Skin Cancers

Good on you Ben I am overdue for a check up!

Timely reminder before summer, having just had another birthday I reckon it's time to shed my blissful ignorance. Thanks mate, hope you get it sorted.

Being a melanoma survivor, and a bbc and scc veteran, Scc, is not to be scoffed at (Squamous cell carcinoma).
Yes, "bowens disease" is another term for "superficial squamous cell carcinoma". Basically it means it has developed on what is know as the top superficial layer of skin, and has not grown deep into the epidermis or even worse the dermis layer.
Unlike common basal cell cancers, squamous cell cancers can metastasise , or spread into adjacent glands JUST like melanoma if left untreated.
A dear girl friend of mine had an SCC on her lower lip. The idiot doctors didn't get the clearance right when cutting it out (the amount of surrounding flesh they have to take to be sure they got all the cancer cells). Anyhow, 2 years later, she thought she had a swollen gland in her neck... Ended up being a massive squamous cell tumour, stage 3.
She has survived, but has lost part of her jaw, lip, neck, looks like a car accident victim.
She has to undergo constant check ups every 3 months.

So..... ben...... Dont let it slide in the future. You WILL get more.... And not all cancers grow at the same rate. That one you had seemed like a slow one... I had a basal cell cancer grow like a freekn weed on my collar bone once...
Don't FUCK around.
Get in there and deal with it. That goes for everyone.
You're a long time dead.

Hey Ben although SCC's can be slow growing be aware that SCC's can take off after a biopsy get it sorted sooner than later or at least keep a close eye on it.

Mate had one grow 22mm in 14 days

I had one taken out of the calf, innocuous small lump no change in skin color 50mm scar now.

Had a BCC on back of neck treated about 4 years ago. Skipped next scheduled appt as the skin guy moved away. Found a new one and saw him. Dry sort of a guy who said 'that dot on your back is pretty dark, I'm taking a biopsy'. Next day I get the call to come in. Stage 1 melanoma and a nice little zipper on my back. Since then another BCC and zipper on ribs. I look like I've been in a knife fight.

My advice would be if you get a doctor who says 'keep an eye on that spot and let me know if it changes' tell them to do a biopsy, or find a different doc who will. How can you diagnose otherwise?

Scary stuff, cover up people!

Whats the best way too go for a check up? Mole map? Usual GP? A Specialist?

@Nick Bone, I see my regular GP & a skin specialist. Best to get a few pairs of eyes to have a look IMO.

I’ve had two Melanoma removed, one of my calf & one on my upper inner thigh. Both were picked up relatively early which basically saved my life, so my specialists told me. Vigilance is the key with melanoma. Early detection equals excellent outcomes.

NB if your asking then it’s time to have the check! I’ve had many zappings and some bcc’s removed over the decades. I have two checks a year with a specialist. You’ll need to see your GP to get a referral to a specialist. I’m lucky that the specialist I have is really thorough and he picked up a SCC on my ear that is being removed next week. Best to check and be surfing soon than wishing you had and not be surfing at all.

Actinic cheilitis.

Scalpel vermilionectomy.

50 stitches.

Tapentadol (sustained release)

Getting the stitches out a week later (with no local) reminded me of this!

And now it's indeed safe!

Jesus, that's quite a procedure Factotum!
Skin Care Clinic Docs are almost always GPs that have a very small amount of extra study regarding skin checks etc. So their knowledge (you could say) is not much better than your average GP. But if that's all they look at, every day, you could say they gain a lot of on the job expertise.
What sort of specialist do you go to, Fuhrious? Dermatologist? Curious for myself...

Hi there Kaiser. He’s a skin specialist dermatologist and also accredited in mohs surgery procedure. He’s also a fellow of plastic surgery and a consultant at the Skin Cancer foundation of Australia. He’s really careful with the check ups which gives some peace of mind. Been seeing him for a number of decades.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1040842818303019?fbcl...

Good news mate. Week and a half might seem like a long time but how good will that first wave feel.

Nice face lift Ben mate with Scottish heritage has had a heap chopped out of his face, at 67 years old doesn't have one wrinkle .

Hope they got it all, have you had the results back yet?

Good reminder mate thanks.

Looks painful @thermalben, you’re going to have a mean scar. I’d be giving it maximum rest. When we’ve had discussions earlier this year about wave quality, the reason I talked about June pumping was because it coincided with a similar looking surgery, but on one of my pectorals. I just felt I couldn’t paddle with my muscle having been separated, for all of June. I watched plenty a session from dry land. Then as soon as I was ready to go, it went flat for all of July. Good luck with the healing and top work spreading the news

Ive been living in Norway for a while and I'm not really convinced too many of the local doctors are really the best at ID'ing skin cancers. But then when ive to Aus and got a proper check up then ive always got the all clear. I have realised though that I'm really not that good at recognising what spots I need to keep an eye on. A couple times ive thought something didnt look right and the doctors dismissed it right away.

Nickbone I go to Mole Map in Frankston once a year

Hi Ben, can you share your reasons for going for surgical rather than photodynamic, cost? % success rate. I've got a non invasive (at this stage) SCC recently diagnosed on my ear and have been offered both. Costs for both are similar, success rate slightly higher on surgical removal, nothing back from medicare on photodynamic.

Hi Furious , how are you planning to have the SCC on your ear removed?

Hey there Seaslug it’s getting cut out and the docs doing a skin graft. He’s got to find somewhere that’s not sun affected for the graft. We both laughed when he said that!!

Hi Fuhrious, thanks for that. Yes same problem, she's taking about using my earlobe. She also suggested photodynamic therapy instead of surgery

Hi Seaslug I’m in on Tuesday for the surgery. I’ll talk to the doc about PDT as an alternative and get back to you with his thoughts.

Cheers Fuhrious, appreciate 2nd opinion from yourself. Costs for both are similar (around $1500), success rate quoted bit higher on surgical removal, nothing back from medicare on photodynamic.

Cant agree more with Sheepdog.
Beware.
I had a SCC that blew up on my cheek, went from a small dot to the size of a raspberry in 2 weeks. I had my GP remove it and healed up after a 60 mm cut with 12 stitches. Pathology report said there was a 1mm margin on tumour. All good.
6 months later I found a lump on my neck which took me 2 months to get diagnosed properly. On diagnosis I was booked in for surgery the next day for the removal of my Perotid gland and associated lymph nodes.
Cut goes from top of my ear, down my neck to my adam's apple. SCC tumour the size of my fist.
My face is now numb in surgery area, I had massive radiation therapy which was worse than the surgery. Face melted off with radiation burns, mouth full of ulcers, nerves in teeth dead etc etc.
That was 3 years ago, I am surfing again, on a SUP now but that's as much as I can manage.
It has been a long road from just a spot on my cheek which I thought was just hacked out and a cut to deal with.
Beware, it is not just Melanoma that is bad.
Don't forget the sunscreen.

Serious incision, all the best for your recovery.

Had a biopsy on my lower lip a few months ago. White stripe down the middle, needle stung like a bitch. Came back negative but the stripe has returned. I’m 52, surfed since I was 11. Shit like this worries me.

Andybox. Know what you mean, hurt hey. I had a biopsy done on my lower lip many years ago. My lips have suffered terribly over the years, burnt and blistered when I was young. My suggestion would be go and get it checked again, maybe going to someone else

Gday Seaslug. Had the SCC removed yesterday plus the graft. Asked the doc about the PDT vs cutting. He said cutting provides best results. Surgery included graft taken from neck area just below ear plus he cut through the skin near the ear hole to clean up some cartilage that had become roughed up due to previous freezing for keratosis. Not much fun but good news is stitches out next Monday and hoping to be back getting salty a week later. Hope ya well mate and get it done as soon as you can.

Lammie, wishing you all the best with it..
And Factotum, I had a similar experience re' lip.. Had soooo many frozen off it was ridiculous. Ended up getting a "pdt" treatment, which sort of cleaned it up. BUT....
On the inside of the lip , where it turns from dry lip to wet inner mouth (the mucosa), the pdt could not reach..... Anyhooooo, Just one or 2 rogue cells remained ( which i didn't know).
Time went by... I asked a gp in Coolum about these 2 strange "darker red" areas just inside my lower lip.... He said "vitamin b deficiency"..... Cool....
Time went By...... Moved to Tasmania.... One of the red patches ulcerated one day.... So I went to the Dover medical centre.... Anyhooooooo........ Biopsies.......... 2 Superficial basal cell carcinomas had developed right on the mucosa line...
I had 2 options from a brilliant dermatologist in Hobart......
1 - what you are going through
2- unorthodox use of a chemo cream called "aldara" for 6 weeks.
I chose 2.......... OMFG ....... The worse 6 weeks of my life... Worse than the melanoma.. The aldara at night would seep down my throat into my gut.. I honestly considered ending it and getting my lip amputated.. I was so ill.... Vomiting. I could only eat smoothies. My lip was a fucking festering muck of rotten mince.
But it worked. It was 2011. No issue on my lip since touch wood.
Below is a pic of my lip at the worse stage of the aldara treament.

Far out Sheepy that’s intense. The pain from that must of been unbelievable. Fuck dude that’s horrible thing to go through, good to hear nothing since then

That’s crazy.

Fingers crossed it’s over , Sheepy.

I'm booked in for a check. Had dream about it then Ben, s message.

Good call redmondo, make your next appointment while you are there.
I didn't even see mine, the Mrs spotted a small reddish moley looking thing on my right thigh but I wasn't concerned, seemed nothing to me and I assumed it had always been there. After some pestering I booked in and the doc wasn't concerned either, happy to leave it in fact. The Mrs wanted it off, I was on the docs side thinking about a week or so out of the water but she got her way, case closed as far as I was concerned. We were a couple of weeks away from the arrival of our first child and all was well with the world.

A week later I got a call from the doc asking me to come in that day, he was noticeably less relaxed this time and during our visit blurted out that he'd seen people with melanoma like these have another 5 years. He had my attention and a few days later I was down in Brisbane for a wide excision and a sentinel node biopsy. Apparently it was in a good place as they could go deep, left me with an 8 inch scar and a part of my leg that is now concave where it was once convex.

The following morning, feeling the effects of the general and needing to stop every 15 minutes to throw up, a mate gave me a lift north in time to see our little boy come into the world. I remember sitting in a waiting room, still punch drunk, sweating buckets and with the lego movie blasting out of a big tv on the wall thinking this is fucking weird.

A couple of weeks later we got the news that the biopsy showed no signs of the melanoma spreading, relief. Just finished my three monthly check ups and am now onto six monthly, so far so good. I've had a couple of biopsies on suspicious marks but nothing to report.

So yeah, get the check ups even if you aren't particularly worried. Australia and northern European skin can be a bad combination but the upside to melanoma being so prevalent is that treatment is cutting edge (no pun intended), the sentinel lymph node biopsy for example is only just being adopted in other countries.

Factotum, did your vermilionectomy heal up ok/does your ‘new’ lip look and feel alright now?

I’m probably gonna have to have the same procedure done, not because of cancer, long story...

Cool moniker, Red Medicine. Fugazi fan?

Anyway, re: vermilionectomy, can't even tell it happened to look at. Felt like someone punched me in the mouth, but that numbness feeling is gradually residing over time. As my surgeon said.

He was a gun. 50 very neat stitches were well worth the pain.

And not getting any sort of cancer is a no-brainer.

Definitely a Fugazi fan, they were a pretty big gateway for me into punk/ hardcore as well. That a Bukowski ref in yours?

Thanks for getting back to me about the vermilionectomy, that’s reassuring to hear.

No probs. Trust it all goes well.

Yeah, Bukowski fan as well as the dictionary definition hitting the spot.

Gee mate, hope all is good!
A very good reminder for crew here that spend a lot of hours out in the sun, I had a funny looking spot cut-off a few months back, like you left it a bit longer than I should but thankfully wasn't of too much concern.

Yeah Ben I am the same, always going to get around to it, had a lump in the calf muscle a few years ago no discolouration nada, lucky the quack took a biopsy came back a squamous, a work colleague died the same year from one.

SCC on the tip of my nose removed earlier this year. Three stitches that fell out after a week and a month of some sort of special ointment and all is sweet.

Get checked peeps. If something is suss, don't delay.

And if one doc says it's nothing to worry about, but you are not convinced, get a second opinion.

HI Ben, I've had a number of small, superficial BCC's removed by cryotherapy. My GP is a skin specialist and his area of post grad study and research was dermatology. Never had an issue.