Eventually they realized that the healthier and more energized they were as parents, the better care they could provide for their son. 

They also drew on the nine factors of healing from Dr. Kelly Turner’s book Radical Remission, which emphasizes releasing suppressed emotions and increasing positive emotions — not easy to apply to a one-year-old, but very applicable to themselves.

Building a Healing Home

Over the years, the family has assembled an entire room of healing tools, including saunas, light therapy, a BioMat, a vibroacoustic mat, and a hyperbaric chamber. Ryan’s point is that this did not happen overnight — it was accumulated over twelve years, built through deliberate prioritization. 

They chose road trip vacations over resort travel and invested in health equipment instead. When friends questioned the cost of a whole-body vibration plate, Ryan pointed out that family had just returned from Costa Rica had spent the equivalent of ten of those plates on that single trip. It is simply a different set of values and priorities.

Creating Going Integrative and the Our 7 Supplement

Moving to Utah meant leaving behind Dr. Paul Anderson, one of the top naturopathic cancer doctors in the country, who had been an invaluable resource. Unable to find anyone comparable locally, Ryan started a podcast so he could interview the best integrative cancer doctors and keep learning. 

That eventually evolved into Going Integrative Plus — a membership community for people concerned about cancer who want access to expert guidance, connection with others on the same journey, and a place to ask questions without being looked at strangely for bringing up topics like coffee enemas.

Ryan and Teddy also created a supplement, which they named Our 7, and the company Our Health Naturally. Our 7 contains seven evidence-backed botanicals: Curcumin, green tea EGCG, quercetin, ginseng, astragalus, grape seed, and selenium. These are not exotic compounds — they are the ingredients with thousands of studies on PubMed, covering immune support, mitochondrial health, anti-inflammatory and antioxidant activity, and adaptogenic support.

As a practitioner, I have to say that I come back to these same ingredients every time I look at what to recommend for prevention of healing from, or recovering after cancer. The evidence behind them is strong, and their safety profile is excellent. 

What has always frustrated me is how hard it is to find a single product that combines all of these ingredients in effective doses. Patients end up drowning in individual bottles, often buying things with heavy marketing but inadequate dosages. 

Our 7 solves that. It uses organic bamboo silica extract and MCT oil powder as flow agents instead of conventional fillers, it comes in a glass bottle, and the doses are real — not a cosmetic sprinkling of ingredients. 

It is also relevant beyond cancer: I use curcumin, green tea, and astragalus as part of my protocol for patients with high-risk HPV, and the telomere research on astragalus in particular is remarkable for anyone interested in slowing aging and reducing the effects of stress.

The Bigger Picture

I’m so grateful to Ryan for joining me on How Humans Heal and sharing his family’s story. What Ryan and Teddy have done is take one of the hardest experiences a family can go through and turn it into a resource for thousands of other people. 

That kind of reciprocity — learning through suffering and then sharing the wisdom humbly — is something I deeply admire. Sometimes our purpose becomes clear when we are living our passion.

If you want to learn more about Ryan and The Stern Method you can find him on Instagram @thesternmethod and Facebook @The Stern Method. If you are interested in the Our 7 Supplement you can find more about it here and use code DRDONI10 for a special discount. If you’re interested in the Going Integrative Plus Membership you can learn more about it here.

Helping people understand how diet, food, nutrients, herbs, supplements, detoxification and stress recovery can support their cellular health and longevity is essential, especially because modern life has disconnected us from the very things our cells need to heal.

Optimizing your health is absolutely possible. There are more and more ways to support healing at the cellular level, from home, that don’t require expensive treatments or complicated protocols.

I completely agree with Ryan that it is important to address the underlying causes of health issues. It is important to work with a practitioner who can help you look deeper to uncover the root causes of your health issue so that you are finally able to break the pattern. 

And that’s exactly what I do in my one-on-one practice, and group programs, including my 14-day Detox Program, where I teach you to balance your blood sugar levels by following a meal plan I developed. You can read about it and join in here. 

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Common health issues that arise when our bodies and blood sugar levels are dysregulated include: fatigue, hormone imbalances, digestive issues, autoimmunity, anxiety, depression, infections, including vaginal infections (HPV, BV, and yeast), and so many more.

In my book Master Your Stress Reset Your Health, I explain how stress, trauma, toxins, and a lack of recovery, can keep us stuck in “stress mode” and turn on our genetic susceptibilities — and how an individualized approach to recovery makes all the difference. 

Start by taking my Stress Type® Quiz to understand how stress is impacting you today, and then follow my Stress Recovery Protocol and C.A.R.E. Method to support your body and nervous system to heal using diet changes, and natural approaches including time in nature. 

TAKE THE FREE STRESS QUIZ TO FIND OUT YOUR STRESS TYPE:

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If you’re dealing with HPV and want to prevent cervical cancer, I welcome you to join me over on Instagram @drdoniwilson and on my website at clearhpvnow.com. You can download my free HPV Recovery Guide and watch videos of women who’ve implemented my HPV Protocol and found freedom from high-risk HPV. I want for you to feel hope that you can heal too.

If you’d like to get a better sense of my approach, I welcome you to join my next free How to Get Rid of HPV online workshop where I help you to create a plan to get HPV out of your life for good. From there, you might choose to join the Heal HPV Kickstart Program, for the initial steps of my protocol, including diet changes and supplements, over the next 30 days.

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Or you can begin with the comprehensive Say Goodbye to HPV Program, which includes everything you need to implement my full protocol and to address all eight susceptibilities to HPV, including helping you to resolve underlying emotional stress and trauma. 

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to my office. My team and I would be happy to connect with you and help you. Click here to set up a call with my team.

Thank you, everyone, for listening in to How Humans Heal and learning all about using food, supplements, and lifestyle as your most powerful tools for healing from Ryan. If you haven’t already subscribed, I welcome you to subscribe so you don’t miss the next episode. 

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Disclaimer: This specific article and all other Content, Products, and Services of this Website are NOT intended as, and must not be understood or construed as, medical care or advice, naturopathic medical care or advice, the practice of medicine, or the practice of counseling care, nor can it be understood or construed as providing any form of medical diagnosis, treatment,  natural HPV cure, or prevention of any disease.