A Scots student who jumped on sunbeds a 'handful of times' to stop her holiday glow from fading has been left horrified following a heart breaking skin cancer diagnosis.
Lauren McLean only used sunbeds six times after returning from holiday to Greece back in 2020 and would always wear sun cream during the summer months and when abroad.
But in November, while lying on her bed and scrolling through her phone, the 21-year-old glanced down and spotted three freckles on the back of her hip.
The business student from Glasgow noticed one was 'odd-looking' with two black dots at its centre.
Although she suspected it was 'probably nothing', the discovery played on her mind and after visiting the doctor Lauren was eventually diagnosed with stage 1A melanoma earlier this year.
Now Lauren has had the cancerous freckle removed, she's sharing her story to urge tan fans to ditch the sunbeds and get any unusual marks checked out.
Lauren 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 checkout assistant said the freckles she noticed went up her hip vertically - and the one that turned out to be cancerous was around 3mm and situated in the middle.
The university student said that after spotting the freckle she went to speak to her mum, 53-year-old Sharon McLean, who agreed it looked unusual and advised 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 then referred to a dermatologist in December who removed the freckle and took a biopsy, and she was left with a 3cm scar on her hip from the procedure.
She returned to the doctors the following month and it was then she received her skin cancer diagnosis.
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.
Lauren 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."
