I used to get so tan, guess what!

iluvcats

The dermatologist just burned two pre cancers off of my face. I'm the biggest hypochondriac in the world, researching things online, and I never saw this. She felt my forehead and said it was rough and red. I never noticed. So she used something in a small fire hydrant and burnt like hell. I showed her a spot that always looks sunburned and yet, I have not been in the sun as much the passed 5 yrs since 1 doctor implied how sun damaged I was. This other spot was precancerous too. I asked her what it means and she said "squamous cell." You have to get it removed, but it does not kill you.

watch out!!! I was only wearing sun screen on the lower part of my face, so that when I drive 2 hours a day, I would not get freckles where the sun hits it. My bad. The biggest spot is my left forehead.

so if you have something you can barely see, but it is rough or it is red, please get it checked. If you don't get things removed early, then I think you have to have surgery.

PureandEasy

Yes the sun is a dangerous thing.

I used to get really sunburned when I was younger, now I'm a fanatic about using sun screen

hope all is ok cats.

iluvcats

PureandEasy wrote:

Yes the sun is a dangerous thing.

I used to get really sunburned when I was younger, now I'm a fanatic about using sun screen

hope all is ok cats.

thanks. In 1980, I went on boats when we didn't have sunscreen. My t shirt was my sunscreen.

I have been getting a little bit of sun the past few yrs w/o sunscreen to get Vitamin D.

LikeAnOcean

Fair skinned people only need about 5 to 10 minutes of sun on their arms and legs a day to max out on vitamin D production.


When I was younger, a teenager, I was stupid about the sun. I burned myself all of the time. I'm really fair skinned and have pretty much avoided the sun for the past 10 years. Hopefully none of that stuff I did when I was younger comes back to haunt me. I don't have any patches of red skin, but there is a slight color variation you can see at where my tan lines normally are.

Claireack

Sorry to hear about this :(

decides2dream

iluvcats wrote:

I have been getting a little bit of sun the past few yrs w/o sunscreen to get Vitamin D.

You're better off taking a vitamin D supplement, especially given your skin history.
Be well cats.

tinkerbell

Both of my parents have had precancerous moles etc removed and as a teenager I had 3 moles removed from my back, I have regular checks with my GP. I am hyper vigilant about wearing sunscreen all year round. In this part of the world we have very high UVA & UVB radiation levels. In summer children are not allowed outside at school or daycare without sunscreen and hats.

Enkidu

When I was younger, a teenager, I was stupid about the sun. I burned myself all of the time. I'm really fair skinned and have pretty much avoided the sun for the past 10 years. Hopefully none of that stuff I did when I was younger comes back to haunt me. I don't have any patches of red skin, but there is a slight color variation you can see at where my tan lines normally are.

Me too, I was an idiot when I was younger. Never put any sunscreen on my face - what a dope. My husband was a lifeguard at a pool as a teenager, they're cutting stuff off him all the time.

pandora

I'm a viking chick love the sun!
For a natural blonde I get golden brown.
I have tons of melanin in my skin and I adore sunshine. It's life giving and spirit lifting,
makes me happy.
I don't use sunscreen except on my nose ... a cover stick.
My tan stays (tan lines) to some degree year round.
I'm enjoying the sun and perhaps foolhardy but I am so in many ways

iluvcats

my mom and sister have had the same thing -- pre cancer-- removed and my dad has probably had 50 removed (his ARE squamous cell cancer.) my sister caught sun poisoning in Puerto Rico when she was 27.

when I went to FL in 1981, it was the first time I used sunscreen, it was #8 (LOL!) we rented a boat in Ft. Lauderdale. From that vacation, I was very burned...but it was uneven. That weekend when I got home from FL, I laid out in the sun to even up my legs. In the late eighties, in the same day, I went to a tanning salon and used an old tanning lamp that my mom had bought at Sears. I can't describe how red I was from that with white rings under my eyes. The peeling was gross, people thought I had a disease on the left side of my face (which is where one of the things was burned off today.)

I'm lucky I didn't have more sun related issues.

iluvcats

pandora wrote:

I'm a viking chick love the sun!
For a natural blonde I get golden brown.
I have tons of melanin in my skin and I adore sunshine. It's life giving and spirit lifting,
makes me happy.
I don't use sunscreen except on my nose ... a cover stick.
My tan stays (tan lines) to some degree year round.
I'm enjoying the sun and perhaps foolhardy but I am so in many ways

makes me happy too

iluvcats

Enkidu wrote:

When I was younger, a teenager, I was stupid about the sun. I burned myself all of the time. I'm really fair skinned and have pretty much avoided the sun for the past 10 years. Hopefully none of that stuff I did when I was younger comes back to haunt me. I don't have any patches of red skin, but there is a slight color variation you can see at where my tan lines normally are.

Me too, I was an idiot when I was younger. Never put any sunscreen on my face - what a dope. My husband was a lifeguard at a pool as a teenager, they're cutting stuff off him all the time.

I hope your husband is ok!

iluvcats

tinkerbell wrote:

Both of my parents have had precancerous moles etc removed and as a teenager I had 3 moles removed from my back, I have regular checks with my GP. I am hyper vigilant about wearing sunscreen all year round. In this part of the world we have very high UVA & UVB radiation levels. In summer children are not allowed outside at school or daycare without sunscreen and hats.

were your moles biopsied?

tinkerbell

iluvcats wrote:

tinkerbell wrote:

Both of my parents have had precancerous moles etc removed and as a teenager I had 3 moles removed from my back, I have regular checks with my GP. I am hyper vigilant about wearing sunscreen all year round. In this part of the world we have very high UVA & UVB radiation levels. In summer children are not allowed outside at school or daycare without sunscreen and hats.

were your moles biopsied?

Yep and they came back clear.

samjam

Glad they were caught early for you, many are not as lucky. I come from a family of fair-skinned people, and I am the fairest. My grandmother and mother's skin (most especially my grandmother's) have suffered as a result of not protecting properly, it's serious stuff. I used to HATE my fair skin and the fact that I just do not tan, but now I have grown to love it and try to protect it as much as possible instead of ruin it or endanger myself!

iluvcats

samjam wrote:

Glad they were caught early for you, many are not as lucky. I come from a family of fair-skinned people, and I am the fairest. My grandmother and mother's skin (most especially my grandmother's) have suffered as a result of not protecting properly, it's serious stuff. I used to HATE my fair skin and the fact that I just do not tan, but now I have grown to love it and try to protect it as much as possible instead of ruin it or endanger myself!

Thanks! I've been going to my own dermatologist (meaning outside of my health insurance's network) since the late nineties (first for spider veins). Then for the past 10 yrs, usually every 2 yrs for a screening. I wanted people here to know that pre cancer is not always that obvious. In fact, I just had a physical at my HMO 2 weeks ago and the doctor never said a word about my forehead. He never noticed it. And in the past when I pointed to an ugly thing on my leg, he just said, "that is not cancer." Well, I got it removed anyway.

What I had on my forehead and jaw can grow into something so ugly and in the online pics of actinic keratosis, it is on people's lips! How could you let something nasty grow on your lip? I just asked our secretary and she said people don't have the money. I would work 3 jobs if I had to pay for something like that!