Lay on the SPF before it's too late

Tanned skin may be a fashion statement, but for some, it's not worth the risk.
Charles Ludwig, managing director at Aetos Technologies, Inc., has endured a 30-year battle with sun-damaged skin. Over the last 20 years, Ludwig has had about 30 skin spot surgeries.
Ludwig, now 66 years old, was a lifeguard and a tennis pro in his younger days. He would spend all day in the sun, without the luxury of sunscreen.
"What we would end up doing is mixing up a potion of baby oil, Johnson and Johnson baby oil, and you can put it on to keep your skin from frying out," Ludwig said. "Baby oil is a form of mineral oil and essentially accentuates the UV radiation and makes it worse."
When Ludwig was in his late 40's, he started to get patches on his skin, so he went to the dermatologist. They told him he had the early stages of actinic keratosis.
Ludwig has had to go to the dermatologist approximately every three to six months for treatments. After the first five to seven years, the damage became much deeper and Ludwig's treatments became more severe.
"They cut a section out and they take it into the lab and look to see if they've got all the cancer, and then they go again and again until they . . . get it all," Ludwig said. "I had a section under my eye that they went all the way to the bone, it had gone that deep."
This particular section that was cut out under his eye had about eighty stitches, Ludwig said. Ludwig said he also had to get a quarter of an inch cut out on his eyebrow, along with four different instances where they cut down all the way to the cartilage of his nose to repair the damage.
Ludwig is still far from being done with surgery, and he said that he will probably have to go every six months for the rest of his life. Today, he said he uses about a sunscreen constantly to make sure the problem doesn't get any worse.
Gary Monheit, dermatologist at Total Skin & Beauty Dermatology Center in Birmingham, is Ludwig's current dermatologist. Monheit said the full education he looks to give his patients is prevention, early recognition, and what the available methods of treatment are.
For prevention, Monheit recommends a sunscreen that has both protective factors for UVA and UVB rays, and says broad spectrum on it.
Michelle Ludwig, assistant professor of radiation oncology, and adjunct assistant professor in the division of epidemiology, human genetics, and environmental sciences at Baylor College of Medicine, said recently she has been seeing a lot of young women with skin cancer.
"People worry about their face, but my women that are getting skin cancer are getting it on their legs and their back because nobody thinks about putting sunscreen on their legs," Ludwig said. "I'm starting to see a lot of melanoma and melanoma is deadly. Melanoma goes to the brain."
Going to a tanning bed can be even worse, and Monheit said that tanning beds have a higher energy source.
"At least with a normal suntan you're only getting it a couple months of the year," Monheit said. "When you start using tanning beds, you're getting it year round and that assault on your skin cells is cumulative over the years."
The DNA in a person's cells have a memory that accumulates damage that once they reach a certain point over the years, can no longer repair themselves, Monheit said. At this point they can't make the cells normal anymore, causing mutations to occur. "The beginning of a mutation is the beginning of a skin cancer," Monheit said. According to Monheit, People that use tanning beds have a higher incidence of melanoma at a younger age.
Charles Ludwig's advice to young people, who are eager to get the glowing tan that is so popular today, is to wear sunscreen.
"You have to understand that having a sunscreen allows you to be out in the sun longer, it prevents you from burning and it prevents your skin from being deteriorated," Ludwig said. "The kind of things that you do today will really improve your life five, ten, (or) fifty years down the road."