Malignant melanoma is the deadliest form of skin cancer. To readers of this blog, that shouldn’t come as any surprise. And for years, we’ve been taught the ABCDE rules on detecting melanoma. A stands for asymmetry; B is for borders so anything with ill-defined borders is suspect; C is for the color and whether the mole or lesion has more… Read more »
Ok, so a couple of posts ago, I mentioned that I had weird pink spots that I thought was an allergy-related thing. Well, one of them has decided to really jack with my head and expand rapidly in size to about the same size my previous Loki was before I had him removed. It’s only been a couple of weeks… Read more »
Because of my history of amelanotic nodular melanoma, I’m all too familiar with skin cancer arising out of a patch of clear skin. Apparently researchers agree that new skin spots are just as worthy of a dermatologist’s review than existing moles. The science behind this claim? Researchers reviewed 38 previously published medical studies involving more than 20,000 melanomas. Only 29%… Read more »
Well, I had my every-6-months appointment with the dermatologist today. As you can guess from the title of this post, I had another piece of my skin cut off for biopsy. You see, I’ve had this…thing…on my back. It popped up a little less than a month ago and I first noticed it while struggling to put lotion on my back…. Read more »
It’s not recent, but a 2012 research study concluded that smartphone apps that are supposed to help people with identifying suspicious moles and growths actually are unreliable. In turn, people delay getting treatment for something. And as we all know, particularly with melanoma, delays are not a good thing. The study, conducted by the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, a… Read more »
I had my nine month check up yesterday. As always, it’s a bit of nervous tension in the room, which I try my best to defuse by saying ridiculously inappropriate things. Making the doctor and her assistant laugh is my goal. I’m hoping that they will be extra vigilant in checking out things in order to keep me around to make… Read more »
Amelanotic nodular melanoma obviously is one of the prime examples of skin cancer not arising from an existing mole. At least, in my experience, that is true. Now a study reported in June 2015 at the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting has added its voice. According to the analysis of researchers, they discovered that non-mole melanomas “tend to be… Read more »
There was a post on msn.com entitled 6 Things Dermatologists Wish We Knew About Skin Cancer. The article is a good read, with stats that give valid reasons why we need to make sure that we see a dermatologist for those annual skin checks. The obvious risk factors are mentioned – you used tanning beds, or you have fair skin,… Read more »
At the beginning of the month, I had to get two more spots shaved off and biopsied. As mentioned in a previous post, one was just a normal mole but the other was atypical. And of course, since I’m paranoid that I’m going to have another melanoma spot to deal with at some point, I’m keeping a close eye on… Read more »
I just received a phone call from my dermatologist’s office. Since it wasn’t the doctor on the phone, I immediately assumed that it was good news on all fronts – yes, and no. The one mole on my thigh was normal, no malignancy. Awesome news since that one started changing a few months ago – growing in size but not… Read more »