Scary Skin Cancer Facts

Obviously your skin is important – you live in it, but unfortunately it’s exposed to the elements, pollution, and more far more often than we’d like. Even simple and natural things once considered healthy such as tanning and other exposure to sun is now consider extremely bad for you. Sunscreen was almost unheard of a mere few years ago, and sunburn was a short term unpleasant condition, not something that might have long term negative effects.

I was shocked to find that skin cancer is the most common type of cancer in the United States. I would have guessed lung cancer, and I would have been wrong!

There are two types of skin cancer: melanoma, the most serious type, and non-melanoma. There are around two to three million incidences of non-melanoma cancer yearly and over 130,000 incidents of melanoma cancer yearly. Melanoma can spread to other parts of the body, and according to the American Cancer Society close to 8000 people in the US die of skin cancer. Did you know that melanoma is the number one cause of cancer deaths in women aged twenty five to twenty nine for example?

I recently had a growth removed from my face, and the doctor said she was 80% sure it was not cancer. I had a somewhat worrisome 24 hours until the test results came back, fortunately negative!

The good news is that skin cancer is largely avoidable! All you need to do is avoid sun exposure. Both covering up and using suntan lotion can help, as well as other strategies like avoiding the sun exposure midday.

Scary Skin Cancer Facts