We’ve all heard of a trucker’s tan – the dark, damaged skin most truck drivers get from hours and hours of driving with the sun blaring down on them.
Now a 69-year-old truck driver has shared what 28 years of driving in the sun really does to your skin.
The truck driver’s case was first presented in The New England Journal of Medicine in 2012. It has since been shared on Imgur and Reddit.
A photo of the man’s face shows that one side of his face (the one that copped most of the sun exposure) has dramatically aged and he has developed thick, wrinkling skin.
The other side of his face looks remarkably different – it’s more youthful, less wrinkled.
In their paper, the researchers from Northwestern University said the man had a “history of gradual, asymptomatic thickening and wrinkling of the skin on the left side of his face”.
The man’s skin was so damaged because Ultraviolet A (UVA) rays had transmitted through the window glass, penetrating the epidermis and upper layers of dermis of his skin.
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This chronic UVA exposure resulted in a thickening of the epidermis and stratum corneum. It also destroyed the elasticity in his skin, making that side of the face much droopier than the other side.
The researchers recommended the use of “sun protection and topical retinoids and periodic monitoring for skin cancer” for the former truck driver.
If nothing else, this photo will make you think twice about leaving the house without sunscreen.
