Freckles and melanoma
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Freckles and melanoma

› Forums › General Melanoma Community › Freckles and melanoma

  • Post
    • January 15, 2019 at 4:26 pm
    rinzula83
    Participant

    Im a freckled blue eyed redheaded stepchild, and I have melanoma. Unfortunatly I can not find one single article or survivor story about managing melanoma AND having freckles. You would think there would be a managing melanoma with freckles article or some scholarly article about how to access it or how to not go crazy when your covered in freckles and 20% of them are activly trying to kill you. What will keep me from begging my dermatoligist from cutting them all off? I have taken good photos of each one before biopsy and made a 8×10 of all the ones that were severe or insitu, and i keep it handy, but they look nearly identical to so many freckles that i have all over my body that it is disconserting. any body that finds an article or success story please share it, i have spent hours reading and i can not find one. Thanks 

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  • Replies
      • January 15, 2019 at 4:31 pm
      rinzula83
      Participant

      BTW I am 3 months in, have had 4 excisional surgeries and 11 biopsies so far of which 5 were moderate to insitu. I have seen 3 dermatoligists, all of which look around at me and say, "everything is normal looking." But thankfully I convinced the last one to biopsy anyway just for my peace of mind and they just keep coming back with excision reccomendations one after the other even after the derma said oh it looks fine… If the dermatoligist is not on my side who is?

        • January 15, 2019 at 11:03 pm
        Summer S.
        Participant

        Hello dear, 

        I am still trying to find an answer to a similar question- how to early-detect new melanomas/malegnancies.

         

        i feel you, and I know how many miles can drive a person crazy – my mom has plenty of moles, and she is on a targeted therapy that unfortunately often causes them to turn into malegnancies- it is driving me crazy too. 

         

        I have ave been researching it as well, and I know by now it is not a super easy question to answer and I do not see a clear-cut guidelines towards solving it so far. 

         

        However, I am still searching and checking with new doctors, meanwhile here is what I do: 

        In addition to my mom’s self checking her body, I and my two sisters, dermatologist and oncologist do so as well looking for any thing suspicious-documenting measures and photos- more people means higher probability to detect malignancies I guess. 

        Also, After a little while, hopefully you will start seeing a pattern, remembering your good moles and bad ones, and it will become easier and more comfortable to identify which is which. 

         

        Good Luck, 

        you are absolutely on the right track- keep fighting and keep finding those little creepy moles 

        • January 16, 2019 at 3:34 am
        rinzula83
        Participant

        thank you, it is tough they all look like freckles. hopefully they can figure out a skin scanner or something soon I would be down for that 🙂

      • January 16, 2019 at 8:08 pm
      Hukill
      Participant

      Nit kidding, I have 1000s of freckles and many look suspicious. I received 5 combo ipi/nivo and 52 nivo with my last one in 08/2018. One of my side effects is vitiligo in which I am happy because research shows those who develope vitiligo have better odds of melanoma not coming back. Between the 1000s of freckles and the vitiligo I am an artwork of colors or camofloge. I could lay in a pile of dead leaves naked and nobody would ever notice, ha ha ha. I am odd because I am braf negative and I know my melanoma was caused by exposure to oxidizing radiation and not sun exposure. So i keep an eye on my freckles but I don't worry about them.

        • January 16, 2019 at 8:40 pm
        QuietPoet
        Participant

        This is a tough one. Whole body photography is the best way. Some melanoma centers (such as at UCSF and Stanford) have whole body photography in their melanoma clinics. Some doctors are working on AI to work with this because this is one of those areas where computers can do a way better job than humans. MoleScope, which is an app you can buy for your phone, also has a whole body function so you can more easily look for change. In my own experience, looking for change is the key, but even that can be challenging with thousands of freckles!

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