Wholistic Pharmacists

No nobody does holistic pharmacy better than Bill Swail, pharmacist and owner of all Peoples Pharmacies in Austin, Texas. To get to know them better, just click here: http://www.peoplesrx.com/retailer/store_templates/ret_about_us.asp?storeID=5AB72154906F41D99BDB3286D064BA81

This is Laurie Aroch, the pharmacist at the Peoples' Location I most often frequent when I am in Austin. I am simply putting her in here to show you that she is a real person that I, a real person, consult with either by phone or in person. I adore her. She is both knowledgeable and personable. But ALL of Bills' pharmacists are GREAT, as are any of his other health care practitioner's you will find at his different locations. If you click the above link you will see he also employs nutritionists, homeopaths, a naturopathic doctor and more.

If you are just utterly terrified of all this new fangled new age damned holistic crap but are really sick and want excellent advice right now, this is the first place you should stop. I don't care if you live in Australia or Timbuktu, you can call any one of Peoples' pharmacists and get excellent advice. For that matter, your doctor, if he or she is open to natural medicine, can call them. And many do.

If you live in Texas, you can schedule an appointment with one of their pharmacists or other health care practitioners. If you live close enough and want to have a little day trip, you can take a little trip to the always fun town of Austin, and just mosey in to see how you like the people. Hey, you can overhear some conversations, although not the official consults. You will discover soon enough if they are for you. And they will be.

I found out about Peoples Pharmacy through my friend Albert, who I talked about in a previous blog. I really was rather prejudiced before I went in--heck I had the most wonderful holistic chiropractor and medical doctors already, what on earth did I need a holistic pharmacist for? Well ten steps inside Bills Swails' north Lamar location, and I felt like finding the man who created this wonderful mix of western, eastern and all other kinds of medicine into one place, and just kissing him!

One step inside the store and there are huge organic chocolate covered strawberries in the deli case to the left. Oh my. Two dollars of pure love right there. You can tell this is a man who knows how to win over the heart of a multi tasking middle aged woman concerned with rewarding herself each day just for the very fact of living life as well as getting in her daily supply of antioxidants--the good old kill two birds with one stone trick. And it worked on me.

I buy one. (And highly recommend you do the same when you are there). While the strawberry juices drip down my chin, I proceed to do my little mosey routine. I first wander over to the cards, unique cards, philosophical cards, spiritual cards, all cards in good taste and designed well. My minor is in design, I am picky. Once I reluctantly realize I cannot both eat a strawberry and read cards at the same time without somehow getting strawberry juice onto the cards (duh--never fault a girl for trying!) I mosey over to Peoples' supplement section.

Oh my! Peoples carries all the really good brands of supplements that only doctors offices carry. ...name brands like Medi Herb and Standard Process, Physicians Formula and more! I nearly drop my strawberry I am that amazed. To be able to just walk in off the street and buy any really good supplement I want, without ordering through a doctor's office, is simply amazing.

An aside here--this very fact will not thrill any health care provider because they all sell supplements as well. One doctor I know has a net annual business for supplements only of a half a million dollars. Believe me, I will want that income myself for my website once it is up and running. I am as selfish as the next person.

But for right now, for this blog, for you as a consumer, for myself as a consumer, for that memory in time of when I first walked into my first Peoples' pharmacy, having access to these wonderful brands was simply AMAZING!

Back to that memory: After an employee asked me if I was looking for anything in particular they could help me with and I very quickly said "No" (God forbid I should commit at this point, it was just the beginning of the love affair), I then overheard one of the pharmacists telling a patient to make sure she took probiotics with their antibiotic to replace the good flora lost in their gut with the kill off of the antibiotics...and that was when I knew. I knew this pharmacy was the one. I knew I would be not only transferring my then two prescriptions to Peoples Pharmacy, I would be referring them to all my friends and family, forever.

Yes, forever. This, I knew was a forever commitment. Love comes in oh so many forms doesn't it? When you are in your twenties and thirties, love is all about sex, marriage and babies. But when you hit your forties and fifties, love becomes sleep, good digestion and staying out of the hospital. And when you find the very pharmacy who you just know will help you do all three, my darlings, you know you have found true and forever love.

Then, as if I wasn't already sold (!), to seal the deal, I next overhear another pharmacist telling yet a different patient to make sure he takes a high quality grade of Co Q 10 with his prescribed statin drug. The pharmacist adds that it is a proven fact in original and subsequent studies have shown that statin drugs deplete the body of CoQ10... that many European Countries countries actually make it a law to include CoQ 10 with their statin drug. This beloved, I could have kissed him right then. The pharmacist then closes with the fact that although Peoples' Pharmacy sells only excellent brands of Co Q 10 he will gladly sell him, he realizes the consumer, the patient, might well want to buy his CoQ10 from another source and if so, just call them and any pharmacist at the store will tell them if it is a good, effective, non diluted, brand or not.

Oh my!

At the time I was a woman with a heart disease. Although I had already learned all of this through hard investigative work and a lot of money to a lot of doctors, it was just oh so comforting to hear it from my soon-to-be pharmacist who I knew would protect me and my health with whatever might arise in the future. This pharmacy would make sure nothing was missed in any communication between my doctor and myself.

You know that scene in a love story movie where the couple kisses and you know the woman is really in love when she does the right knee bend? I swear to God, my right knee bent without me even knowing it and I rushed home to thank Albert for referring me to such an excellent, excellent pharmacy!

And you will thank me too! Click that link above! Call them! NOW!