Do You Have Moles or Skin Tags?

COMMON MOLES are usually benign and stay the same size, color, shape and texture as follows:

• Round and symmetrical, with a well-defined border.
• Less than a quarter inch across.
• Flat or raised.
• Uniform in color, meaning the entire mole can be brown, black, tan, pink, red, blue or flesh-toned.

ATYPICAL MOLES (or dysplastic nevi) may also be flat or raised but tend to be:

• Irregularly shaped with uneven borders that fade into the skin around your mole.
• Larger than a quarter inch across.
• Smooth, bumpy, rough, wrinkled or scaly.
• More than one color or speckled. 

What can be done about a mole?

Any mole that causes irritation to your skin or is suspect can be removed via a medical procedure and here are some of the different ways:

• Laser is one method where a concentrated beam of light breaks up the cells that make up the mole. The mole should not be deep as the laser light cannot penetrate enough.  An anesthetic is not usually required, and the beam of light is gentle enough not to harm healthy skin.  Laser treatment can be costly.
• Excision is another method where the mole is cut before the wound is stitched. Depending on the mole's size and incision, the stitches are placed either deeply (to be absorbed by the body) or on the skin's upper surface (to be removed later). The surgery has to be carried out by a doctor.
• A mole can also be removed by cauterization, where a unique tool is used to burn away the mole. One of the drawbacks is that great care is needed afterward to ensure the successful healing of the wound. 

A mole can also be removed naturally... 

Secondly, what is a skin tag?

While skin tags can be a nuisance, catching on clothes or jewelry, the good news is that they are usually harmless.

Medically known as acrochordons, the tags are usually flesh colored or brownish growths that hang from the skin's surface.  They are made up of loose collagen fibers and ducts embedded within thicker areas of skin. They are also composed of nerve and fat cells as well as epidermis - the outermost skin layer.

What are the symptoms of a skin tag?

• Skin tags will often form on the neck, eyelids or other areas where friction occurs and skin folds already exist.  Some examples are the breasts, the groin or the armpits.  Skin tags will form flaps or grow on a short stem (known as a peduncle), resembling tiny mushrooms complete with narrow stalks with smooth or irregular caps.
• When skin tags first appear they are often small soft pin head bumps, growing larger as time continues.
• Most skin tags do not cause any pain, discomfort or other symptoms.  But if they grow larger, they may irritate the skin and cause discomfort if they sit where skin rubs against itself.
• Large skin tags can also cause pain if they burst or a blood clot forms when the stalk gets twisted.  And then of course they can catch on clothing or jewelry.

How is a skin tag removed?

You can choose to have skin tags removed for cosmetic reasons or if they irritate your skin.

These are some of the methods used:

• Radiocautery is the most common approach used to remove skin tags where radio waves are used to burn of the skin tag, usually carried out in your doctor's surgery.
• Another common method is cryotherapy where the skin tag is frozen with liquid nitrogen.
• Electrocautery where an electric current heats and remove a lesion
• surgical or shave excision.
• Ligation where the blood flow to the skin tag is halted by wrapping sutures around its stem.
• Laser treatment with a Q-switched Neodymium YAG or carbon dioxide laser.