Save your skin

One factor many people love about working in the green industry is that its members aren’t sitting at a desk in cubicles. We are able to work in the great outdoors. The downside is we are all exposed to the elements, including the bitter cold and non-stop sun. Almost none of us, myself included, think about putting sunscreen on before and during work. The statistics are not encouraging. For the years 2023-2024, melanoma, the most serious of skin cancers, ranged from almost 187,000 to just over 200,000 cases. In the United States, about 5.4 million cases of basal and squamous skin cancers are diagnosed every year. Basal skin cancer is the most common but melanoma, the most serious of skin cancers, is the fifth most prevalent cancer in the U.S. and is said to account for almost 6% of cancer diagnoses. All of these cancers are curable at the early stages.

You can visit sites such as SpotSkinCancer.org which can help you detect skin cancer not only for yourself but your family as well. Those trips to the beach can be just as harmful as working in the field, especially for young children. Who gets skin cancer? Everyone is at risk. Besides people working outdoors, participating in recreational sports such as skiing or using a tanning bed can put you at risk. So can working near a bright area such as a body of water or snow, because of the reflection from those areas. People tend to ignore a sunburn but the skin damage is cumulative. While people who are fair, blue eyed or freckled are at high risk, those who have darker skin are at risk too because the damage can show up on the body in different places.

How do you check yourself for skin cancer? You can visit a dermatologist for a body check, which only takes less than 10 minutes. You can check yourself using a hand mirror to check places like the back of the neck, your back, buttocks and back of the legs or have your partner help you. One of the places that no one thinks about checking is the bottom of your feet. Even though it usually doesn’t see the sun, it can hide skin cancer, especially for those with darker skin. Skin cancer can show up in the fingernails, toenails, the inside of the mouth.

What does skin cancer look like? Depending on the type of skin cancer it can look like a sore that heals and come back more than once, can be dome-shaped or a waxy growth that looks like a scar. It can also look like a rough, scaly patch. Melanoma looks a little different with one of half of the spot can look completely different than the other half. It has an irregular border, the colors of the spot can be different and it keeps changing as time goes on.

Cancer care and prevention

There are different types of surgeries depending on the seriousness of the cancer and type. There is excision where the dermatologist cuts around the skin cancer and some of the normal skin. Other types of treatment include cryosurgery (freezing), radiation, electrodessication, immunotherapy drugs, chemotherapy and chemoprevention drugs.

So how do we prevent skin cancer for us and our workers? First, use sunscreen liberally and apply it often. That means every 2-3 hours, especially if you are sweating. The Skin Cancer Foundation recommends a broad-spectrum sunscreen of SPF 50 or higher. Several sunscreens have been tested with SPF 30 by Consumer Reports with Coppertone WaterBabies being the top sunscreen and Eucerin Advanced Hydration Spray SPF50 is not far behind.

Sunscreen should be applied to arms and hands, shoulders and back, face, legs and feet and for those who are follically challenged, the top of the head because a baseball cap isn’t always the best protection.

Long sleeves, long pants and a hat, preferably with a wide brim, are the order of the day for protection. There are clothing lines that have UVA, UVB and UPF protection. This type of clothing is available at any number of places including Uline, REI, Lands End, Patagonia and A.M. Leonard just to name a few. These are not endorsements but rather suggestions. While we love the sun, caution is the way to go for a long, healthy and happy life.

Denise Schreiber is a professional horticulturist and garden writer based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.