As always McIndoe Surgical Centre in East Grinstead want to make sure that everyone is aware of the vitally important role that sun awareness information can have in protecting our future generations from sun damaged skin conditions such skin cancers.
At the risk of repeating ourselves, we feel it is incredibly important to tell everyone over and over the easiest ways they can protect themselves from sun burn and therefore skin damage which may lead to cancer in the future.
Our top tips for looking after yourself are as follows:
1. Sun awareness is vital and really does have an effect.
2. Avoid the midday sun (between 11am and 3pm).
3. Apply liberal amounts of sunscreen with a Sun Protection Factor (SPF) of 30+.
4. Wear a hat, loose clothes (tightly woven) and sunglasses with UV protection.
5. The face and neck are the area’s most commonly affected by sun damage, so be sure to apply sunscreen to lips, ears, around eyes, neck and scalp if your hair is thinning.
Melanoma usually presents itself as little brown spots (like moles). To know if they are friendly or not you need to keep an eye them. If you are already concerned about a mole or blemish you may have on your skin, partiuclrly if any of the following occur:
- If they get lumpier across the surface or change in size.
- If the border of the area changes in shape.
- If they itch or bleed.
- If they change in colour – particularly turning patchy.
- If the texture changes at all.
Please see a GP immediately. Otherwise McIndoe Surgical Centre will be hosting FREE mole checks through the month of June in an attempt to ease any worries or advise accordingly if there is a concern.
No one is excluded from the attention of the sun’s dangerous rays and everyone should be AWARE and PROTECT themselves from an early age. A habit for life that may well save it.
