You Are Never Too Young to Keep an Eye On Your Moles: Ask an Adult if Unsure

Hi Readers,

Everybody loves to swim in the pool. Swimming in the pool is fun but skin cancer from sunlight is not fun. The three types of skin cancer are squamous cell carcinoma, basal cell carcinoma and melanoma. I am not here to teach you. I want to tell you about my experience with melanoma. My first experience with biopsies started when I was 11. Yes, 11 year olds can have moles that seem suspicious and should be followed up by your doctor. Since then, I have had a total of 29 biopsies so far. The good thing about being vigilant is that you get to remove moles early in the precancerous stage. It was tough, at one point I felt like I had blood that was Miracle-Grow for suspicious moles but now I have learned to joke about it. The scars heal up fast and only the deep ones felt itchy when they were healing and took longer. I do not want to scare you, but children and teens need to be alert to changes in their moles.

We should be extremely vigilant for moles that are:

• asymmetrical

• have even borders

• change colour from brown to tan, black or red

• are bigger than the size of a pencil eraser (6mm)

• and if moles change size, shape or bleed and crust because these are the symptoms of melanoma.

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Take pictures of your moles to monitor for changes listed above. It's weird, I know, but necessary.

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Monitoring Moles

#betterhealth #selfcare #melanomalookout #skincancerawareness #teenmolecheckawareness