Full Body Checks

[Nyboy]

Growing up on East Coast a few miles from water, summers where spent frying at the beach. No one used sun block only tanning lotion. Decades later I can still remember painful sunburns. At mid 40s I had my first full body skin check by my Dermatologist. Skin cancer is very treatable, the sooner its treated the better. Because of my childhood I get one every other year. I just had one this morning, thank god everything looked good. Anyone over 50 really should have one done. One of the few times I go to Dr and know he not going to ask for blood.

 

[ninnymary]

I've never heard of getting a full body skin check. I never laid out in the sun growing up and I still don't. The sun just feels too unbearably hot for me.

Mary

 

[bobm]

I spent my spring, summer, and autumn shirtless and in shorts in the HOT California sun. This pale face tans so fast at the first hint of a sunbeam that I have never had a sunburn, and I never used any tanning lotion nor sun block. Knock on wood.

 

[Nyboy]

Mary you should get one, ask your Dr about it.

 

[Rhodie Ranch]

DH was a surfer for a couple of decades - in Northern CA and then in Hawaii.

He's now had 5 or 6 Moh's surgeries and a few dozen spots burned off every year. The one on the back of his calf was undetectable by us. The Derm saw it.

 

[Nyboy]

Yep also hard to see places like your back.

 

[Smart Red]

I never got far enough from a book to bask in the sun as a young person. DH, on the other hand, was a good-looking shirtless carpenter who spent yearss up on rafters and roofs. Him I check often. I'd do the doctor thing, but he refuses to go.

Recently spouse said, "If I get sick, no hospitals, no doctors."
"No doctors? No hospitals? No ambulance? No medicines?"
"Nope, nope, nope, nope," says spouse, "none of those."

 

[journey11]

My dad had a few squamous cell cancer spots removed a couple years ago. They used some kind of lotion that burned them off. His mother has had basal cell, squamous cell and one melanoma removed. So I know I'm going to have to get that check done eventually. I do check my moles for changes, as best as I can see. DH had a full body check done at a health fair at his workplace. I should have gone too, but daughter #2 was a newborn and I wasn't up to it.

On my mom's side, she and her 3 siblings are all redheads and freckled. I've not heard of anyone on that side having any skin cancers though.

I've got strawberry blonde hair and head to toe freckles. I barely tan...just link more freckles together, LOL. I think that probably puts me in a higher risk group. I do use sunscreen if I plan to be out in midday and mostly stay inside between the hours of 11am and 3pm in the summer. I haven't had many serious burns. I never did lay out as a teen because I knew it was futile! Most of the people you hear dying of melanoma are very young too. That's the scary thing about it and at that age you're less likely to take such health threats seriously.

@Smart Red , you can read AND sunbathe at the same time, silly!

 

[Smart Red]

Nope! Too hot to get involved in the story and the glare on the page makes reading hard. 'Sides, I usually had to find a hidey-hole for reading or some adult would come along with work to be done.

 

[Nyboy]

I read many a book at the beach. Sunglasses