May is Melanoma Awareness Month

Submitted by Leigh Marquess, RN, Director for Wellness Promotions at the Caroline County Health Department.

This is a challenging time with the COVID-19 virus present in all our communities. With all our social distancing, we can still get outside and do many of our May activities including starting gardens and planting farmland, getting boats ready for summer crabbing and fishing, working on outside projects around the house, and playing with our kids in the yard or driveway. Don’t forget to take care of your skin when outside! Now and truly all year round, it is important to build safe sun habits into your family’s daily routine to prevent sun damage and potential skin cancer.

Skin cancer is the most common type of cancer with more cases diagnosed each year than all other cancers combined! There are three main types of skin cancer. Most are either (1) Basal cell or (2) Squamous cell carcinoma. These seldom become life threatening. (3) Melanoma is less common but a more serious cancer. It is responsible for more than 75% of skin cancer deaths. In Maryland, the highest melanoma rates are on the Eastern and Western shores of The Chesapeake Bay and Central Maryland counties. When diagnosed early, melanoma can be cured! It is also the most preventable type of cancer.

Everyone has some risk for developing skin cancer, some more than others. These include:

• Light skin that burns or freckles easily.
• Naturally light hair, blonde, red or light brown.
• Light colored eyes, blue, green or grey.
• Family history of skin cancer.
• A history of sunburns as a child. One or two blistering sunburns as a child doubles a person’s chance of developing melanoma later in life.
• Tanning bed use.

Dark-skinned people are more likely to get melanoma on palms of hands, soles of feet, nail beds and lips.

Recognize Melanoma. Know your ABCDEs!

A: Asymmetry. One half of a mole doesn’t look like the other.
B: Border. Irregular edges to a mole, not defined.
C: Color. Different colors appear in the same mole.
D: Diameter. The mole is larger then the end of a pencil eraser.
E: Elevated or Enlarged. Other warning signs may be a sore that doesn’t heal, a spread of color from the border into neighboring skin, a change in sensation in a mole such as itchiness, tenderness or pain, oozing or bleeding from a mole, a brown or black spot underneath a nail.

How to protect your skin from the sun:

• Avoid direct sun when it is strongest, 10 AM – 4 PM.
• Encourage your children to play in the shade.
• Wear protective clothing such as a wide-brimmed hat, long sleeve shirt and UV protection sunglasses.
• Use 30 SPF UVA/UVB sunscreen. Keep an extra small bottle in your car, purse and kids backpack.
• Avoid tanning beds.
• Check your skin thoroughly once a month. Get to know your skin and your own pattern of moles, freckles and birthmarks. Have someone else check your back and scalp, places that may be hard for you to see.

Call your doctor if you find any new or changing skin growths. Taking these steps will significantly reduce your chances of developing skin cancer and enjoying a happy, sunburn-free summer!

The Caroline County Health Department Wellness Programs, funded in part through the Maryland Cigarette Restitution Fund, provide cancer screening programs (Breast and Cervical Cancer Screening, Colorectal Cancer Screening, Oral Cancer Screening), Tobacco Cessation/Prevention Programs, including Fax-To-Assist program through the Maryland Quit Line. For more information, call our office at 410-479-8080.

COVID-19: Connection to Smoking and Vaping

By Heather Grove, RN BSN

As COVID-19 cases began to intensify in mid-March it seems everyone has been affected in one way or another by the pandemic. According to an article from the National Institute on Drug Abuse published in early April, “Because it attacks the lungs, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 could be an especially serious threat to those who smoke tobacco or marijuana or who vape.” It is reasonable to be concerned that underlying lung problems, such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) or emphysema, could put people at risk for serious complications of COVID-19.

It is well known that smoking harms nearly every system in the body including the respiratory tract and the immune system. Health effects of vaping are not as well-known because vapes and e.cigarettes are relatively new devices and have a lot of variability. In general, all vaping devices contain a power source, usually a battery of some kind, liquid or “e-juice”, and a mouthpiece. When the device is activated, the liquid or e-juice inside is heated by the battery to the point of aerosolization, then the chemical particles inside that aerosol are inhaled through the mouthpiece by the person using the device.

Emerging research suggests that exposure to aerosols from e-cigarette and vaping products harms the cells inside the lungs and decreases the ability to respond to infection.

As we work through the muddy waters of the COVID-19 pandemic, we all want to continue to do things for prevention including frequent hand washing and social distancing but we also need to do everything we can to keep our lungs healthy.

According to the American Lung Association, “Quitting smoking and vaping can better equip your body to fight off this disease and reduce the chance of the most severe symptoms.”

It is more important now than ever, for everyone to stop using tobacco products, including e-cigarettes and vaping products to protect their health. Overcoming nicotine addiction is hard, even under normal circumstances and it may feel impossible now. In a time of uncertainty and stress, it is still possible to quit.

For some, this may actually be a good time to try to quit – we are all already adopting new routines, which is traditionally a big part of any quit plan. Challenge yourself to leave smoking/vaping out of your new routine. This is a good time to add in self-reflection, journaling, and maybe even meditation or deep breathing to help cope with stress.

For many, money is really tight right now. Kicking the habit or even cutting back will save money that can be used for essentials like food, rent or mortgage, and phone/internet services.

Maybe you have kids at home right now and are trying to tackle online learning? This could be a prime opportunity to engage them in your quit plan and/or educate them on saying no to all tobacco products. Talking to kids about prevention is encouraged as young as elementary school age. You will be surprised of what third graders already know.

It is possible you will learn that they have already experimented with some of the newer products. If that happens, this is a prime time to discuss their growth, development, goals and how becoming addicted to tobacco could really affect their life.

The other good news is you are not alone. If you are helping a child to quit or learn to say no or you are trying to quit yourself, there are many free resources available to help. Here are a few places you may want to look into:

1. Maryland Quitline – Phone and online-based cessation counseling available 24/7. Nicotine replacement products like patches and gum may be available through the mail at no cost. Call 1-800-QUIT-NOW or visitsmokingstopshere.com.
2. Become An EX and the EX Program – online-based cessation available 24/7; offers lots of community support. https://www.becomeanex.org/.
3. Truth Initiative – web-based non-profit with the goal of creating the first tobacco-free generation; offers plenty of resources to help parents talk to their kids.
4. Protect Kids: Fight Flavored E. Cigs – web based resources for parents visit http://fightflavoredecigs.org/resources-for-parents.

Resources:
truthinitiative.org/research-resources/quitting-smoking-vaping/covid-19-connection

www.lung.org/blog/smoking-and-covid19

Why Are Childhood Vaccines So Important?

Submitted By : La’Tara Brooks, Caroline County Health Department

It is always better to prevent a disease than to treat it after it occurs.

Diseases that used to be common in this country and around the world, including polio, measles, diphtheria, pertussis (whooping cough), rubella (German measles), mumps, tetanus, rotavirus and Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib) can now be prevented by vaccination. Thanks to a vaccine, one of the most terrible diseases in history, smallpox, no longer exists outside the laboratory. Over the years vaccines have prevented countless cases of disease and saved millions of lives.

Immunity Protects us From Disease

Immunity is the body’s way of preventing disease. Children are born with an immune system composed of cells, glands, organs, and fluids located throughout the body. The immune system recognizes germs that enter the body as “foreign invaders” (called antigens) and produces proteins called antibodies to fight them.

The first time a child is infected with a specific antigen (say measles virus), the immune system produces antibodies designed to fight it. This takes time . . . usually the immune system can’t work fast enough to prevent the antigen from causing disease, so the child still gets sick. However, the immune system “remembers” that antigen. If it ever enters the body again, even after many years, the immune system can produce antibodies fast enough to keep it from causing disease a second time. This protection is called immunity.
It would be nice if there were a way to give children immunity to a disease without their having to get sick first.

Facts:

• Vaccines contain the same antigens, or parts of antigens, that cause diseases. For example, measles vaccine contains measles virus. But the antigens in vaccines are either killed, or weakened to the point that they don’t cause disease. However, they are strong enough to make the immune system produce antibodies that lead to immunity. In other words, a vaccine is a safer substitute for a child’s first exposure to a disease. The child gets protection without having to get sick. Through vaccination, children can develop immunity without suffering from the actual diseases that vaccines prevent.

More Facts

• Newborn babies are immune to many diseases because they have antibodies they got from their mothers. However, this immunity goes away during the first year of life.
• If an unvaccinated child is exposed to a disease germ, the child’s body may not be strong enough to fight the disease. Before vaccines, many children died from diseases that vaccines now prevent, such as whooping cough, measles, and polio. Those same germs exist today, but because babies are protected by vaccines, we don’t see these diseases nearly as often.
• Immunizing individual children also helps to protect the health of our community, especially those people who cannot be immunized such as children who are too young to be vaccinated, those who can’t receive certain vaccines for medical reasons, and the small proportion of people who don’t respond to a particular vaccine.
• Vaccine-preventable diseases have a costly impact, resulting in doctor’s visits, hospitalizations, and premature deaths. Sick children can also cause parents to lose time from work.

Information provided by: The CDC