I found out from the doctor today that I have skin cancer.
Anybody know anything about this, I don't.


PMS

Depends on which kind and where it is....

go to the webdr.com
as there would be more info on there for you

I dont, but...Im very sorry to hear about that.

Melanoma. I thought it was just a mole, but it was bugging me and I had to see the dr. anyway, so I asked about it and that's what he said it is.

Queene, thank you, I knew there was a site like that, but had no clue of what it was called.
Alisha, thank you anyway.

i email you with the correct website

It runs in my family.

I had a melanoma scare. Have they done the biopsy? Are they 100% sure?

Thank you Queene. You are a great help, and a sweet person.

Dang, sorry to hear that, but in some cases things work out for the good on some skin cancers. I am a sun bunny in the summer time, and my kids are too. We live in the water all summer long, and get all the BAD sun, so we get checked, especially me, anytime I see a new freckle that has a funny shape, lol. The kids just get dark, dark, dark- makes me sick... Seriously, I have learned over my years how dangerous the sun is, so now we all use sunscreen...

Well, he hasn't biopsyed it yet or anything like that. (sorry, I know my spelling stinks.) He looked at it and he seemed like he knew just by looking, he never said anything any different.
I do remember having an uncle who had it too, he had it really bad too.

LIJOMA,
It's weird with me because I am very fair skinned, and burn VERY easy, and tend to stay out of the sun. In fact, if I do get burned, I just peel, and will burn again. I end up looking like a sick strawberry.

You don't know 110% until there's been a biopsy.

My Dr. said I had a suspicious mole and sent me to the dermatologist.

He took the mole off of my back. The biopsy showed that it had cells that mimicked melanoma. It scared me because of skin cancer in my family.

The second biopsy showed no melanoma.

So, visually, your Dr. is pretty sure. It could be. But, a biopsy will tell you 110%.

Get moving on it fast. Read up on it.

Good luck.

Winx,
I realize that, it's just a scary thing. And I'm just trying to find out all I can now, just in case.
And thank you.

I don't want to tell you about it. I know too much about it.

I would rather you read about it instead of me freaking you out.

It is of the utmost importance that you take care of it quickly.

Please let me know how it goes.

You can email me with any questions.

I agree with Winx, get to a dermatologist right away and they will do a biopsy to be 100% sure. If you can't get into a dermatologist, your doctor may remove it, or a surgeon, depending on whether your doctor is comfortable doing the biopsy (depending on the location of the lesion, etc.). If it is melanoma, they will want to remove it right away and they may want to do a Mohs procedure to do that (a special surgery). But don't waste time, do it now. Read up on it too, the more informed the better.

Take care and good luck. I agree that they can't be sure without a biopsy either.

My Uncle's Dr. uses the Mohs procedure. My Uncle swears by it.
My dermatologist didn't use it. I don't remember why.

webmd.com is also very informative
I hope everything is okay

Winx, if you only had a biopsy and it turned out to not be cancer, you wouldn't have needed a Mohs procedure. The Mohs procedure is where the cut out a cancer layer by layer and examine the tissue under a microscope examining it until they can tell they have gotten all the cancer cells. When they get tissue that has no more cancer cells, then they know they have removed all the cancer.

Regular excisions, the doctor cuts out the cancer, hoping he gets it all and waits for the pathology report to come back and tell him if the borders were clean of cancer cells. If there were cancer cells in the border of the pathology specimen, he will have to do another excision to go wider or deeper to get the rest of the cells. The Mohs procedure ensures they get the cancer the first time in the one procedure.

Thanks for the description of Mohs, Marie. The first biopsy showed cells that mimicked cancer. The Dr. went and dug deeper and wider before the first incision was healed (right underneath the bra hooks - ouch). I had asked his office if he used the Mohs procedure and they said no. The second biopsy came back clean.

I was supposed to get a body check a couple of years ago and didn't. Well, with all of this talk, I am.