What is the product called that Dermatologist use to freeze moles,facial disclorations etc?
Can I buy it somewhere?
If not… why not?
I ask because I have this spot around my hairline. I hate it.
The Dermatologist froze it… it disappeared. She said it would probably come back… it did.
She charged $75.00 to freeze the spot along with a tiny mole.
I dont wanna have to keep coughing up $75.00
It’s liquid Nitrogen.
I used to work for a medical gas company, and occasionally someone would call asking if they could purchase a small cylinder of liquid Nitrogen.
The answer was no. Perhaps because it needs to be handled quite carefully as it can cause severe burns - it’s incredibly cold!
(I’m in BC, Canada).
Good luck!
Why don’t you ask your GP to do it. I had a couple of skin tags I wanted to remove and during a routine visit to the GP asked him about it. He said no prob and had the nurse bring in the equipment. Two minutes later, done. 10 buck co-pay.
BF, I dont have a GP
Without insurance one trys real hard to avoid ANY Dr. LOL
The product the Dermatologist used was in a small spray can about the size of an air freshner spray, it had a long thin nozzle to precisely direct the spray…
Now that I know what it is, perhaps I can find some on the net…
The stuff in the can is NOT liquid nitrogen.
I use the stuff in my office.
Its called “histofreeze”.
It’s quite useful.
After doing more research I found out the name of what the Dr said I had.
I only remembered she said it wasnt serious.
Sebhorreic keratosis ( sounds worse than it is)
Dr Q, is Histofreeze available to purchase for the general public.
Yes, but can he buy it over the Internet without being an actual M.D.?
The magic Google word, if you’re looking for actual liquid nitrogen, is “cryospray”.
Disclaimer: I have absolutely no idea whether it’s legal for non-professional medical people to buy this. I don’t even know whether they’ll sell it to you.
http://www.smt-praha.com/eng\kryochirurgie.html
And if you scroll down to where it says “Small Hand-Held Cryosurgery Device CRYOSPRAY CS”, the link turns out to be all in Czech. Bummer.
Which could be another drawback to your trying to buy liquid nitrogen over the Internet.
Anyway, happy hunting.
Fisher scientific has histofreeze for $277 a can.
Go crazy!
There are a couple home-use variants on cryospray available now. One, whose name I can remember, is Wartner. Gots for about $20 and dispenses the cold stuff on foam applicator pads - load the pad with cold, then press it against the wart.
Didn’t do a lick of good for a wart on the bottom of my foot.
gotpasswords, you’re not supposed to lick it!
But will Fisher sell it to a private individual?
ROFL,
DR.Q
you have no idea how bad I needed that laugh!!
THANKS!!!
I’m about to make all the doctors and other medical workers cringe.
I snip off my own skin tags with a very clean pair of extra sharp cuticle scissors. Generally, I just wipe the blades off with alcohol, and merrily snip off all the skin tags that have appeared since my last snipping session, if I can reach them. Then I clean the little spot with an astringent. So far, I’ve managed to avoid infecting myself. Every now and then, I’ll get a VERY little irritation at the site, but that’s rare.
I remove my own warts, too.
If I’m in the doctor’s office ANYWAY in the week after I notice a new wart or skin tag, I’ll get her to take care of them. Otherwise, I just take care of them myself, because I hate having them on me.
I have EXTREMELY good close-range vision and fine motor control, though, and I certainly wouldn’t recommend my method for everyone.
I’ll tell you a secret, Lynn.
I’ve got no problem with that.
But start removing any organ (I don’t care if its a minor one) or appendage on your own, and then I’ll get upset. I’ve got a family to support, you know!
That’s nuts! Histofreeze is simply HFC 134a which is available at auto part stores for auto air conditioners. I did some searching and it looks like you could use a freeze spray which is used for testing circuit boards. A couple of possibilities are “SUPER COLD 134” and Freez-It.
If the spray isn’t pinpoint enough, you could probably protect the surrounding skin with some tape with a hole cut in it to expose the target area.
The primary coolants used today carbon dioxide snow (now rare), liquid nitrogen, nitrous oxide and canned mixtures like Histofreeze.
Nitrous oxide is used in a special cooling gun. Carbon dioxide snow is generally produced by releasing liquid compressed CO2 into an apparatus, I wouldn’t recommend doing this in a jury-rigged device at home if you don’t already have experience with it. Particles of CO2 snow can get loose under pressure, and got into (e.g) your eyes. Liquid nitrogen carries a real risk of overfreezing (e.g.) underlying facial muscle, blood vessels to cause copious bleeding, or excess tissue leaving a permanent “pit”.
I won’t pretend it requires much skill, but some training and practice (and a working knowledge of skin anatomy) is desirable. It’s also easier to work on someone else vs. yourself. You CAN hurt yourself. I used to use many of these materials to prepare histological sections in a lab in my youth (and despite training, I stupidly accidentally froze my skin a few times, too).
Just FYI:
Most moles and blemishes are benign, but if you casually freeze a ‘bad one’ . You’ll wish a doc had biopsied and treated it instead.
Histofreeze and similar canned coolants aren’t as cold, and are much more forgiving. Still, I’m not going to recommend self-freezing to people I don’t even know. The possibilities just give me the -er- chills. I can just imagine someone freezing a cornea by accident.
Good post KP. I actually agree with you that the freezing thing is probably not a good DIY project. I have a single skin tag on one armpit and I just tried to freeze it using a jury rigged butane lighter refill canister. Although you could possibly do OK on your foot for example, you really need at least three hands to do an armpit properly and safely.
I did make sure that the nozzle was pointed away from my face and I wore a glove on the hand doing the spraying. Although it was cool to watch the ice form on the skin tag, it was a bit disconcerting to see ice form on the surrounding skin. As a result, I doubt that I applied the “treatment” for a long enough period of time to be effective.
So kids, I suggest that you not try this at home!
Thanks, rsa.
I see where QtM is coming from. I wouldn’t get mad at anyone who did it themselves. As I said, it isn’t exactly brain surgery. I just can’t recommend it. I did it to myself once (after I’d been trained to do it on others - I’d asked a few colleagues, but after six months, it still wasn’t done, and it’d been bugging me for 10 years).
Though the location (on my chest) was quite accessible, and I’d done it on others, it wasn’t nearly as simple as I’d expected. Having seen (and made) some stupid cryogenic mistakes as a trained lab assistant, I think there’s real reason to worry what people without training might do. Ever rubbed your eyes after dicing peppers, even though you know better? We’ve all done stuff like that to ourselves. There’s a lot to be said for having someone do it who is ‘in the zone’ (a clinical state of mind which still amazes me).
Besides, the small risk of a dangerous lesion is real. The screening guidelines are simple, but I’ve had my intuitive ‘index of suspicion’ trigger on apparently benign lesions, and caught life-threatening diagnoses. It’d be terrible thing to miss something like that.
If you make a little bowl out of aluminum foil and spray the freon from a can of freeze spray into it, if you spray enough some will remain liquid. Then you can dip a Qtip into it and freeze the tag or wart. I’ve successfully frozen warts on my hands this way. YMMV
But how can I threaten my husband properly with THAT kind of limitation?
Seriously, I do pretty much know my limits. Last month, my daughter wanted me to pop a zit, and I refused, telling her that THAT zit needed medical attention. It was one of those deep diffused zits that would not come to a head. Squeezing it would have only made it worse. So she went to the doctor and got some antibiotics. And yes, I made sure that she took her amoxicillin properly, too. The zit cleared up nicely.