This Irish Mum Is Sharing Graphic Images As A Warning About The Dangers Of Tanning

A 45-year-old mother from Lucan, Margaret Murphy, is on a mission to highlight the extreme dangers of tanning beds and not protecting your skin from harmful sun rays.

She is currently on a 28-day course of a painful Efudix treatment after she was diagnosed with Actinic Keratosis in December, pre-cancerous cells which were caused by overexposure to the sun.

Margaret has created a Facebook page, Mag's Murphys Journey, to share daily posts of her treatment in the hope she can warn young Irish girls to take more care of their skin in the sun.

Mags says on the page that "I've spent over a decade living in Crete tanning myself to 'look good'... Unfortunately all this lovely tanning has a price to pay cause now I have PRE cancerous cells on my face and have started treatment to remove them, I've to use a cream that's going to burn them out,apparently it's quite painful and gruesome as the weeks go on but on the good side it should get rid of the cells".

Mags started off with "visible marks on her forehead", as seen on the left image above, however she wasn't concerned about them as she could cover them with her hair. One doctor even told her that it was only psoriasis, a non life-threatening skin condition. It was only in the last three-four years that the marks became "crusty and wouldn't go away", and Mags was diagnosed properly.

As her treatment continues, her posts on her page are being shared around the world. 

On day 18 of her treatment, Mags posted that "face very dry still some sort of scabbing is occurring, feels like I've had too much botox all over, it's a job to even eat cause can't stretch my mouth". 

For more information on how you can reduce your risk of skin cancer, see Cancer.ie.

All images: Mag's Murphys Journey/Facebook