Personally, sagging skin can be fixed. This would be the least of my tanning bed concerns. And while "everything gives you cancer" according to one poster, I would rather avoid doing those obvious things that are risk factors for skin cancer. While most skin cancers are curable, melanomas frighten the @#%$ out of me. Please read the following articles while making your decision:
http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/fea...g_beds_li.html
http://www.thesmartfoundation.ca/def...px?PageID=1003
Survival Rates by Stage
As found at
http://www.cancer.org/docroot/cri/co...staged_50.asp:
Survival Rates by Stage
The 5-year survival rate refers to the percentage of patients who live at least 5 years after their cancer is diagnosed. Many of these patients live much longer than 5 years after diagnosis. Five-year rates are used to produce a standard way of discussing prognosis.
As found at
http://www.cancer.org/docroot/cri/co...staged_50.asp:
The following survival rates are based on the initial clinical stage of the disease.
Stage 0: The 5-year relative survival rate is 97%.
Stage I: The 5-year survival rate is between 90 and 95%. The 10-year survival is around 80%.
Stage IIA: The 5-year survival rate is around 78%. The 10-year survival is around 64%.
Stage IIB: The 5-year survival rate is around 63 to 67%. The 10-year survival rate is between 51 and 54%
Stage IIC: The 5-year survival rate is around 45%. The 10-year survival is 32%
Stage IIIA: The 5-year survival rate is around 63%-70%. The 10-year survival is 57%-63%
Stage IIIB: The 5-year survival rate is around 46%-53%. The 10-year survival is around 38%
Stage IIIC: The 5-year survival rate is around 28%. The 10-year survival is 15%-25%
(Note: A recent study of survival rates in patients diagnosed more recently found that they were higher by around 5% to 10% in the stage II and III patients than the numbers given here. But the study did not break the stages into A, B and C, so there are no specific figures for each of these substages.)
Stage IV: The 5-year survival rate for stage IV melanoma is about 18%. The 10-year survival is 14%. It is higher if the spread is to skin or distant lymph nodes. Other risk factors for survival: Another factor that affects survival is age. Stage for stage, older people have shorter survivals. The biggest drop begins at age 70. Recent reports also show that when melanoma occurs in African Americans, although uncommon, survival is shorter than when it occurs in whites. Finally, there have been some studies that show melanoma is more serious if it occurs on a foot, palm, or nail bed. People with HIV infection and melanoma also are a greater risk of dying of their melanoma.
A beautiful friend of mine who went regularly to tanning beds for a "nice glow" was diagnosed with melanoma, had to have a hugely disfiguring surgery, and died 3 years later. She was 28 years old. I often wonder how the use of tanning beds affected her.
Best of luck with your decision.