Summer sun has hidden dangers

FLORENCE — I am pale. Not peaches and cream like Nicole Kidman, either. I’m talking pasty white — without enough freckles to even make it cute — pale.

So I went to Heavenly Skin, a medical laser skin care center in Florence, to research sun damage for this story, thinking my skin would have very little sun damage.
Boy, was I ever wrong.

I found out that although I still have few wrinkles on my 30-year-old face, I do have plenty of sun damage under the surface.

Using the Visia Complexion Analysis system at Heavenly Skin, I was able to find out just how much sun damage my skin has received during the years.
And, let me say, it was frightening.

All my life, I have made it a point to wear high SPF (Sun Protection Factor) sunscreen religiously, since I burn so easily and my family has a history of skin cancer. But, apparently, I had been doing something wrong.

So I went in search of the best way to protect skin from the summer sun.

Susan Zavell, owner of Heavenly Skin, said not all sunscreens are created equal.

“You have to look for a sunscreen that has a higher amount zinc oxide in it,” Zavell said. “It is a physical barrier block for the sun rather than a chemical screen.”

The SPF number isn’t as accurate a gauge of protection as one might think because it only focuses on the UVB rays from the sun, Zavell said.

After the first facial scan, I applied a Coppertone SPF 30 Broad Spectrum sunscreen for the next one. We could see that some damaging rays could still get through.

Then I tried again with a zinc oxide-based formula that allows almost no UVA rays to reach my skin.

“Right now, it is perfectly legal to put broad spectrum on the bottle,” Zavell said. “People unknowingly go out and buy these sunscreens and they might not burn, but they are going to tan.”

And tanning is bad, as I found out. All those years in my late teens and early 20s when I hit the tanning beds to get a “base tan” so that I wouldn’t burn came back to bite me.

“The sun will, over time, break down the collagen and elastin support in your skin,” Zavell said. “It basically breaks down the structures in your skin. It leads to wrinkles and sagging.”

And one other, even worse, effect of sun exposure is the potential for skin cancer.

Dr. Carla Graham, a plastic surgeon at Carolina Facial Plastic Surgery, said she treats patients with a variety of sun damage, including cancer.

But she said many of her patients get confused about why it is sometimes called skin cancer and other times melanoma.

“There is skin carcinoma, those are the basal cells and the squamous cells,” Graham said. “Basal is the most common. It is the least aggressive, but the most common.”

On the other hand, Graham said, melanoma, while less common, is much more aggressive and deadly.

She said her best advice would be to use plenty of sunscreen and apply it often on a year-round basis for the best protection against sun damage.

And that’s a lesson I’ll remember for a long time to come.