Basal cell carcinoma

[OakLeaf]

All I've had was a dysplastic nevus taken off my back under the bra line - a classic location that hardly ever gets any sun, so back in the day I had a couple of pretty bad burns including that area. It was a roughly 4 cm Mohs procedure, and several years later the scar is fading.

One thing I'd look out for is to be careful of what sunblocking creams you use. Many of the sunblock chemicals (including titanium dioxide nanoparticles) are themselves implicated in skin cancer. I personally use only zinc oxide, I feel reasonably confident that zinc nanoparticles are safe, but it's kind of hard to even find sunblocks without all the other nasties that aren't also non-nano zinc. Physical-only sunblocks are environmentally safer also, for an extra plus. ThinkSport is easily available (and they make a lip sunblock as well if you prefer a stick to dipping your finger and smearing your lips with whatever you use on the rest of yourself), Badger is also fairly easy to find (though it turns me kind of blue ...) I'm still working my way through a couple of tubes of eco logical that I bought up when it was discontinued, and there may still be some of that floating around. Whenever possible I wear clothing rather than creams, since they all break me out and inhibit sweating, which is the last thing I need. So I typically only use cream on my nose, ear tips, lips, back of neck and décolletage, and cover the rest with fabric when needed. Love my Zoot cool sleeves!

The other thing is that after your procedure, to minimize scarring, you'll want to keep the scar ABSOLUTELY protected from the sun for at least a year. For me with the scar from my face plant, that meant a heavy band-aid any time I went outside, often with a dollop of sunblock on top of that. Plus a hat, obviously. The scar is still noticeable, but it's not too terribly bad, and it was worth the effort and the year of looking dorky.

And as far as your derm, there's "thorough" like the ones that don't let you out of your office without biopsying every single mole on your body, and there's "thorough" like actually doing an exam and using some judgment. I'd go for the second kind every time. I know too many people who pay for dozens of biopsies every year of moles that show no sign of dysplasia. On a tangentially related note, you see the thing where they found that heart patients survive longer when their cardiologists are out of town for conferences?