Dealing with Various Medical IssuesDealing with Various Medical Issues

If you love the sun and love your skin, it is important to do some regular checks of your skin to see if you have skin cancers or questionable moles that need monitoring. Unfortunately it's all too easy to miss some of these spots. Here are some places to make sure you check regularly that you might not have expected. 

Your scalp

Especially if you have short or thinning hair it's important to check your scalp as this area of your body gets a lot of incidental exposure to the sun. Even people with longer and thicker hair get a lot of exposure to the sun at their part line, and this area is often exposed to the sun without any sun protection as people don't apply sunscreen to the scalp. Additionally, as you don't naturally look at this part of the body, often changes to freckles and sunspots may not be noticed until later when they have become more serious and started itching or scratching.  This can be a very hard area to accurately check, so it can be worth asking a friend or medical practitioner to check the area. 

Your back

Another area that can get regular sun exposure is the back if you often wear two piece swimming suits or go topless and again, you may not notice changes to the back. This area can also be a hard one to apply sunscreen to accurately, particularly if you are trying to apply sunscreen yourself. Check in a mirror to make sure there are no changing sunspots. 

Top of the ears

While people are getting much better at applying sunscreen to the face, it can be easy to miss the tops of the ears. Ears have relatively thin and delicate skin, which can make them particularly vulnerable to sun damage. This is a relatively easy check to make yourself by checking in the morning each day as you brush your teeth or shave your face. 

The feet

Many Australians switch into thongs as the weather heats up, which can leave the tops of the feet exposed to the sun. Unfortunately, some of the common signs of early skin cancer also resemble other foot ailments such as warts or small sores that take a long time. 

If you are not confident about whether spots on your body may contain skin cancer, you should get a skin cancer check from an experienced skin cancer clinic.