Safety Check! Make Sure You're Looking Right

When you're checking your skin, there are a variety of things you want to look for. Number one is things that are changing. You know your body. You know what's normal for you. If you see a spot that looks different or stands out against

the background of the other spots that you have, that should ring a bell for you so that you know to bring that to the attention of your dermatologist. So let's talk about how we can do a self-exam. I generally recommend standing in front of a mirror

so you can see areas that are hard to see without a mirror. I like to start with the scalp. So if you can hold a hand-mirror like this and hold it up, you can actually part your scalp into different-- or part your hair and look into your scalp and see if there are any moles.

It's also easy to ask your hairdresser to look in your scalp when you're getting your hair done. So go ahead and start looking at your face. Look at your eyes. Open your mouth, and look in your mouth. Go ahead and look at your neck,

and then you can usually start to see your own chest without the mirror. So start by looking at the upper chest, lower chest. Go ahead to the arms, all the way from the fingertips, between the fingers, your palms, and up to your shoulders. Both arms. Then you're going to want to look at your back.

So you can either stand in front of a mirror and look behind you, or you can hold this up and look behind you in the mirror. So you want to start to look at the back of your neck. So you lift your hair up, and you're going to look all the way down

from the top to the bottom. Then go down to your legs. Start from the top all the way down, and people don't often remember look between their toes. So we definitely recommend looking between the toes, the bottom of the feet. On both sides.

Turn around. Look in the mirror. Look behind you so that you can see the backs of your legs. All the way from the back of you to the very bottom. And that sums up a self skin check