Ten Providers, No Answers: Her Path to Nutrition Response Testing

At 26, Emily Thurner was a runner, a new occupational therapist, and the mom of a 15-month-old, with no real health history to speak of. Within months she was wearing two arm splints and a walking boot, icing her joints for hours a day, and hearing from doctor after doctor that they couldn’t explain her chronic pain. When one of them finally offered an answer, it left her feeling ashamed. What came after that appointment is how she found nutrition response testing.

On this episode of the Practitioners Rise Podcast, host Hailey Krajewski talks with Emily Thurner, Nutrition Response Testing (NRT) practitioner and founder of Abundant Health and Wellness in Eau Claire and Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, about living with pain no one could explain, and what nutrition response testing is and how it works.

What Is It Like to Live With Chronic Pain That No Doctor Can Explain?

For Emily, it meant going from a healthy runner to someone who could barely walk through a grocery store, while the people closest to her quietly wondered whether it was all in her head.

It started with tendinitis in one arm, then the other. She had only been working as a hospital OT for about seven months when she had to take six months off, and after years of school to earn that role, she says it felt like her integrity was being questioned. Running was the one thing she could still do, until she injured her foot too.

At her lowest point, Emily had a handicap parking sticker and used the electric scooter at Target and the grocery store. She compares the pain in her feet to jumping 11 feet down onto concrete, every time she took a step. She remembers lying in bed, seeing the bathroom from her room, and knowing she couldn’t get her potty-training toddler there. When her husband came home from work, there was no dinner, because she was saving every bit of energy just to get through the day.

“I remember just laying on the floor, icing my back, icing my knees, icing my feet with these splints on and just being like, ‘What is going on in my body right now?'”

What Happens When a Diagnosis Only Describes Your Symptoms?

Emily found that it can stop the search for a cause altogether. Once “chronic pain” was in her chart, it became the explanation for every new flare instead of a question worth investigating.

Her first rheumatologist suggested early rheumatoid arthritis and a medication she’d need to stop six months before trying to conceive, and told her that if it was RA, she should have her babies young. As an OT in acute care, Emily had cared for patients with severe RA and knew what that could look like. A second specialist told her he didn’t think it was RA, but he didn’t know what it was.

She went to Rochester expecting to leave with answers after a day of appointments: rheumatology, a vascular study for possible Raynaud’s, and a physical medicine and rehabilitation doctor. That last doctor told her she had “young mother’s syndrome,” which she described as young mothers getting out of shape during pregnancy and being unable to handle the physical demands of raising children. Emily says she still gets goosebumps thinking about it, and that she left feeling ashamed and wondering whether it might be true.

She’s also quick to say that nearly every provider she saw genuinely wanted to help her. She just wasn’t a typical case.

“So that all of a sudden this diagnosis, which was really just describing my symptom, became the reason.”

How Did Emily Find Nutrition Response Testing?

She found it while looking for a way to leave her hospital job, not a way to heal. Pregnant with her second child and unable to count on her body from one day to the next, she asked people close to her about non-physical work she could do with her degree, and someone pointed her toward NRT.

A nutritionist had already planted a seed about food, and Emily had removed gluten and dairy, but she went to her first NRT appointment as a client mostly out of curiosity. The testing picked up frequencies related to parasites and food sensitivities, along with others she later recognized as Lyme-related. She decided she had nothing to lose. Not long after, her husband came home to find her on her hands and knees cleaning the floor and told her how happy he was that she was feeling better.

About three weeks in, Emily felt real hope for the first time. She made a list of everyday things she wanted to do again: make dinner, go camping, play with her kids in the yard, walk on the sand at the beach. Looking back, she believes she was on track to be in a wheelchair within a year, and that she might not be alive today without the turn her health took.

“I took out a notebook and I wrote down all the things that I wanted to do that I could not currently do. And it was two full pages.”

Within about a year she was taking exercise walks and playing with her family, and she couldn’t stop telling hospital patients about NRT. Her husband, who she calls the roots to her wings, wasn’t sure about her leaving a good job. She told him she’d never forgive him if he didn’t let her try. She became a practitioner, and three years ago she opened Abundant Health and Wellness.

What Is Nutrition Response Testing and How Does It Work?

Nutrition response testing is an advanced form of muscle testing that Emily uses to check different levels of nervous system health and find which supplements help bring the body back into balance. She’s clear that it isn’t a diagnosis or a treatment, and that what it picks up are frequency matches, not lab findings.

A first visit starts with intake forms and a client’s history. Then Emily presses on an arm to check for a “muscle lock” and tests four levels of nervous system health. Clients leave with answers that same day and can start supplements right away, with no waiting on labs. Her test kits include foods, which she distinguishes from formal allergies as “what’s not a good match for your body right now,” typically followed by 90 days of elimination before retesting. They also include frequencies related to mold, parasites, bacteria, viruses, heavy metals, and toxins.

Two of the levels she tests are “blocked” and “switched.” When Emily is blocked, she says she feels flat and closer to the depressed end. When she’s switched, she feels more anxious and irritable, fumbles her words, or puts things away in the wrong spot. In her kids, switched shows up as extra squirrelly.

She explains her approach with a plumbing analogy. Before doing any deeper work, she focuses on hydration and on opening the body’s drainage and filtration pathways: lymph, liver, kidneys, gallbladder, and daily bowel movements. Clients check in at two and four weeks, then usually monthly, and she lets the testing guide when someone is ready for the next phase, since she believes the body has an innate intelligence about what it can handle.

“When the pipes are full, we don’t want to go stirring the pot too much, so to speak.”

Who Is Nutrition Response Testing For?

In Emily’s practice, it’s for nearly anyone, from babies a few days old to her oldest client at 99. Most clients come monthly for maintenance, much like regular chiropractic visits, and many treat the clinic as an alternative to urgent care when something new comes up.

Clients come in for loose bowels, rashes, brain fog, headaches, hormone concerns, hair loss, heart palpitations, and bladder issues. She sees the time before symptoms appear as the best time to get checked, and calls the approach “functional wellness.”

Skin is a common reason people come in. Emily describes it as the body’s largest organ, often connected to the gut, liver, or lymphatic system. One new client had lived with a rash for 20 years and was 90% better in two weeks, though Emily notes skin issues vary and not everyone moves that quickly.

“I tell people it’s our last ditch detox mechanism. If your body can’t filter something out, it’s clogged somewhere. It’s going to try and get it through the skin.”

For more on gut health and skin, listen to our episode with Becky Witt.

What Natural Remedies Does Emily Keep on Hand for Cold and Flu Season?

Emily keeps daily drainage support plus homeopathic support for stomach bugs, viruses, and bacteria at home, and recommends getting tested on specific products before taking any of them.

In her house, if one child has a stomach bug, everyone takes the stomach-bug support. For coughs, she mentions castor oil rubbed on the chest, vitamin C and D, and a nebulizer routine she uses with her own kids. When Emily came home one evening to her daughter crying with ear pain, she used a quick muscle test, ear drops, castor oil, and a warm rice pack, and her daughter was back to herself by morning. She’s careful to say most families use tools like these to bridge the gap until they can get checked, not to replace testing.

As a working mom, she also takes losing her patience more quickly as a sign her nervous system needs support.

“If I’m rough around the edges, there’s something going on in my nervous system that I can’t quite handle life’s everyday stresses.”

For Emily, all of this ties back to her faith. She closed the conversation by saying that being a good steward of our bodies is ultimately about our walk with the Lord and our relationship with Jesus. She sees physical, emotional, and spiritual health as tools that strengthen our relationships and help each of us fulfill our purpose, and she believes God wants to walk with us through every step of a healing journey, not only once we’re well.

This episode reflects Emily’s clinical experience and personal story. Nutrition response testing is not a diagnostic tool, and this episode is shared for educational purposes. It isn’t a substitute for individualized medical advice from your own healthcare provider.

Quick Answers

What is nutrition response testing? An advanced form of muscle testing that checks levels of nervous system health and identifies supplements that help rebalance the body. Emily emphasizes that it is not diagnostic.

What happens at a first nutrition response testing appointment? Emily reviews your intake forms and history, tests four levels of nervous system health, and shares results the same day, so you can start supplements right away.

How is NRT food sensitivity testing different from an allergy test? Emily says it shows which foods aren’t a good match for your body right now, and typically recommends 90 days of elimination before retesting.

Can skin issues be connected to gut or liver health? Emily says they often are, describing skin as the body’s last-resort detox route when other filtration pathways are clogged.

About Emily Thurner

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