Background

I'm currently 59 years old. Over the past 15 years I've had three basal cell carcinomas (BCCs) and three squamous cell carcinomas (SCCs) removed from various places on my face, leg, arm, and shoulder. About 10-15 years ago I used Efudex on my scalp to remove actinic keratoses (AKs) that result from sun damage and are considered pre-cancerous with a small probability of turning into SCC.

When I recently had a red scaly patch removed from my arm that turned out to be SCC, I noted that it had looked very similar to the red scaly patch that was developing on my left cheek over the past year or two. And since getting a patch cut out of my cheek sounded much less pleasant than a patch out of my arm, I asked my dermatologist if another round of Efudex might be worthwhile. She gave me a prescription and originally suggested putting it just on my scalp and left cheek. But I decided to use it on my entire face and scalp, as well as on an AK on my ear. After all, the right cheek has been exposed to the same amount of sun as the left one. And one of the neat things about Efudex is that it only "lights up" sun-damaged skin. So it seemed a waste not to determine (and fix)  the whole pattern of sun damage on my face.

I can't really remember much about my last experience with Efudex except for people staring at the red blotches on my scalp. I don't remember it being especially painful and my dermatologist says that it shouldn't hurt. But every other blog I've seen talks about it hurting alot. So we'll see what happens this time. Hopefully, adding my experience with Efudex to the others that have been published will help other people know what to expect.