UV rays and cancer....?

[Gemrod]

I have been getting an annual full body check for about 5 years now. This year paid off. They found one and cut it out. This is my first experience with skin cancer. I truly suspect there are many more in my scalp they have just not found yet. I thought they normally look for DARK moles or skin lesions...and they do differ in the approach. I know of one doc who gets alarmed if something is RED....and not dark.

Anywhooo....they saw a scab on my forehead near hairline above left eye. They biopsied it and it was basal cancer. It was the SCAB of a pinched pimple! I have a strange condition known to dermatologists as head acne. Just came on when I moved to this elevation. Never had it before and never even heard of it before. I thought it was bites from an insect. But anyway I have a battle with head acne. Well.....then how many of those pimples are basal cancer and how many are just pimples? I dunno.

Anway.....I am now a tad curious. Do little led flashlights emit UV rays?
Don't flourescent light bulbs emit UV rays?
Can the UV rays from my little UV light from Umpqua....used to dry UV Knot Sense cause skin cancer?

I thought it pretty interesting....her comment. I am standing there naked....and she says "you have never been fond of wearing shorts huh?"

Light bulb lit immediately. From waist down I am clean as a whistle. NO skin lesions of any kind. Arms, head, neck, back, chest have all kinds of lesions. Like moles, warts, scaly lesions, skin tabs...etc.

Under the thick blue jeans....I am totally spotless. Does the sun cause ALL of these different skin lesions? Seems that way. Again....torso and above have things.....below the waist nada!

Anyway...poooor me. I am the one who lives in snow country and likes to just wear sleeveless T-Shirts all winter long. Well now I have to wear long sleeves. I have tried in the past and even T-shirt sleeves drove me nuts...and the neck seam....I was crushed to find out I have to wear long sleeves because sooooo uncomfortable for me. Well guess what. I was so surprised to find out the UV protecting long sleeved shirts from Orvis labeled "Columbia" are so comfortable I have no problem now with it. I was quite concerned because I had been so uncomfortable in other normal shirts...button up and sleeved t-shirts. Well the Columbia shirts are extremely comfortable. I really got lucky there.

I would highly advise all people...especially younger people to wear a UV protecting hat and sunblocker (every two hours re-treat self), and long sleeved UV protecting shirts. Too late for me as I am closer to 70 than I am to s0. But would like to advise others of the dangers of exposing the skin to tooo much sun.

Sorry for long msg folks. Pls don't forget the questions at the top.

[Mato Kuwapi]

I had a basil cell cancer on my upper lip. I noticed a small scab, very similar to your description relating to a pimple... that wouldn't go away or would re occur in the same spot over the course of months...and on close inspection I could see tiny small red lines running from it going down into my lip and elsewhere. That's what got me running to the docs office. It's very common now and EASILY TREATED if you don't wait too long. All the family docs around here have liquid nitrogen in huge tanks ready to treat that stuff as soon as they see it. The local skin doc NEVER puts his can of it down. (not sure if he sniffs the stuff or not...just kidding)
I'm not going to blame light bulbs. Besides red bulbs and others don't have UV in them as far as I know...only UV lights, which you CAN purchase and they are labeled as such. If you sit under a Sun Lamp, tanning or holding your little UV light on one spot for a long time, day in and day out...you can probably get cancer from it, but using it to cure Knot Sense etc... isn't going to do it.
Any lesions I get are from years of sun exposure, pure and simple. I was a life guard in my younger years, before any connection was made between sun exposure and cancer...and I lived on the water in a bathing suit all summer long for many years, boating, canoeing, fishing and swimming.
My whole life has been spent outdoors doing something. I'm not suprised in the least that it's come back to bite me now.

[Brad Williamson]

UV semi-answers (more info that you really want to know) (disclaimer, this is my understanding)

Fluorescent lights work by when high voltage electrical charge is absorbed by electrons in the atoms of mercury which is in vapor form. These excited electrons do the classical quantum leap and then fall back to ground state---releasing a number of wavelengths of light but largely in the UV range.....hmmmmm. That emitted UV light then encounters the phosphor interior coating that makes the glass tube look white. The process happens again electrons in the atoms of the phosphor coating absorb the UV wavelengths and then emit other wavelengths of lesser energy---visible light. The glass part of the tube filters out the remaining, unabsorbed UV rays. Glass really does a good job of filtering the harmful UV---I've tested this, experimentally, with meters and sensitive strains of yeast. Germicidal lamps are often fluorescents without the phosphor coating and quartz instead of glass. Quartz is transparent to UV.

I doubt that the superbright LEDs used in most flashlights emit any UV. I looked up a couple of emission spectra and I see no evidence of UV emission in common LED's. Here's an example of a tech page with the spectra: http://www.superbrightleds.com/cgi-b...s%2FW18030.htm Notice the the emission bottoms out around 400 nm---which is quite a ways from UV.....There are UV emitting LED's I just doubt they are used in lights.

Can't say much about the little UV curing lights---haven't ever looked into them.

UV is catagorized into 3 "colors" UVA, UVB, and UVC UVC have the shortest wavelengths and this is the light you'll find in germicidal lamps. UVC emitted from the sun typically does not reach the earth's surface but is absorbed in the upper atmosphere. Most of the UVB is as well but some does get to the surface, particularly during high-noon summer. (obviously more at altitude) UVB is typically the causitive agent for skin cancers in that it is absorbed quite readily by DNA molecules in skin cells. UVB has just enough energy to break the normal bonds in the DNA that can then reform to produce an error in that part of the code (over-simplification) That mutation is usually repaired but sometimes not and then when the DNA is copied to make a new skin cell (if it is a reproducing skin cell) the mistake is copied as well. If the mistake/mutation is in a critical region then that cell may have taken the first step to becoming cancerous. Oooppss. I'm rambling on but that gives you a bit of an idea.

UVA has longer wavelengths, less energy and therefore is not generally associated with DNA damage. However, it does have enough energy to damage proteins---like say eye proteins.....hence UV glasses.

Please feel free to look up and verify this info---I'm just doing a brain dump instead of my usual fact checking mostly because I worked quite a while trying to develop relevant student lab investigations in this area.....

[Gemrod]

More info than I wanted?.....NOT

I very much enjoyed reading both posts. I am not freaked out by having a skin cancer spot...although my wife of 38 years passed a couple of years ago......after a 4 year battle with cancer.

I am not paranoid about it. Just became curious. I would think that some LED's and including LED lamps and flashlights emit UV rays. But of course that is just a thought. I don't really know this.

I am glad to find out that flourescent light bulbs do not emit harmful UV rays. That is what all doctors have in their office. Even my dermatologist.....thus the curiosity. I have a friend who has had several bouts of serious skin cancer....like 6. He is not local and I have not discussed any of them in depth with him. He is in my age group.....and has been an outdoorsman all his life. He has serious problems with skin cancer. He has to wear a muff now to fish, as well as gloves and long sleeved shirts and a wide brimmed hat.

I am just going to take normal reactions...and begin attempting to keep my skin protected from the sun. Sounds like night fishing time.

I greatly thank you and apprecfiate your posts. It is information that I did not know. I am the incurable optimist....or answer seeker I guess.

I will go to my grave wondering if humans are the only "animals" that have sex face to face.....

[FISHN50]

Thank's Gemrod

[SMClark]

If follow ups are the same now as in the early '80s, you now get blessed with a chest X-ray every 6 months for the next 7 years before they'll give you a clean bill of health . . . seems to me like their 'preventive medicine' might be even more toxic than Ole Sol

and my father was so flat-footed it hurt him to walk without his shoe insteps, so no way did he wander around outside bare-footed. At age 71, they found a melanoma on the BOTTOM of his foot, so don't be convinced that jeans, et al, are sure fire protection, either !




fellow sufferer steve