A student who used to use sunbeds a "handful of times" to keep her holiday glow from fading has been handed a devastating diagnosis.
Lauren McLean used sunbeds just six times after arriving back from her holiday in Greece in 2020 and would always use sun cream when in the sun during summer or on holiday. But in November last year, while in bed on her phone, the 21-year-old looked down and spotted three freckles on the back of her hip.
The freckles were "odd-looking" with the business student not thinking much of them. She thought it was "probably nothing" but after the discovery played on her mind she decided to visit the doctor who eventually diagnosed her with 1A melanoma in January this year.
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Lauren, from Glasgow, has now had the cancerous freckle removed and is sharing her story to urge people to avoid sunbeds. She said: "I went on holiday to Greece in 2020 and when I came back I thought 'oh, I'm going to keep my tan up' and I went for a few sunbeds, maybe five or six times.
"I still couldn't believe it because I know some people that go on sunbeds religiously, maybe two or three times a week. Then you think 'how unlucky am I to have got that after going a couple of times?'
"I know so many people that use sunbeds. Most of my friends do, you go on them and think 'that will never happen to me, I'm too young' and see people getting skin cancer when they're like my gran's age.
"You don't really think that it will happen to you. We've always gone on family holidays and my mum's a big advocate for sun cream so I did use it but I was always reluctant to, but now I'll definitely be using it all the time."
The supermarket assistant said the freckles went up her hip vertically and the one that turned out to be cancerous was the one in the middle and was around 3mm. The student only decided to go to the doctors after speaking to her mum, Sharon McLean, 53, who agreed that it looked unusual and told her to ring the GP.
Lauren said: "I was lying on my side on my bed looking at my phone with my knees up and noticed three freckles. They were in a line going down. I looked at the one in the middle and thought it looked a wee bit funny.
"It didn't look the same as the other two as it had two wee black dots in the middle. It looked kind of odd but it was really tiny so I was thinking 'well, it must not be anything' because it was so little.
"I definitely found it by chance, you wouldn't really notice it if I was sitting normally. The dermatologist said that if it was any further back then I probably wouldn't have noticed it by myself at all.
"I thought about it for a couple of days and it kept playing on my mind. I phoned the GP to see what they thought about it because if it was nothing then it's nothing but I didn't really want to leave it."
Lauren was referred to a dermatologist who removed the freckle and took a biopsy, with her now being left with a 3cm scar on her hip after the operation. She returned to see the doctor in January who confirmed it was cancer.
Following the diagnosis, they later performed a wide local excision on the surrounding area in February. Now, Lauren will return every three months for a year for check-ups but claims doctors said they're confident that all the melanoma has now been removed.
Lauren said: "When I got the phone call to ask me to come back in I was just panicked. When she said it was melanoma, it was quite scary. My mother and I just burst into tears.
"Once she explained it, it didn't seem as bad as what it could have been because it was in the very early stages."
Now Lauren is urging people to ditch the sunbeds and get any unusual symptoms checked out. She said: "From now on I'll definitely be getting my tan through a bottle, that's the safest and cheapest option
"If anyone does have anything on their skin and they think 'oh, it looks a wee bit funny but it's probably nothing' still get it checked out because that's what I thought. Even the GP was like 'it looks like nothing but we'll get it checked out anyway'.
"If I'd have left it I would have hated to see what would have happened, so I just urge everybody to get it checked, to wear suncream and to stay away from the sunbeds."
