GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. - It's time to check your skin! Summer is coming and you want to see what damage you may already have before you hit the beach.
It's important to catch skin cancer early. Think it won’t happen to you? Think again.
Getting sunburned just once every two years can triple your risk of getting melanoma!
If you've had five or more blistering sunburns between ages 15 and 20, you have an 80 percent increased chance!
When you continue to severely burn your skin, you change the DNA of your skin cells -- meaning they start to mutate and become cancerous decades before you know you have skin cancer.
Melanoma is the deadliest skin cancer because it often displays itself like a tiny little dot on the surface but it is what's going on down below that makes it so deadly.
Melanoma starts deep and often sprawls out deep below the surface of your skin and can even reach your lymph nodes and other organs.
New research is showing that if you catch Melanoma at stage one, you have a better survival rate -- almost 99 percent -- compared to later stages which can go as low as a 20 percent survival rate.
So, make sure you get yearly skin checks and wear your sunscreen, so you can frolic on the beach for years to come!
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