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Will what I did in the past come back to bite me later?
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In the past year or two, I started being more religious about sunscreen after I noticed the first signs of sun damage. For years, I've used it at the beach, but I wasn't good about using it daily the way I am now. I had always understood that sun damage doesn't show up right away. So my question is if I protect myself from here on out, will I continue to see new damage appear from the earlier unprotected exposure?
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It probably depends on how much sun damaged you got. Right now, my face is burning read and so is my chest ( from my bathing suit having a low cut) and my mom keeps telling me I might get skin cancer. I was at a waterpark today with my camp
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Sarahf, my understanding is, probably, but the more you protect yourself the less you will see. So you might see some, but it could be a lot worse if you continued to not use sunscreen. But that's just my guess, I don't know for sure. Maybe try some of those lovely antioxidant creams (or eat a ton of berries, yum)?
Beautycutie, burns do increase your risk of skin cancer, but I don't think one or two burns will guarantee it by any means. All you can do is apply sunscreen frequently and use protective clothing when possible (make sure to use aloe vera gel after you get burned!). I found myself a fab hat for going to the farmer's market -- it is pretty big and made out of natural fibers (sea grass? Straw? Something like that)-- it looks great with a sundress! Just a matter of incorporating safe sun habits into your style. Also, keep an eye on all of your freckles and moles, and if they look weird or change a lot go to the derm (I'm sure you know that though, hehe). There is really no use worrying about the burn you already have, though, but you can try to prevent future sun damage. -
Another thing to note: if you mess up and get sunburned take an anti-inflammatory such as ibuprofen. It will lessen the severity of the burn.
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Yeah, beautycutie, try to avoid getting burned in the future but don't sweat it about what's already done. Most people (especially fair skinned people) do get burned at times in their lives. I'm not very fair but I've gotten mild sunburns here and there during the course of my life. Actually, I think it's because I always tanned easily that I didn't protect myself as well as I could have (I cringe about the days in my teens and early 20's when I would tell people I didn't need anything or that I didn't want to use more than an spf 4 or 8 because I wasn't fair). That, and there wasn't as much emphasis on daily protection when I was younger, it was seen as something you just used at the beach or skiing.
As I've mentioned, what really seemed to bring out the sun damage (on driver's side of my face and neck) was when I started that long commute and got all that UVA exposure through the car glass. That's what got me to put it on every day. In addition to skin cancer worries, I'm also kind of freaking out about aging (not so gracefully). The drirver's side of my face has some subtle texture changes in addition to the melasma, and I'm kind of being a hypochondriac---convincing myself the texture is looking worse. Oh well, if I get really vain a decade down the line, there's always laser resurfacing...and when I was younger, I always said I wouldn't even color my gray lol.
I am using a retinol product every other day. We'll see. -
We have a window tinting place by us that does full spectrum UV tinting (and is recommended by all the car places) -- they have some pretty light tints if you didn't want your windows darkened. I think our estimate was $200 or so for our entire jeep cherokee. Is that something you have considered? It takes some time to find a place that won't give you tacky looking tints, but it may be worth it. We're definitely going to do this to our new car (when we get one) since we live in FL (Hello UV!). The Jeep is on its last leg...not really worth it now.
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The window tint that blocks UV is actually recommended for skin cancer patients. Just be absolutely SURE they check the amount of built in tint already in your car windows if your state has legal limits for tints in windows! If they do not take the amount of tint the window already has in it and subtract that to get to the maximum allowed you can easily go over. Where I live if you go over you get a summons to court and the only way the judge lets you off without paying the ticket is if you scraped the tint off. (We bought the car with the tint already done and did not think to have it checked. A state trooper checked it during a traffic check. It was to dark for the max allowed in our state so off it came.) Our state laws do now include factory tinted windows, just the aftermarket tint.
@ disablingmercury - love Jeeps! :-) -
I've been meaning to check on that. The sun damage I got was when I had a 1993 car. The newer car has glass that lists something like "UV temper lite" on it. I've been meaning to check what that is and if it blocks UV. The problem is, my new car turned out to be horribly uncomfortable for me to drive, so I'm actually planning to bite the bullet and trade it. Once I have a car I'm going to stick with, I'd definitely consider shelling out for UV glass as long as it was not very dark.
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Sarahf, the stuff I saw came in fairly light colors. It is definitely darker than plain glass, but not too dark by any means.
Lindygirl - Yeah...it eats gas though. It is the only reason we won't be getting another one. Just not practical for city driving. =( -
They certainly are not practical when it comes to gas mileage but when it snows in the winter where we live the Jeep goes when nothing else is moving! :-)
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Good point! When we lived up north it was great. Now we live in FL...if it snows here, something awful has happened to the planet, hahaha.
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True, true! From the comments some folks who live there have made to me in conversations it got pretty cold there last winter though! We actually followed a Ford F-250 four wheel drive pickup truck (with a lift package to make it even taller and bigger) with Florida plates into a parking lot in our tiny little town a couple of days ago. I suspect that unless the owner just likes to go off road the four wheel drive on that truck doesn't get used all that much!
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Omg it did. We live near the water which makes it a good 5-10 degrees cooler than it is a few miles inland -- which is nice in the summer, but it was just downright cold last winter! There are some farms here and a lot of people have boats so that truck could possibly be useful for someone. But that lift package makes me doubt it, lol. I really don't understand the appeal of needing a ladder to get into your vehicle, but whatever. =)
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I didn't see the driver but would have been willing to bet (I only bet on sure things) that the driver was a 1. a guy and 2. short in stature. That always seems to be the case here. The bigger the truck the shorter the guy driving it will be. When the gals drive trucks here their trucks tend to be just really nice trucks, but never one you need a ladder to get into. Or maybe that just holds true out here in the country where we live?
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