Caring for the Skin You're In

As the body's largest organ, your skin serves you in a number of ways. It aids in sensory perception, protects you from injuries and dehydration, assists in temperature maintenance, and removes toxic wastes. Tough, durable...your skin nevertheless needs care and protection.

Knowing how to best care for your skin can be confusing, with the vast array of products and services on the market. What can we do to prevent and stall the skin damage that causes wrinkles, laugh lines, age spots, and other bothersome blemishes? How much sun screen is enough? What are the risks of too much sun? What about Botox as a means of erasing age lines? How should we talk to our kids about skin piercing? What are the risks of tattoos, and how difficult is it to remove them?

Join host Steve Becker and a panel of experts as they field your questions about the care of your skin, going beyond the surface on this subject of our outermost selves. Guest panelists include dermatologists Dr. Andrea Dominey of North Idaho Dermatology, Dr. Staci Ward from Advanced Dermatology and Skin Surgery, and Dr. Benjamin Hsu from Northwest Dermatology.

Listed below are skin tips:

• In the US population at large, men have a 40.9% greater chance of developing melanoma than women.
  

• One in 5 Americans will get skin cancer in the course of a lifetime.
  

• One person dies every hour from skin cancer, primarily melanoma.
  

• The incidence of melanoma is increasing rapidly in women under the age of 40. It is now the most common cancer in young women aged 25-29, and second only to breast cancer in women aged 30-34.
  

• One in four persons who develop skin cancer is under the age of 40.
  

• Almost 37 percent of white female adolescents and over 11 percent of white male adolescents between 13 and 19 years of age in the U.S. have used tanning booths.
  

• Avoid unnecessary sun exposure, especially between 10:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m., the peak hours for harmful ultraviolet (UV) radiation.
  

• Melanoma skin cancers have high cure rates - as high as 95 percent if detected and treated early. The key is to watch for signs and to detect the cancer in its early stages.
  

• The death rate from melanoma in the US has increased by about 4% a year since 1973, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
  

• Unsterile tattooing and piercing equipment and needles can spread serious infection, hepatitis, tetanus, or possibly even HIV.
  

• Blood donations cannot be made for a year after getting a tattoo, body piercing, or permanent makeup.
  

• Botox® is a popular non-surgical injection that temporarily reduces or eliminates frown lines, forehead creases, crow’s feet near the eyes and thick bands in the neck.
  

• Studies have also suggested that Botox® is effective in relieving migraine headaches, excessive sweating and muscle spasms in the neck and eyes.
  

• A million people have been treated with Botox® Cosmetic since FDA approval in 2002.
  

• Skin is the largest organ in the human body.

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