I would like you ALL to read this blog before the hot weather, and make sure your children are protected

[sausagepastie]

Sarah Toller

This is something I have been reading for almost a year since my best friend was diagnosed with melanoma.

I don't want anyone not to know the dangers of sun exposure in children, because it's in the earliest years of childhood that the seeds for melanoma are sown.

It's such a common cancer in the 20s and 30s, and even in the teens. People need to protect their kids, NOW, and still I see children with sunburn every summer.

Please read as much as you can - the story is heartbreaking, but so powerful. I think Sarah would want as many people to see it as possible.

Thankyou.

sausagepastie, I have read that there is a slightly concerning increase in vitamin D deficiency in young people in this country and even more so in Australia, where protecting your skin from the sun is even more important. It is possible to protect your skin too much from the sun. It is right that fair skinned people in particular really don't need much time at all in the sun to get a good dose of vitamin D, but they do need some time in the sun without their factor 50, sun hats and long sleeved clothes on. I also hate suncream, as my ds reacts to almost all suncreams, and you never know exactly how effective they are being, so do prefer the non-chemical option of seeking the shade at certain times of the day and wearing sunglasses and sunhats. I think relying on suncream as a panacea is not the right thing to do. But I do agree that we should at all costs avoid our children actually getting burnt.

Thanks Sausagepastie - it's always good to remember.

Do you mean you are sending your DS with suncream today? Surely there's no need until the sun is hotter?

thanks...truthfully? I have no idea whether sun lotion is the answer. When I said 'protect' your children, I meant hats, covering up, shade as well as sun lotion.

I am aware of the vitamin D thing vaguely, also know it is possibly implicated in cancer, I mean the deficiency being a bad thing...but don't know the answers.

I just want people to be aware that this is something increasing among young people, and that we need to do something about it - whatever that might be.

Have asked for thread to go, I didn't mean to create any controversy or argument.
Thanks to those who have commented.

My father died of melanoma nearly 20 years ago. He hated the sun, even as a child, and never ever went on hot holidays or sat in the garden. It does make me wonder whether there is a lot more to melanoma than sunshine.

Also, read the back of the suncream lotions full of toxic crap that the body absorbs. Maybe this has something to do with the rise in skin cancer, the fact that we're smother ourselves and our kids in it.

That's not to take anything away from the tragic situation your friend is in sausagepastie, how awful for her and her family.

I'm really sorry about your Dad

my friend never sunbathed either, never remember her being tanned at all. No family history of it either...it seems it may be to do with a genetic predisposition though, somehow.

I don't know what the answer is...I wish I did.

My friend died of it two years ago at the age of 37 - again he never sought out the sun and I don't think he'd ever been on a foreign beach holiday in his life. He left 3 sons aged 3 and twins 6 months.
RIP AH

sausagepastie link to vit D Vit D details

Interesting that there are people that have never been in the sun who are diagnosed with skin cancer.

yes I know...thanks for the link.

I looked into this and it seems the government line is still that sun exposure is the main contributing cause, even so...and tanning beds of course are known to be a big risk. Madness to use those.

Don't get the thread deleted, I think it is an important enough subject for it to need to be active IYSWIM.

I personally believe the rise in skin cancer is due to tanning beds, they became a massive thing around a decade ago so those teenagers will be hitting late 20's now and the warnings weren't as clear then. Of course this doesn't discount the other people who have taken every precaution and still get this horrible cancer, veyr

Jack, it was the baby boomers who were also out tanning all the time...well as a fashion, not all of them obviously...the 60s were when people started taking it to extremes and there was less modesty I think.
Nobody knew the dangers then.
It was all about olive oil and getting as brown as possible, trying to look 'healthy'. This went on till the 80s at least, also people started taking package holidays which is quite bad as it exposes you to unusual levels of sun for your skin, levels you're not used to - this is known to be a risk factor.

Like people of white origin going to live in very hot climates. They have a higher rate of cancer I think because the exposure is not gradual, it's all at once. Not certain of any of this stuff btw, just what I've read.

....I think the tanning beds were available to home hire at least 20 years ago. I remember being very excited to hire one for my bedroom when I was 21..baking under it & getting a horrible tan,. I was 'sensible' though & used it for the allocated time.

I also recall my mum thinking that being brown was the be all & end all. She was constantly boasting how brown I was when a baby/toddler (I do tan but also burn). I just recall peeling sheets of skin off my back as a joung child. She never used suncream on me.

please don't get the thread deleted. I think it (and the bbc story) are really important reminders of the need to take care in the sun, even if it is perhaps only one cause of these cancers, it is nonetheless something we can do something about

I think some skins can get away with more exposure than others surely?

I am no expert on this subject but my Mother is super olive and just doesn't burn, she can lay on a beach asleep all day and be fine.

I on the other hand am fairer have really bad sun damage to my skin, it is a miracle I have not had skin cancer of but get checked annually. I do love the feeling of health the sun gives me and think kids in the UK get none in these awful winters then slathered all summer poor old things, surely they need some sun exposure! but, back to my point some skins can really take the sun can't they?

DH's dad died from skin cancer, he was out in Burma during the war and I think quite a few soldiers out in the far east also got skin cancer in later life, but in those days there would have been no sun cream.

However there is also a problem with lack of vitamin D in the northern hemisphere for people with darker skins and I read this may be a contributing factor to the high rates of diabetes in dark skinned people.

My Dad came from Cyprus and suffered from psorasis for many years however the one and only time he went back to Cyprus his psorasis cleared up completely, he also had diabetes.

I

Development of multiple sclerosis has also been linked to low levels of sun exposure - not as the cause, but as a possible triggering factor in susceptible individuals. Scotland has one of the highest rates of multiple sclerosis per head of population in the world, but Scottish people who grew up closer to the equator do not share this considerably increased risk, despite their ancestry. Or so I've been led to understand...

Hello again, even though the stories told here are anecdotal, my figures ARE correct. The number of cases is so low that any tiny change in incidence raises the percentage a lot leading to claims of 'fastest growing cancer' etc etc etc. Whilst I agree wholeheartedly with protection and awareness you have to have a sense of perspective about it all. Any loss of a mother is tragic but not a reason to lose all sense of reason. I know we have to look after our children but we cannot protect them against everything. Smothering a child with cotton wool is still smothering, even if the cotton wool is light and fluffy.

That's interesting about MS. Though if there were a choice, albeit it's a vicious disease, having some idea what melanoma does I think I'd go with MS

Alias, that's good that your figures are correct. But please could you point out the post where someone is 'smothering' their child, on this thread...also where I, or someone else, appears to lose 'all sense of reason' because truthfully I'm not seeing it.

And to that end I find your post bizarrely irrelevant and just a little bit offensive.

But surely putting on suncream is the equivalent of not having cigarette smoke round your child or smoking yourself?
Not every smoker gets lung cancer, not every sunbather gets skin cancer, but it is a risk that you can take steps to prevent, so why wouldn't you?

Caught in time, melanoma can be cut out. MS is degenerative and progressive, and faTal. I know whicxh id choose.

The risks of cancers and other illnesses from lack of vitamin D are only just being realised. I think it no coincidence that UK and Scotland in particular has highest rates in the world for many diseases and conditions including asthma and MS, and have very low levels of natural sunlight.

We use Green People's organic sunscreen on the children. Good/coverage, not smelly, seems to work well. I also have them in long sleeves most of the time, and hats.

'Caught in time, melanoma can be cut out. MS is degenerative and progressive, and faTal. I know whicxh id choose.'

While I don't wish to make an argument about which illness would be better to have, really, as it seems rather pointless (and I know I started it!)the operative part of your phrase is 'caught in time'

There are people who have had a very thin, early melanoma with almost no depth, who have had it recur maybe 10, 20 years later and its progress has then been very rapid. Saying that though, it's true that 95% of early melanomas can be 'cured' or at least put into remission.

Doctors are very way of using the word 'cured' with melanoma as it is notoriously insidious.

I wouldn't wish either illness on anyone tbh .

this is something i am terrified of .... i have many moles , freckles , i in early years did lye in the sun and as a child never remember my parents putting cream on me ..

since having my DC i have neither the time or want to sit in sun at all .

and have regular top to toe scans done on my body , (for my own Piece of mind ) thats the best i can do ....and obviously wear factor 50 and stay out of the sun and in the shade ....(which i also do )

i also have always bought my children those sun suites and slap cream on them , as iv done this from babies , they know no different and accept this has to happen ...its only when we get with other family members who DONT think this is nessasary to such digree ....we get a few arguments , but i dont give in ... no cream or suites no swimming or playing out in sun...

our school at moment are building a larger shar play area so children can play in the shade , this we all encourage .

I'm just as worried about my children being deprived of vitamin D by being over-protected, and hence being more at risk of other cancers and of diseases like ms.

Ooh, sorry, I see this point has been raised already.