Bladenboro welcomes new business to TownSquare

BLADENBORO – Bladenboro’s new TownSquare added yet another business to the roster as The Skin & Wellness Center had their grand opening and celebrated with food, fellowship and a ribbon cutting provided by Boost the Boro.

People began gathering at the newly opened doors at 1:30 p.m., March 28 at 125 S. Main Street, Suite A in Bladenboro.

Tiffany Clowers, born in Dunn, North Carolina, and Crystal Edwards who have been working together in the health and wellness industry for quite a while decided to go into business and make Bladenboro their business hub.

“Crystal and I have worked together for 10 years now,” Clowers said. “We’ve both been practicing dermatology and we had a vision. We wanted to create a place of peace. A place where patients could come in the doors with a problem and leave more at peace and feeling more blessed than when they came in. We’ve been so blessed to be welcomed into the community.”

Clowers graduated from Cape Fear High School in 2009. She then went to NC State for her undergraduate degree before going to Methodist University for PA school.

“I am a Bladen County girl,” Edwards said. “I was born in Lumberton, but I was raised in Clarkton. After I was married, we moved to Elizabethtown. For High School I graduated from Waccamaw Academy.”

Edwards has worked in dermatology for over 20 years as a physician’s assistant and Clowers has had over 10 years of experience. They have known each other and worked together for most of all of their careers.

“I was a respiratory therapist prior to becoming a PA,” Edwards said. “I did a Duke/East Carolina physician assistant partnership for training. It was a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation program with a purpose of getting providers to come back to their rural communities. It was an enticement to get people to come back home.”

The well qualified staff has years of experience and training behind them.

“We offer skin health services,” Edwards said. “We can see patients for anything skin related. We will do skin exams and evaluations for skin cancer. We also delve into the cosmetics and do Botox and filler and we are going to be opening more aesthetic services in the near future.”

Some of the services that this clinic will provide are skin examinations, mole removal, screening and treatment for pre-cancerous skin lesions and treatment of common skin conditions such as acne, psoriasis, eczemas, rosacea, sun damage and warts.

In addition to all of that, Clowers practices functional medicine as well as alternative health medicine that tends to look more at the root causes of the problems rather than just managing the symptoms.

“Functional medicine is across all specialties of medicine,” Clowers said. “It does look for the root cause. Basically, instead of ‘here’s medication,’ for a problem, it looks to see why that problem is there. I’m passionate about finding the reasons behind chronic illnesses. Some of things that are my passion are epigenetics, (Epigenetics is the study of heritable changes in gene expression that occur without alterations to the DNA sequence, focusing on how environmental factors and behaviors can influence how genes are read and used) methylation genomics, (studies of the addition of methyl groups to DNA, a process that can alter gene expression and is a key aspect of epigenetics, influencing development, disease, and aging) and gut health.”

Physical ailments are not the only things that this clinic will touch, but will also reach out to touch the attitudes of the mind as well.

“That’s a place we wanted to be,” Clowers said. “We wanted to create a place where they could come and if they just needed somebody to talk to. Of course we practice medicine, they are here for a purpose, but if they just need a shoulder to lean on, we’re going to be that for them too.”

Should the team at Skin & Wellness find something that they can not actually treat, they have a powerful referral team behind them including doctors in Wilmington and Leland.

“We have got such a great support system,” Clowers said. “One of the things that we do refer out a lot is skin cancers which is called Mohs Surgery.”

Mohs surgery, also known as Mohs micrographic surgery, is a specialized procedure used to remove skin cancer, offering a high cure rate while preserving healthy tissue. It involves repeatedly removing thin layers of skin, examining them under a microscope, and repeating the process until no cancerous cells remain.

“What it achieves is tissue conservation,” Clowers said. “They also know that the skin cancer is gone when they leave that day.”

The Skin & Wellness Center accepts all insurances with the exception of Medicaid.

As far as the Bladenboro venture, the women said that they have taken things one step at a time and have let the Lord lead them and are amazed at what He’s accomplished.

They say that their goal is to be of service to their patients to the best of their ability, take care of their health needs and make them feel loved.

Their hours are Mon. – Thurs. 8:30 a.m. – 5 p.m. They also offer tele-help to those who are not mobile. For more information, please call their office at (910) 809-0030 or visit their Facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61571547745829