One of the things I have never done in my life is see a dermatologist. I know lots of teenagers go to one for the standard teenage acne stuff, but I just saw my pediatrician or GP for all of that. And as I age I am more concerned about wrinkles and skin cancer than acne. But not exclusively.
So I made my appointment, waited in the waiting room for AN HOUR, and finally had my turn to be examined. And in the end, I kind of felt like I had wasted my time and money. Here's what I came away with:
- I need to wash my face morning and night. Duh. I knew that (but still don't do it).
- Wear sunscreen. Um, yes, especially in Arizona. I did find out my daily 15 spf should be higher.
- Use good lotion/moisturizer EVERY time after you wash your hands. Apparently it's worth the effort and the excema problems on my fingers (under my rings) will probably be fixed by this.
And that's it. I found out that so much of what we fight is genetic & unless you want to drop money on cosmetic work (I might) then there's not much you can do about it. But I am hoping to do better at the above three things - wish me luck - and I think the most important thing I did was get an entire body inspection for skin cancer. Which is a bit embarassing/uncomfortable but so important. That was worth the money by itself. Have you ever done this? I hear stories of people getting skin cancer in strange places and not noticing and I wanted a good baseline to start judging by. So I guess I will plan to get checked regularly now that I am middle-aged. Maybe every 3-4 years? What do you think? Do any of you go regularly? How often? Or are all my five remaining readers still in their twenties? You babies!
Also, what are your favorite products for face wash, daily moisturizer (with high spf), hand lotion, and eye cream? My dermatologist recommends Neutrogena.
