What are the early signs and symptoms of breast, skin, cervical and colorectal cancers!
This brilliant infographic tells what to look out for and why you need to take regular checks.
Please do share with family and friends.
5 Tips on Camping Safety for Parents
Boys Playing in the Leaves
Camping is one of the top summer activities, particularly if you live near a national forest. The fresh air, escape from city noise, and beauty of nature make camping one of the best family-friendly trips one can take in the summer. However, camping often comes with its own set of risks, especially for children. There are a few ways you can make your family camping trip as fun and safe as possible. Here are a few tips:
Be Diligent with Mosquito Repellent
For the most part, mosquitos are only annoying pests that make you itchy. They don’t often pose a major health risk to you or your kids. However, they can carry diseases such as West Nile Virus, malaria, and yellow fever. Although diseases from mosquitos are somewhat rare in North America, it certainly is better to be safe than sorry.
People often also scratch open mosquito bites, which leaves behind an open wound. Kids tend to be very nonchalant about picking and scratching at bug bites, which makes them susceptible to infection. The best way to prevent disease and infection is to prevent mosquito bites altogether.
Life Jackets are a Must
Life jackets are a necessity if you are going to be camping near a body of water. Keep in mind that rivers may seem placid on the surface while concealing a strong current beneath. Rivers easily pull even the best swimmer under and drag them across the river bottom.
Lakes pose a threat to children, especially those who are boating, because they have less endurance. If children are thrown from the boat, they could be stunned by the impact, and it will not take much time for them to lose strength and dip below the surface of the water. Accidents can happen even under the watchful eye of the most observant parent. It is best to take safety precautions.
Maintain a Similar Sleep Schedule
Sleeping in the great outdoors can be a very exciting prospect for kids. It is their vacation and they are more than likely prepared to stay awake for the duration of the trip. Unfortunately for them, it is important that their sleep schedule does not deviate too much from their usual routine. Try to keep bedtime within a half an hour of their normal bedtime. To encourage sleep, you may want to bring some foods that aid sleep. It also helps to stick to your home routine as much as possible.
Apply and Reapply Sunscreen
There’s nothing like a sunburn to make a vacation uncomfortable. Sunburns cause pain and peeling along with an increased risk for skin cancer when the child reaches adulthood. To avoid these issues, apply sunscreen a half an hour before your kids are exposed to sunlight. A good rule of thumb is to reapply sunscreen every two hours, but you should reapply it more frequently if the kids are splashing around in a creek.
Pack Plenty of Water
Dehydration is a very common problem in active kids. The excitement of the vacation, along with the hot sun, are a recipe for a dry mouth or other issues related to dehydration. To avoid this problem, offer your children water, not soda or juice, every half hour. You also can take advantage of the rehydration time to reapply sunscreen.
Keeping your kids safe while camping is, in reality, a fairly easy task. If you keep yourself on the same rehydration, sunscreen application, and sleep schedule, keeping track of what your kids need becomes much easier. However, it also is important that you don’t spend your entire trip worrying about your children. If you forget to reapply sunscreen after a dip in the lake, your children will survive. This is your vacation too; take some time to relax and enjoy.
Sean Morris is a former social worker turned stay-at-home dad. He knows what it’s like to juggle family and career. He did it for years until deciding to become a stay-at-home dad after the birth of his son. Though he loved his career in social work, he has found this additional time with his kids to be the most rewarding experience of his life. He began writing for LearnFit.org to share his experiences and to help guide anyone struggling to find the best path for their life, career, and/or family.
Actinic keratoses – what are the signs, symptoms, causes and treatments of solar or actinic keratoses
Actinic keratoses
Actinic keratoses, also known as solar keratoses, are dry scaly patches of skin caused by damage from years of sun exposure.
The patches can be pink, red or brown in colour, and can vary in size from a few millimetres to a few centimetres across. The skin in affected areas can sometimes become very thick, and occasionally the patches can look like small horns or spikes.
Actinic keratoses are found on areas of skin that are exposed to the sun, such as the:
face, especially the nose and forehead
forearms and backs of hands
in men, on the rims of the ears and bald scalps
in women, on the legs below the knees
The patches are usually harmless and sometimes get better on their own, but they can be sore, itchy and look unsightly. There is also a small risk that the patches could develop into a type of skin cancer called squamous cell carcinoma if they’re not treated.
You should see your GP if you think you may have actinic keratoses, so they can discuss treatment options with you.
Who is affected
Actinic keratoses are most commonly seen in fair-skinned people, especially those with blue eyes, red hair, freckles and a tendency to burn easily in the sun. Men are affected more often than women.
People who have lived or worked abroad in a sunny place, or who have worked outdoors or enjoy outdoor hobbies, are most at risk.
It may take many years before actinic keratoses develop – they don’t usually appear before the age of 40.
Studies carried out in the UK have suggested that around one in every four or five people over the age of 60 has actinic keratoses.
Diagnosing actinic keratoses
Your GP may be able to diagnose actinic keratoses by examining the patches on your skin.
In some cases, the diagnosis may need to be confirmed by removing a small sample of skin and examining it under the microscope.
Actinic keratoses can often be managed by your GP, but you may need to see a skin specialist (dermatologist) for further assessment if:
your GP is not certain about your diagnosis
your GP thinks one or more of your patches may be cancerous or at a high risk of becoming cancerous
your patches are particularly severe or widespread
you are taking immunosuppressant drugs – for example, following an organ transplant
your patches have not responded to treatment
Treatment options
If the patches are not troublesome, your doctor may simply recommend that you keep an eye on them and come back if they change in any way – for example, if you develop new symptoms such as a patch growing quickly, bleeding or forming an ulcer.
However, actinic keratoses are often removed because of concerns they may develop into skin cancer (see below) or, less commonly, for cosmetic reasons.
The patches can be removed using a variety of treatments, depending on your individual circumstances. The main treatments used are summarised below.
Creams or gels
There are a number of creams and gels that can be applied to the skin if you have several patches. Commonly used treatments include 5-fluorouracil cream, imiquimod cream, diclofenac gel and ingenol mebutate gel.
These creams and gels are usually applied daily (washing your hands carefully after), often for several weeks, and they cause the abnormal skin cells to die. They may make the skin sore, and it may weep and blister after a few days of treatment.
The various creams and gels seem to be similarly effective in treating actinic keratoses, although the potential side effects and the length of time that treatment is needed differs between each of them. Not all are easily available.
Discuss the benefits and risks of the different creams and gels available with your GP before starting treatment.
Freezing with liquid nitrogen (cryotherapy)
In some cases, freezing the patches (cryotherapy) may be recommended. This causes blistering and shedding of the sun-damaged areas of skin.
The time it takes the skin to heal varies, depending on the areas of the body treated. Some areas may heal in a week or two, whereas others may take a few months to fully heal.
A light freeze usually leaves no scar, but thicker lesions or early skin cancer may need longer freezes, which can leave a permanently pale or dark mark.
Scraping (curettage)
Curettage is where the abnormal patches are scraped off with a sharp spoon-like instrument called a curette. This procedure is done under a local anaesthetic (where the treated area is numbed) and is generally used to treat thicker patches and early skin cancers, or to help confirm a diagnosis.
Cautery (heat treatment) is used to stop any bleeding after the cells have been removed. A scab forms after the procedure, which heals over a few weeks to leave a small scar.
The scrapings that are removed can be examined under the microscope to confirm the diagnosis.
Cutting it out (excision)
If your doctor suspects the patch may be cancerous or pre-cancerous, they may cut it out using a scalpel under local anaesthetic and close the wound with stitches. The piece of skin is then examined under the microscope to confirm the diagnosis.
Removing the patch will leave a permanent scar.
Other treatments
There are also a number of other treatments that may be effective in treating actinic keratoses, including:
photodynamic therapy (PDT) – where light is shone onto the affected area of skin after a light-activated cream has been applied; the light activates this cream and causes it to form a chemical that kills the abnormal cells
laser resurfacing – where a laser beam is used to remove the abnormal patches of skin
dermabrasion – where specially-designed abrasive instruments are used to remove the abnormal patches
chemical peels – where a corrosive liquid is applied to the affected area of skin to remove the abnormal patches
However, these treatments are not in widespread use and there is no clear evidence that they offer any additional benefit.
Self-help
It is important to protect your skin from the sun if you have actinic keratoses. This can reduce the risk of further patches developing and may help reduce the number of patches you already have.
To protect yourself from the sun, you should:
apply sunscreen with a sun protection factor (SPF) of at least 15 before exposing yourself to direct sunlight
cover up your skin with clothes and a hat during the summer months
try to avoid direct exposure to the sun when it is at its strongest (between 11am and 3pm)
It may also be helpful to regularly use emollients on your skin to stop it becoming dry.
Outlook
Actinic keratoses that have been treated usually go away, but it is likely that more patches will develop, requiring further treatment.
The development of actinic keratoses is a sign that the underlying skin is damaged from many years of sun exposure, and this cannot be reversed. It means you have a higher than average risk of developing skin cancer.
However, the exact chances of actinic keratoses developing into skin cancer are not clear. Some research has suggested the chances of a patch becoming cancerous are less than 1 in 1,000 every year, whereas other studies suggest the overall chances of actinic keratoses becoming cancerous may be as high as 1 in 10.
Skin Cancer : How to spot a Skin Cancer
What are the signs of a skin cancer?
This is in fact rather important to be able to recognise for any of us. My wife was brought up in the tropics and has now has two basal cell carcinomas cut out in the last couple of years. With plenty more on the way. Luckily she is an Australian so she know what to look out for!
However that is not the case with all of us so I thought that this infographic will prove very useful for all of us.
Yes you do need to check any skin blemishes. Remember early intervention is very important with any kind of skin cancer. And yes people do die of skin cancer so please share with all your family and friends.
Thanks.
From Visually.