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By NOAH WORTHAM | Staff Writer 

ALABASTER – Absolute Health and Wellness in Alabaster hopes to not only provide residents with primary care but also provide a welcoming and inviting space.

“We feel like we certainly take a different approach to primary care,” Nurse Practitioner Stefanie Woodrow said. “We put a lot of time into our patients when we’re here talking to them and listening to them. (We’re) making sure that we truly aren’t just trying to address the issue at hand, but we’re looking at the patient as a whole person and (seeing) how can we can help to improve their quality of life all the way around.”

Absolute Health and Wellness opened in 2021 with a focus on providing services such as therapeutic stretching and massages. After renovations in October 2022, the business now offers primary care.

Woodrow said there is currently a lack of primary care physicians in the Alabaster community.

“We (Alabaster) had two primary care practitioners  leave the community at the end of 2022,” she said. “They were the two leading primary care physicians that have been established in Alabaster for many, many years. We just have fewer than we used to, and we’re being told by local specialist that they have a really difficult time getting primary care practitioners to take their patients because they’re so busy, and so we’ve felt like it’s certainly a needed service (offered) at the right time.”

Absolute Health and Wellness currently has two practitioners, a physician and a nurse practitioner.

The business hopes to help residents by applying a functional medicine approach to help solve the underlying causes of medical issues.

“We do more of the education and promotion of preventative care,” Woodrow said. “We take what’s called a functional medicine approach and that just simply means that we look at the underlying issues of whatever illness the person has, and we try to work on that.”

Woodrow said these solutions sometimes include lifestyle changes, vitamins or supplements.

“We look at the whole–everything going on with you, and instead of just writing a prescription and giving you medicine for it, we try to address other things that could make some improvements,” she said. “We don’t just (distribute medicine), we try to see if we can address the underlying issues or the root cause of the problem.”

Woodrow said Absolute Health and Wellness also aims to provide a welcoming space for its patients.

“We’ve tried to create a space where it’s very welcoming and inviting,” she said. “It doesn’t feel like you’re going into a clinic. We know that there are a lot of people, especially post COVID, (that) have anxiety and they get really nervous when they come to clinics. We’ve tried to create a space that feels very safe and comfortable, and so when you walk in, it looks like you’re visiting someone’s house.”

Absolute Health and Wellness is located in Alabaster at 8919 Highway 119, Suit 102. It can be reached by phone at 205-624-3650, and appointments can be scheduled online at Absolutehealthwellness.com.