Anybody Ever Had A Mole Removed? (help!)

In My Humble Opinion
1

I have a mole on my leg that’s been there as long as I can remember; I keep forgetting to ask my mother, but I’m assuming I was born with it. A little bigger than a pencil eraser and dark brown.

I think I ran into it at work a couple of weeks ago and bruised it, and since then I have become rather fixated on it, to the point that I went to my general practitioner MD and asked him about it; he said he sees no reason for concern at all, that it’s a “Hutchison’s Freckle” or something like that and to consider it a “beauty mark.” He told me to keep an eye on it, of course (I am a 26-year-old very fair strawberry blonde and my mother had a precancerous mole removed last year) but he basically said I’m worrying for no reason. (I stay out of the sun and haven’t worn shorts in years.)

However, he also knows I don’t have medical insurance and he said it would be “several hundred dollars” for me to get removed and he doesn’t see the point of that. Which makes me wonder if he would have told me to get it removed and biopsied if I did have insurance, just to be safe.

So I have a couple of questions for anybody who might know…about how much money are we talking here? He said they make a shallow incision that would require a couple of stitches, after they shoot up the area with anesthetic. I’m not (overly) concerned with the pain factor, but I’ll admit to being curious, although it’s mainly a money issue.

And can you always just look at a mole and know there’s a problem, or are there moles that have nothing apparently wrong with them that might still be dangerous? Should I just suck it up and spend the money anyway, just to be safe? I feel paranoid but on the other hand…I’m feeling paranoid. :stuck_out_tongue:

If anybody could shed some light on any of this, I’d be grateful.

And I thought about posting this in General Questions but since I’m asking for personal experience/input I figured it belonged here. If it should go somewhere else, mods, please feel free.

2

As a kid I had a large one on my right temple at the hairline. When I joined the Navy, the barber that cut my hair (first haircut in 3 years) sliced it off with the clippers and it bled for 3 days. A few weeks later the scab came off and it started bleeding again and I was sent to medical. A plastic surgeon was called in and 3 days later it was gone. You can hardly tell a mole was there now years later. A cousin of mine had one taken off the head of his penis many years ago, I was never privy to the gory detail why.

3

I’ve had several moles removed that were not dysplastic or cancerous. They were just in kinda annoying places. The total bill for each one usually cost about $250. About half of that, though, is the pathologist’s charge. Any time they cut off a piece of your body, they get it checked out–just in case. That runs up the charge a lot.

4

One other thing: In my experience, if the mole was thought to be dysplastic, they kinda “punched it out,” and stitched up the hole. If they thought it was just an annoying mole because of the location, they basically just “shaved” it even with the skin. That’s obviously cheaper.

5

Irishfella is a moley man. All shapes, sizes and colours, everywhere. He has a dermatologist appointment every 6 months where they take polaroids, compare them to previous ones, and then scan him to check out how they’re doing. Having all his moles removed isn’t an option as they cover about 20% of his skin surface, and you’d be talking about skin grafts and disfiguring scars. So it’s hats, long sleeves and SPF40 for him.

So far he’s had one punch biopsy of a mole that the scan didn’t like (turned out to be a Dysplatic naevus…which is a way of saying “weird mole that’s better off than on”) and one punch biopsy of a very dark mole I just didn’t like the look of and wanted removed so we didn’t have to worry. It turned out to be fine.

Although he’s not the bravest man in the world, he coped with it well both time (3 stitches the first time, 2 the second, local anaesthesia, and a couple of ibuprofen each time) and isn’t particularly bothered by the resulting small scars.

All this is courtesy of the British National Health Service (we go back to Belfast), so cost doesn’t figure into it for us.

I’d say get it removed, at least once it’s off you don’t have to worry anymore. Although cryo and curettage might be cheaper options, it’s difficult to get good cytology specimens from those techniques, so you’re better going for a biopsy, just to be safe.

6

I used to have one on my neck, and it had a hair growing out of it. :eek: I think that was genetic, my dad had a similar mole, and it had a whole tuft of hair growing out of his.

Anwyay, I had mine removed a while back… and I certainly don’t remember it costing more than $100! Of course, I’m not in the US. :smiley: Mine was for cosmetic reasons, though, and since I’m not a whitey (I’m a yellowey), we’re not too worried about skin cancer.

I will say that it’s kinda freaky, though, and I still cringe when reading this thread. Getting little bits of me cut off :eek:

7

I have lots of moles. Last December I went to see a dermatologist, and I pointed out various larger ones, etc. The dermatologist asked me to only point out which ones had changed within the last few to several months. Other than the bruising, has that mole changed at all? The large size isn’t a factor unless that’s different recently, which it doesn’t sound like from your description.

I ended up having two removed; the name of the method escapes me at the moment (excision biopsy, perhaps), but it involves cutting out an area of skin around the mole as well. The skin was stitched together resulting in an approximately inch-long incision, involving both removeable and dissolving stitches. I went in a couple weeks after to have the removeable stitches taken out, and he put on some small pieces surgical tape to stabilize the areas, which came off naturally within a week.

One of the moles I had removed had grown somewhat larger - this could have been due to irritation from rubbing as it was at my waistline. The other was not raised from the level of the skin in any way, such that it was only distinguishable as being a mole by the color, and it was actually appearing to lose pigment in little spots all over it, which at first had me thinking that might be a good thing. I figured it was “going away.” The doctor pointed out a thin ring of white skin right around the mole - I’m extremely pale so this was difficult to see - and said it looked like my immune system was reacting to it. Obviously, this isn’t a good thing. Sure enough, this mole turned out to be precancerous, while the large one was benign.

8

I had one sliced off my face a few years ago. I was working in a dermatology office, and one day the appointment secretary came in and informed us all that a terrible mistake had been made, and absolutely no patients had been scheduled for that day, so if anyone had anything they’d like checked out, they were asked to please go see her.

So, I had this mole looked at, and the doctor said that it was almost certainly benign, so removing it would be purely cosmetic and thus not covered by my insurance. I said go ahead anyway. She injected a little local, grabbed a scalpel and scraped it off, threw a bandaid on it, and I was done.

Then I got a fun surprise…my insurance covered it anyway. I think it was $350, including the pathology.

9

I had two moles removed in grad school; the first had changed color, so I went through all the student-insurance related trouble of getting a referral, etc, to get it checked out, and when I was there the dermatologist said she didn’t like the look of another one, so she took that one out, too. Even though I jumped through all the hoops, the insurance refused payment because, get this, they weren’t cancerous. Talk about good news/bad news!

They were $250 a piece. Both were shaved off; they hit you with a tiny little needle of anasthetic and then you really don’t feel them shaving the mole off (with a razor blade, it seemed.) They just Band-Aided it and told me to treat with Neosporin for a bit. They both came back benign and they told me not to worry if they grew back, since they would still be benign - one did. It does seem like they’d be removing yours with some other method, though - mine were a little smaller than pencil erasers. The anasthetic does work amazingly well, though, FYI.

10

I’ve had two moles removed. One I’d had on my arm for years (since infancy) but it had started to itch randomly. That one was totally benign.

The other one popped up on my left buttock one day and just kept getting bigger. That one turned out to be pre-cancerous.

I’m glad I got them taken off, but they were not covered by insurance and cost me somewhere in the vicinity of $600. The worst part was the waterproof bandages to protect the stitches when I showered. There is no way to take a bath and not get your butt wet. I’m allergic to bandage adhesive so I had these huge red square rashes for weeks after the cuts healed. My scars are about a half an inch long.

11

Thanks for all the input!

So I’ve heard a price range from $250-$600. This is about the range I was expecting. I do have the money, although “Mole Removal” is not, of course, what I saved it up for, so the price tag is slightly painful.

Like I said, I don’t think it’s changed at all, at least to the point where I can tell. I don’t wear anything but pants, even to bed, so it spends most of its time in the dark and to be honest I don’t see it/pay much attention to it b/c it’s always been there.

And of course when you start obsessing about something, you begin second-guessing yourself. “Has it changed? Did it always look exactly this way?” My doc measured it and said that anytime I see him for anything else, he’ll measure it again; he also said I’m free to measure it myself, just to be on the safe side.

I guess I could call around to various dermatologists and see what the “price range” is and go from there. I do find it funny that even if I had insurance, according to various posters, chances are good they wouldn’t pay for it anyway unless it did turn out to be cancerous. (“Oh, you’re not dying? Well then! We’re not paying for your silly vanity!”)

I feel your pain, FilmGeek. I had a pilonidal cyst surgically removed from my backside and trust me when I say that even if you are not allergic to bandage adhesive, it royally sucks. Raw, red, chafed skin for weeks and no foolproof way to get rid of all the adhesive that just clings, “adhesive release” be damned.

Surgery is fun. :eek:

12

I appear to be the only one who has had a mole quarterized off. I had this mole in my hairline that kept getting irritated (from comb, hair clippers, etc.) so my doctor suggested that I get it removed. They gave it a quick shot of anasthetic and then began burning that sucker off of there. If you’ve never had something quaterized, basically they use two electrodes and use the arc to zap that thing off. At least that’s how it was described to me; I could really see what they were doing to my head. The doctor would burn it, scrape off the charred bits, burn it again, then scrape it off some more. I don’t think it took more than five or ten minutes.

Don’t worry, that’s not where my name came from.:slight_smile: I don’t know if it scarred or not. I’m not really sure where it was any more, and I have thick hair which makes looking difficult.

To tell the truth, I’ve been thinking of having a mole removed lately. I have one on my nose that used to be flat, but now it’s becoming more and more prominent. Stupid body always betraying me.

13

I’ve had a few removed. My health insurance covered it each time, so it was the cost of the co-pay for me ($15)–or my parents, as the case may be.

The first one I had removed was the only worrisome one. It was a mole in the center of my back, between my shoulder blades. It grew pretty fast, from the size of a pencil eraser to the size of a dime, in the space of a couple of years. I was in the 8th grade when they removed it. Being that young, the size and speed of growth made everyone really nervous.

It was really deep, so they ended up gouging it out with some kind of razor tool. Turned out it was benign, but it met a lot of the ABCDE criteria. Surprisingly, it didn’t hurt. They numbed me up well for the actual removal, and even though it took awhile to heal, I don’t remember feeling any pain. Had to keep the crater full of antibacterial ointment, though, and it healed as an ugly scar (mostly because of the location, I’m told).

My mom is appalled by the scar today, but I’d rather have the scar than the mole. It was OK then, but the dermatologist felt that it was a disaster waiting to happen.

The other two were pink raised moles on the top of my head. No one thought they were cancerous, but they got bigger than pencil erasers and were annoying. My dermatologist numbed the area, cut them off with a razor tool, and immediately cauterized the area (scalp wounds, ya know). The stench of burning hair and flesh was the worst part. Again, recovery was no biggie. Couldn’t wash my hair for a couple of days until the wounds scabbed. That was especially annoying because I couldn’t get rid of the smell of burned hair until I washed it.

I’m actually pondering having a couple of other moles removed now. I believe it’s better to be safe than sorry in these matters. Last year, a co-worker of mine died at age 32 from melanoma. That’s made me take this all very seriously. If I had to pay for mole removal out-of-pocket, I would do so.

14

About seven years ago I had a mole in the middle of my back just below my shoulder blades. My mom, an R.N., noticed it and told me I needed to go to the dermatologist because it didn’t look right to her. I grudgingly made an appointment, and the doctor did a punch biopsy to remove it.

A few days later – the day before I moved to go to law school – I got a call that I needed to come in for more surgery. The mole had turned out to be precancerous. I ended up moving that weekend, driving back to my parents’ house a few days later and having a big chunk removed from my back (the removed area was about 3 inches in diameter and 1 inch deep). I had to go to the infirmary at school for help with dressing changes, but that was something I could’ve easily done myself if I could have reached the incision spot. I have a scar on my back that seems to be fading over time.

The process itself really wasn’t that painful. Even though I was annoyed at the time, I’m glad my mom was so insistent about getting treatment.

15

You know, I had a feeling that I should have looked up the spelling for cauterized. But no, I just couldn’t go with my instincts. :smack:

16

This is an excerpt from the American Academy of Dermatology website:

I hope this is helpful to you and maybe others.

17

I’d get it taken off just for safety’s sake, but don’t panic. I found one on myfriend’s back that met all the ABCD criteria-- large and had grown, asymetrical, several different colors. I forced him to get it off and it was nothing. I did leave a big scar on his back because the incision was several inches long (it wasn’t that big, but they needed to make a larger incision so they could sew it up). I think my friend was a little aggravated at me for making him go through all that for nothing, but I have no regrets.

I also had a haloed nevus (mole with a white circle around it) removed, which was benign. The procedure took minutes and was painless, requiring 2 stitches, and was benign. So don’t be scared, just get it checked out, because if you’re anything like me, it’ll bug you until you do it, and your peace of mind is worth it.

18

My SO wants to know why I don’t grow a mole on MY penis. A big one at that. :eek: (A big mole, stick to the topic) :smiley:

19

The genitals and the scalp are fairly common sites for melanoma. Sun exposure increases your risk, but since melanoma can appear on skin which is pretty much never sun-exposed, don’t discount it.

Melanoma is horrendous. My mother works as an oncologist, and Monday’s are her worst days, as that’s the out-patient chemo day for melanoma. The patients tend to be young (20s-40s), and every week someone doesn’t show up.

That’s why I’m all for having moles that even slightly concern you removed. Once it’s off, and the pathology comes back negative, you can relax, otherwise you’ll have to keep a close eye and always have a niggling doubt.

Also, the earlier the better, the survival rates for melanoma start to fall dramtically once it has spread more than 0.5mm beneath the surface.

20

I haven’t had any taken off by a doc, but I cut one off with my swiss army knife once. It grew back though, which was annoying.