In June, sunburned, peeled, immediately burned again. Now skin has a mottled brown/white pattern.?

Question

Just wondering if I should be concerned about skin cancer. I looked up skin cancer on Wikipedia and it doesn't look like any of those pictures, but still doesn't look like anything I've ever seen before. The skin is smooth and not raised...but color-wise it looks like a pile of brown and white confetti.

I'm 32, caucasian, the affected area was my left shoulder, and I have gotten occasional sunburns there in previous years.

Answer 1

You should always be concerned about skin cancer when you spend time in the sun.  It takes YEARS after the damage occurred to develop, so, any damage you got in June is not going to be cancer now.  (But damage you got 10 years ago COULD be cancer now).  ANY sunburn, or even a sun tan, is damage to the melanin cells in your skin.  The mottled thing you described often occurs in the summer after repeated damage/peeling/damage/peeling process.  There is nothing you can do except to prevent the process from occurring again.  You will find in the winter when you are covered up well outside and are no longer exposing your shoulder to the sun, that over the months, the mottled pattern will fade and will be better in time for you to do it all over again next summer.

Answer 2

I have slightly discolored skin from burning when I was younger but it's not as discolored as yours sounds. I see a dermatologist every 6 months and she's never said anything to me about it. It may just be your skin healing, has there been any improvement since June?

Answer 3

once upon a time, when I was about 17, I got SO sunburned on my nose that the skin didn't peel off, it came off in hard chunks. (it was gross) anyway, eventually when it stopped doing that, the skin on my nose looked like yours sounds now, but then a few months later the skin evened out and healed and there's no discoloration.

You probably just tanned unevenly because the skin was still healing when you went back out in the sun.

Be more careful when you go outside in the sun. :)  As a Caucasian, you do need about 5-10 minutes of unprotected sun every day for Vitamin D (it helps your body use calcium and prevents osteoperosis and a bunch of other things) But the rest of the time, you should use sunscreen or limit your sun-time.

BTW, people with darker skin tones need longer in the sun to generate the Vitamin D they need for this.