Las Vegas, NV | How to Protect Your Skin | Plastic Surgery Vegas

Speaker 1: Increasing temps, something to think about, especially because May is Skin Cancer Awareness Month. Did you know that melanoma cases continue to rise in this country?

Speaker 2: Yeah. It's a big problem. New 3's Denise Rosch takes a look at new technology that reveals the invisible damage on your face.

Denise Rosch: It's the way summers are supposed to be in Las Vegas: kids escaping the heat at a neighborhood park. But see it from the perspective of a cancer survivor.

Shelley B.: Oh, they didn't put any sunscreen on that little baby.

Denise Rosch: And that fun in the sun comes with a warning. Meet Shelley Ballesteros, a three-time skin cancer survivor.

Shelley B.: I would love to have them walk through a day with me because the aftereffects of having cancer have just been the worst. I have something called lymphedema and that's from having my lymph nodes removed. Everything on this side of my body is swollen.

Denise Rosch: Is even just a little bit of color on your skin from the sun damage?

Goesel Anson: Yes. Coloration of the skin means damage. No question about it.

Denise Rosch: Local plastic surgeon, Dr. Goesel Anson.

Goesel Anson: Use a bronzer. Use a fake tan. Use something else if you have to have the color. But there's no excuse for tanning.

Denise Rosch: Now the evidence is disturbingly clear. With the help of 3D imaging, Dr. Anson is able to show a patient what lies just below the surface of the skin, what the world sees.

Goesel Anson: Her skin looks pretty good, doesn't it?

Denise Rosch: Right.

Denise Rosch: And what the machine picks up.

Goesel Anson: That's her brown. That's her sun damage.

Denise Rosch: Dr. Anson says, unfortunately, sun damage is cumulative. Even if you gave up sunbathing 30 years ago, those burns you got at age 14 or 15 years old will come back to haunt you. The key now, not to let it get any worse.

Denise Rosch: What that means, a skincare program that must include a broad spectrum sunscreen with an SPF of at least 30. Aside from a cancer threat, too much sun, she says leads to premature aging.

Goesel Anson: Aside from brown spots and red spots and blemishes like that, you are making your skin less elastic. It affects the collagen and the elastin in the skin.

Denise Rosch: Back at the park.

Shelley B.: I have melanoma on my arm and basal cell once here and then once on my upper arm.

Denise Rosch: Shelley grew up as a Las Vegas lifeguard. Now her days by the water mean finding the closest shade. Denise Rosch, News 3.