Today we’d like to introduce you to Kristin Thelen.
Hi Kristin, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
My story really started with my own health struggle. I was dealing with a fertility issue and the conventional treatments I tried with my OBGYN were unsuccessful and left me feeling like not like myself.
It wasn’t until I started working with a clinical nutritionist and dug into what was actually going on in my body that we found the real root cause. Once I addressed it, everything changed quickly, and I welcomed my son less than a year later.
That experience changed how I saw healthcare completely. As a clinical pharmacist myself, I suddenly recognized the pattern everywhere — we were handing out band-aids and medications instead of getting to the root cause. That realization is what gave me the courage to leave my 13 year career at Mount Nittany Medical Center and pursue a dream of becoming a root-cause, natural health practitioner instead.
Then, in a twist of fate — or maybe divine intervention — just 12 days after I left the hospital, I was approached by the owner of an existing wellness spa about purchasing the business. In June 2022, I did just that, acquiring and completely rebuilding it into what’s now Simply Health Rx — a salt cave and wellness spa offering halotherapy, infrared sauna, red light therapy, compression therapy, and detox footbaths. My pharmacy background became a huge asset here — I bring a clinical lens to modalities that are often treated as “just relaxation,” and I can talk to clients about what’s actually happening physiologically, not just anecdotally.
At the core of everything is our mission: to leave a positive deposit on every single client who walks through our door. That looks different for different people. Sometimes it’s someone just looking for a cool experience to share with a friend or family member. Sometimes it’s a busy mom trying to age gracefully and reclaim a little time for herself. And sometimes it’s someone navigating something much harder — like autoimmunity — looking for alternative therapies to support their treatment plan under medical supervision.
We took another leap of faith and purchased a large, multi-floor commercial building to expand our services and mission even further — a higher-end experience with more wellness offerings and modalities. We call it Simply Health Center: Simply Health Rx occupies the entire first floor, and we lease the second and third floors to other female health and wellness practitioners — creating a real hub where clients can connect not just with us, but with the right practitioners upstairs too.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Honestly, no — it’s been anything but smooth, and that’s probably the most honest thing I can say about this journey.
The first big struggle was that I’m not formally trained in business. I spent over 13 years building deep clinical expertise as a pharmacist, but nothing about that training prepared me for running a company — hiring and managing a team, understanding P&Ls, marketing, leasing commercial space, payroll, systems and operations. All of it was a completely new language I had to learn from scratch, often in real time, often making mistakes along the way.
Then came the building itself. Renovating an old commercial space and taking on property management on top of running the spa has been its own beast. Some days it feels like the renovation and building logistics are competing directly with the time and energy I actually want to spend on our mission — the clients, the team, the work that matters most to me. It’s a constant balancing act between building the container and actually doing the work inside it.
On a more personal level, starting an entirely new career and rebuilding myself in my 40s has been its own kind of hard. There’s a vulnerability in starting over — in being a beginner again — after spending over a decade becoming an expert in something else entirely.
Something people don’t always understand is that acquiring an existing business can be just as hard as starting from scratch. I wasn’t building something brand new — I was stepping into a business with existing clients and, for years, living in the shadow of the previous owner. People don’t like change, and I could feel it — like I was being looked at through a slightly negative lens from the very beginning, just for being new. It took real time and consistency to win people over. But some of the best relationships I have today came out of exactly that struggle.
And if I’m being fully honest, there have been so many days I’ve wanted to quit. Days where the exhaustion or the uncertainty just felt like too much. But every single time, the mission pulls me back — because I know what this work means for the people who walk through our doors, and that’s always been bigger than any hard day.
Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Simply Health Rx is a salt cave and wellness spa in State College, PA, offering natural, non-invasive therapies that support the body’s own healing systems. Everything we offer is rooted in nature and delivered in a more powerful, more comfortable way — creating space for quiet alone time or a meaningful moment to connect with family and friends. Our offerings include three unique salt therapy (halotherapy) experiences, infrared sauna, red light therapy, compression therapy, whole body vibration therapy, massage therapy, and detox footbaths, along with a curated clean beauty retail line.
What sets us apart is the clinical lens I bring to everything we do. As a pharmacist with over 13 years of clinical experience, I don’t see our offerings as “just relaxation” — I understand the physiology behind why they work, and I make sure my team can speak to that too. Clients get the luxury spa experience, but paired with real, evidence-informed guidance about what’s actually happening in their body.
We’re also known for creating a truly elevated, immersive experience — from our Luxury Salt Room, complete with custom licensed frequency music and a vibrating lounge chair synced to those frequencies for a full nervous system reset, to thoughtful upgrades like our therapeutic mocktail menu. Every detail is intentional, because our mission is to leave a positive deposit on every single client who walks through our door.
That mission is also why we built Simply Health Center — a multi-floor commercial building where Simply Health Rx occupies the entire first floor, and we lease space on the second and third floors to other female health and wellness practitioners. It’s become a true hub where clients can be connected not just with us, but with the right practitioner for whatever they need — whether that’s someone just looking for a relaxing experience with a friend, a busy mom trying to age gracefully, or someone managing something more complex, like autoimmunity, looking for therapies to support their treatment plan under medical supervision.
We’ve also been voted Best Spa of State College three years running since I took ownership — 2023, 2024, and 2025 (with 2026 results pending) — which means so much to me, especially because we don’t really advertise. Almost all of our growth has come from word of mouth. We don’t pour money into marketing; we invest in local donations and, more than anything, in our team truly delivering on that mission — going above and beyond with customer service and genuine appreciation for every client who walks through the door. That’s what people end up telling their friends about.
What I’m most proud of, brand-wise, is that Simply Health Rx has never felt like “just another spa.” It’s a space built from lived experience, clinical expertise, and genuine care — and that authenticity is something clients feel the moment they walk in.
What’s next?
Honestly, after three years of massive growth and change, my focus right now is less about doing something entirely new and more about promoting and deepening what we’ve already built. We’ve grown so quickly that there’s real opportunity in just helping more people discover what we already offer.
That said, there are still a couple of exciting things on the horizon. We have one empty room at the spa, and we’ll be choosing a new wellness modality to bring into that space soon. We’re also planning to upgrade one of our salt therapy experiences — it’s become really clear to us that clients are drawn to higher-end, “stacked” multimodal experiences, similar to what we’ve created in our Luxury Salt Room, where salt therapy is paired with sound and vibration for a full nervous system reset. People want more than a single modality; they want an experience that layers benefits together.
Beyond the physical space, what I’m most excited about is people — both acquiring new clients who are just discovering us, and continuing to build our base of regulars who’ve made Simply Health Rx a true part of their ongoing wellness routine. That’s ultimately the goal: not just a one-time visit, but becoming a consistent, meaningful part of how people take care of themselves.
Pricing:
- $45 Premium Services
- $30 Core Services
- Massage therapy pricing varies
- “Bulk” packs of 4, 8, 12 are available at a discount.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.simplyhealthrx.com
- Instagram: @simplyhealthrx
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SimplyHealthRx
