Cancer is real! Don’t ignore these important skin signs.

As we age, a fact of life that all of us have to inevitably face (yes even me), our skin will go through many changes. Moles, sunspots, growths and pigment changes are common and normal events that the skin will experience during its long history of defending us from our external environment. Aging, dryness, humidity, our diet and the sun are but a few of the factors that affect our skin. Occasionally though things can go haywire, normal things which may seem benign can turn destructive – cancer being one of these tragedies.

Cancer is bad, plain and simple. Millions die every year from a skin related cancer. It is one of the problems that I do not treat, referring off to those more skilled. Knowing when something is weird and not normal is then crucial to a doctor like me specializing in natural skin care. How easy it would be to confuse something like psoriasis for a cancerous breast cancer like paget’s disease – thus multiplying the possibly that a cancer may spread by putting off proper treatment. A good doctor trained in diagnosis must then keep an objective eye out for the possible signs of cancer and refer on when suspect.

So what is weird? What should one lookout for when deciding something may be cancerous or not? Obviously this is not always easy, and really should be left to the experts, but there are some simple warning signs to look out for.

First off, anything that is appearing on only one side of the body should be suspect. Especially if the lesion has other weird characteristics like uneven colourings, irregular borders, and easily bleeds. Anything that keeps growing in a half hazard way and does not respond to regular conventional treatments, whether Chinese herbal or of steroid origin, should certainly warn the person that something is a miss.

For more information on some of the warning signs of melanoma, the deadliest of the skin cancers, watch the slide show on the Mayo clinic website. It gives a good overview of the ABCDE basics of melanoma using photographs:

• A – Asymmetrical shape
• B – Irregular border
• C – Changes in colour
• D – Diameter (bigger than a pencil eraser)
• E – Evolving

Wishing you health,

Dr. Trevor Erikson