‘But I don’t even use sunbeds that often!’ I told the nurse. I’d just been diagnosed with Stage 3 Melanoma – an aggressive type of skin cancer – and told my love of tanning was to blame. It was a huge shock.
I honestly had no idea they were dangerous. You see warnings on cigarette packets , and photos of people with lung cancer , but you never see a picture of a person with skin cancer in a tanning shop. I didn’t even think of myself as an excessive user.
I might have gone two or three times a week before a holiday or night out. But then I wouldn’t go again for months. ‘That’s still a form of sunbed abuse,’ the nurse told me.
She likened it to binge drinking – avoiding booze all week and then getting drunk on a Saturday night. I was only 16 when I went on a sunbed for the first time. Everyone I knew did it – my mum, aunts, cousins and friends.
My mum was going to the tanning shop and asked if I wanted to go with her. I had a three-minute tan that first time and afterwards I felt great – like I was glowing. I found out later that it’s actually illegal for tanning shops, beauty salons and other commercial premises in the UK to allow anyone under 18 to use a sunbed, but no one ever asked my age.
But I was hooked. I started tanning regularly . I’m very pale, with a lot of moles, so I felt like it gave my skin a base colour.
Everyone around me was doing it. On the weekends, my friends and I would make a trip to our local salon. I rarely went alone �.
