Dr Brad's Spiel

If you've had your skin checked by me in the last few years you have probably heard my spiel. It's pretty dense and hard to remember everything said so here it is in written form for your viewing pleasure.

But first here are the key points

Prevention is better than cure
Coverup as much as you can with clothes, sunscreen, hats and the shade
Sunscreen needs to go on THICK
Be on the look out for changing moles, especially if they are an irregular shape, have multiple colours and are larger than other moles
Pink lesions not going away for a month, especially if bleeding, ulcerated, rapidly growing or painful also need to be looked at



"As you are probably aware, the best way to avoid skin cancer is avoid the sun, and if you can't do that you want to slip slop slap, reapplying your sunscreen ever 2-3 hours. Sunscreen has got to go on THICK. There was a study done which showed the average person had to apply an extra 3 layers of sunscreen to get it on thick enough to get a SPF50 level of protection. For a quick drive down to the shops 4 layers is probably not necessary but if you are going to the beach it needs to be really thick. It's actually quite hard to get it on thick enough over your whole body so I think the easiest thing to do is to coverup with sun protective clothing like a rash vest.

(bonus section you get to hear if you are becoming or have become bald!)
It's important to note that not all clothing is created equal, with hats for example, a small amount of UV can get through, so even if only 10% of the UV is getting through, over a lifetime that will add up to skin cancers on the scalp.

Now with skin cancers, the most nasty ones are the Melanoma's. What we are looking for with them are brown lesions that are changing. Often Melanomas start as flat brown lesions, then they grow outwards then upwards, adding extra colours like black, grey, pink, white or blue. You may have a brown lesion with a black blob growing out of it or another colour spilling over the edge of the lesion. Sometimes you will have a brown lesion that appears to be getting smaller as the body attacks it. When your body attacks a melanoma it can leave behind a pink or white scar which makes the brown part of the melanoma get smaller. The bigger a lesion is the more at risk it is, with lesions 6mm or larger being at particular risk of being melanoma, especially if this change in size is new. Rarely you can get a pink rapidly growing pink nodule which is an amelanotic melanoma. These are hard to spot but basically your are looking for a pink rapidly growing nodule which is not going away for a month.

Non-melanomaa skin cancers (e.g. basal cell carcinomas [BCCs] and squamous cell carcinomas [SCCs]) often also present as pink lumps not going away after a month. They may be a pink lesion that bleeds with minimal trauma e.g. after being dried with a towel or a pink lump which is ulcerated. They may also be a thick pink lump which are a bit tender, spiky or crusty. Sometimes they are flat and harder to spot. As a general rule the bigger and uglier a  BCCs or SCCs is, the worse it is. So if you have any pink lumps like this not going away after a month then we want to know about it"