Skin Cancer Support Group
If you or a loved one has skin cancer, this is the community to discuss your experience, find support, and meet others going through the same. Skin cancer is a malignant growth on the skin, which can have many causes, including repeated severe sunburns or long-term exposure to the sun. Skin cancer generally develops in the outermost layer of skin so a tumor is usually...
Hello everyone,
I've never used this forum before, and I'm feeling full of fear and anxiety following a visit to my GP today. I had her look at a skin lesion (about 4mm across, half pink and half dark brown with black splotches in it: mostly regular and divided into two oval-shaped parts, somewhat raised and a little glossy). She said she didn't think it was "anything really terrible like melanoma" but took a picture of it and sent it to a partner dermatologist (I'm in the UK where, terribly, you can't see a dermatologist outside of super expensive private practice, and you can be referred only if the doctor suspects strongly that a lesion or mole might be cancer). She did blurt out vaguely that it could be "some sort of cancer", which of course didn't make me feel especially comforted.
I'm feeling terrified even though she seemed to "not be overly alarmed", and even though I went back home to France last year to see my regular dermatologist and he performed a full annual skin check on me-- I'm almost positive I had this lesion then and he seemed to think everything was fine (didn't even examine it using a dermascope or anything).
Does anyone know whether I'm worrying unnecessarily in light of an experienced dermatologist AND a GP who knows some dermatology not being especially alarmed by this, at least not enough to order a biopsy? I've been reading scary stuff about nodular melanoma which absolutely terrifies me, and Google is not my friend (I know, I need to stop). I know no one here can diagnose me either way, but any advice or reassurance would be so wonderful. I have a tendency to imagine the worst-- and given that I'm in a high risk group (grew up in southern california, burned a lot as a child, pale skin and blue eyes, etc). I've been very vigilant about my skin and have seen a dermatologist every year, and DID get this thing checked out a couple of months after it first appeared. I guess I'm afraid my dermatologist in France may have overlooked it , or that it may have changed in some way without my noticing. I do have some sebbohreic keratoses now and I just assumed that's what it was.
Thanks for listening, and for any advice you can impart, if any. I'm an anxious person who tends to imagine the worst, and I keep on imagining that maybe I have some invasive form of melanoma that no one detected, and am terrified. :-(
I've never used this forum before, and I'm feeling full of fear and anxiety following a visit to my GP today. I had her look at a skin lesion (about 4mm across, half pink and half dark brown with black splotches in it: mostly regular and divided into two oval-shaped parts, somewhat raised and a little glossy). She said she didn't think it was "anything really terrible like melanoma" but took a picture of it and sent it to a partner dermatologist (I'm in the UK where, terribly, you can't see a dermatologist outside of super expensive private practice, and you can be referred only if the doctor suspects strongly that a lesion or mole might be cancer). She did blurt out vaguely that it could be "some sort of cancer", which of course didn't make me feel especially comforted.
I'm feeling terrified even though she seemed to "not be overly alarmed", and even though I went back home to France last year to see my regular dermatologist and he performed a full annual skin check on me-- I'm almost positive I had this lesion then and he seemed to think everything was fine (didn't even examine it using a dermascope or anything).
Does anyone know whether I'm worrying unnecessarily in light of an experienced dermatologist AND a GP who knows some dermatology not being especially alarmed by this, at least not enough to order a biopsy? I've been reading scary stuff about nodular melanoma which absolutely terrifies me, and Google is not my friend (I know, I need to stop). I know no one here can diagnose me either way, but any advice or reassurance would be so wonderful. I have a tendency to imagine the worst-- and given that I'm in a high risk group (grew up in southern california, burned a lot as a child, pale skin and blue eyes, etc). I've been very vigilant about my skin and have seen a dermatologist every year, and DID get this thing checked out a couple of months after it first appeared. I guess I'm afraid my dermatologist in France may have overlooked it , or that it may have changed in some way without my noticing. I do have some sebbohreic keratoses now and I just assumed that's what it was.
Thanks for listening, and for any advice you can impart, if any. I'm an anxious person who tends to imagine the worst, and I keep on imagining that maybe I have some invasive form of melanoma that no one detected, and am terrified. :-(
Has anyone else had a similar experience? I have health anxiety and this is really hard to deal with. I know BCC is a treatable condition but I keep worrying the lesion may be something nastier, like nodular melanoma, and the doctors are missing it. I'm a chronic worrier. Thanks for your advice, and for listening!