A former sunbed user has warned of their dangers after she spent 15 years battling two bouts of skin cancer. Caroline Madden, 58, cautioned those tempted by tanning booths about the risks posed by exposure to UV rays following her “horrific” health woes. The mum-of-two spent her late teens and twenties getting monthly top-ups on the artificial light machines without knowing that they could be harmful.
But in 2009, she began lengthy treatment for skin cancer after doctors inspected a mole on her ankle and found it was a stage three malignant melanoma. Caroline was diagnosed with the same health issue again in 2018 after the disease - which can spread around the body - was discovered in her pelvis. She has urged others to be careful about abusing them.
Caroline said: “The big thing about malignant melanomas is that people don’t take them seriously. You do get the same thing all the time - ‘It’s only skin cancer, it’ll be fine, it will just be cut out’. “Everyone who smokes thinks they’re going to be the one who doesn’t get lung cancer, and it’s the same with any sort of sunburn or sunbed use.
There will be lots of people who never get anything, but it should be taken seriously, but nobody does. “Nowadays you have amazing false tans..
. It’s like, 'Why are you going on a sunbed?'" Caroline, a personal assistant from Welton, East Yorks, started using sunbeds at the age of 17 when they were put in her local health club. She embraced the technology - wher.