Learning which risk factors apply to you opens the melanoma sequence, before you study individual moles. It comes ahead of the ABCDE rule because your risk sets how closely you look.
What to gather about yourself
Write down your own skin history in plain terms: how your skin responds to sun, what checks you have had before, and what relatives have mentioned about their skin. Keep the skin cancer pictures page open as a visual reference while you write. Whether your clinic is in Merced, where this site is based, or elsewhere in Madera County, you can take the same page along and point at what you mean.
What the American Cancer Society says about skin tone
The American Cancer Society states that the risk of melanoma is much higher for people with lighter skin tones than for people with darker skin tones. Read that as a starting point for the conversation, not a verdict about any one person.
Where the published list ends and the visit begins
A published risk statement names groups. The part that varies is how a practitioner places you within them, so mark the lines on your history sheet that you want them to weigh. Official wording stays the same from page to page. The clinician's reading of your history is what you are there for.
Turning from your risk to the spots themselves
Next is the guide to the ABCDE rule for moles, which moves your attention to the spots. The American Academy of Dermatology's ABCDEs of melanoma is the page to read alongside it. Put your history on a single sheet for the mole check.