After being diagnosed with skin cancer at the age of 29, a woman has issued a stern warning.

When Courtney Mangan was devastated to learn that she had stage 4 skin cancer, her chances of survival were reduced to only 18 percent.

Courtney, who is from the Gold Coast of Australia, had seen her doctors twice at the time because she was worried about a mole.

However, her concerns were disregarded, and Courtney didn’t receive the unfortunate news that it was already “too late” until she sought medical advice from a skincare professional.

“I had a mole on my back that I never really saw – but my family told me it started to change and urged me to see a doctor,” she recalled.

“The specialist checked my whole body and said everything looked normal but I expressed my concern about the mole on my back so he took a cutting and sent it to pathology.”

Courtney went on to explain to Daily Mail Australia that she soon received the call she dreaded from her doctor, who informed her that the mole was diagnosed as level four melanoma and that she would need to consult another specialist in Brisbane.

“I immediately went numb – my uncle had died from melanoma just a few years prior,” Courtney, now 38, recalled about the moment she received the news. “My whole world changed in that moment. I couldn’t think of it as anything other than a death sentence.”