Atomic Kitten star Natasha Hamilton, 42, mistook skin cancer for mosquito bite
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Natasha Hamilton has admitted she initially dismissed skin cancer as a mosquito bite.
The 42-year-old Atomic Kitten singer, who recently revealed she was diagnosed with skin cancer last year, recalled getting an itch on her back after soaking up the sun on holiday in Majorca.
She assumed she had simply been bitten by a mosquito, but eventually asked her husband to take a look after it didn't go away.
Natasha went to get medical advice and got her diagnosis, before having aBasal-cell carcinoma removed.
The Whole Again singer, who is now 'cancer-free', told Good Morning Britain on Friday: 'I'd been on holiday, and I wasn't actually in the sun a lot because my baby was only about five months old and I was breast feeding.
'One afternoon, I had her on my lap and my back was in the sun, and it burnt. I don't know whether it was later that day or the next day, I had an itchy spot on my back.
'I just thought it was a mosquito bite, didn't think anything of it, I felt it and went, 'Oh, mosquito bite!' It wasn't until maybe four weeks later when I was at home and it was itching, and I was like, 'Hang on a minute, that seems a bit long for a mosquito bite.' '
Common symptoms of skin cancer include a sore or area of skin that: Doesn't heal within 4 weeks
Looks unusual
Hurts, is itchy, bleeds, crusts or scabs for more than four weeks
Keep an eye out for changes in moles, ulcers and freckles, and report new lumps or red patches of skin to your doctor.
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The main treatment for skin cancer is surgery and the good news is, it's unusually minor with a high survival rate. But like all cancers, early detection is key. More invasive treatments including radiotherapy and chemotherapy might be needed depending on the type of cancer and if it has spread.
She asked her husband to look and take a photo, and Natasha immediately realised the mole wasn't what she'd thought.
'When I looked at it I went, OK, I think I know what that is,' she said. 'Originally, it had just been a dark freckle that I've had on my back for many years. It wasn't raised, it wasn't a mole, it was just a freckle.'
Although it's not been confirmed, Natasha thinks the skin cancer may have stemmed from her using sunbeds a lot in the 1990s.
'I have burnt my back so much over the years, and I used sunbeds when I was younger, you know, back in the 90s,' she told Scott McGlynn's Celebrity Skin Talk.
'It was like everyone used a sunbed before you went on your night out on a Saturday, and the repercussions of that is now I have to be super vigilant in the sun, like I need to have my high factors on.'
And although she's now cancer-free and feeling 'fine', she admitted the health scare has given her pause for thought. More Trending
'It was found, it was cut away and, yeah, we move on. But it was a, kind of, 'Oh, I'm not invincible' moment,' she said.
'These things do happen to you sometimes, and you've just got to look after yourself.'
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Good Morning Britain airs weekdays at 6am on ITV1.
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MORE: Atomic Kitten singer Liz McClarnon, 44, pregnant with first child after two miscarriages
MORE: Atomic Kitten's Natasha Hamilton 'horrified' after family members narrowly avoid Liverpool parade car crash
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