I have tons of these irritating little buggers! I’ve had some removed by my OB/GYN. I’ve removed some myself. I had my husband do a few, but he gets uber-squicked out.
The ones that bother me the most are under my breasts where my bra rubs them.
They piss me off!
Male here. I’ve had a number of tags over the years.
As a kid, one on my upper eyelid, electrocauterized by the doctor.
A few on my body, which yielded after a few days of pinching between fingernails and twisting.
A couple of years ago, another on my upper eyelid. This one I tried tying off with a thread. It was painful for a few days, and I was afraid the eyelid might become infected, but the tag finally came off and the eyelid was fine. However, next time I’ll let the doctor do it, and I recommend others do the same.
My husband has them on his chest and back and several around his nipples. His doctor removed a few but hubby said it hurt like a sumbitch. They don’t bother him (or me), but once in awhile I catch one on a fingernail when he’s getting his back scratched.
He’s warty too. I wonder if there’s a connection between tags and warts – if some people are prone to them.
Well, warts are caused by a virus, and skin tags are apparently ‘cause unknown’.
I’m female and have Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome, which often comes with skin tags. I get them in my armpits, and I’ve had probably six or seven. One started up only last year or so, another I got rid of myself (left over lidocaine gel and sterilized scissors), and the rest I had my doc remove.
What bugs me is that the ones I get keep growing. I imagine if I let one go long enough, it might get pinky-sized. What a horrible thought. The one I have now is about the size of a grain of rice.
I can’t speak for anyone else, but I always take care of my husband’s skin tags. I have much better fine motor control, and I’m nearsighted (which makes small things easier to see at a close distance) and he’s a bit farsighted.
Now I have nagged him into seeing a dermatologist to get a mole removed. It was about an inch and a half long, had an irregular border, had a couple of different colors in it, and it was getting bigger. The doctor took one look at it, and agreed that it should come off. It was benign, but better safe than sorry.
I think it’s time the SDMB had a forum just for skin tags, pimples, warts, moles and in-grown hairs.
Oh my.
Reading this I am seriously glad I don’t get these!
If by “freeze” you mean “make cold” as opposed to “anesthetize,” I’ve cut off several pretty sizable skin tags and have numbed up the area with ice first. I felt little to no pain but it sometimes took a little longer because the ice made them slippery.
Ouch? I’ve done the string thing several times, and I literally don’t even feel it. Maybe you’re doing it wrong - tie thread around the base of the tag, tight, and leave it alone. Within a few days, it will be gone. You may very well not even realize that it’s fallen off.
Joe
No, I mean freeze as in “remove with liquid nitrogen”. LN will cause a blister which then forms a scab which will peel off, taking warts and keratoses with it. LN doesn’t work on skin tags, according to my doctors, because they are not superficial.
I’ve had them myself, they kind of run in my family a bit too. If they’re tiny I just yank 'em off. The bigger ones I would mess with, twist, cause a scab at the base, etc until they were messed with enough that they could be removed. Never been to the doctor about them.
I have a tiny tiny one on my left eyelid, but it’s been there for years and causes no discomfort. Can’t even feel it at all.
I had a year where I grew a few of these. Anyway, after the first time I paid some doctor like a hundred bucks to clip one off, I figured fuck that and just did it myself with computer freon and nail clippers.
I get them. For the most part, they’re only small and I just leave them alone.
I did have one that kept getting bigger until I’d had enough and I asked my wife to tie it off with cotton thread (I’d have done it myself, but I couldn’t reach properly to do it).
I’ve had a couple that turned hard and dry, then fell off, because I kept on wiggling and pinching them.
And I had one that I just grew sick of and pulled off with my fingernails. It hardly bled at all.
Male, and have them in my arm pits.
“Intelligent design”, my ass!
Yup - I’ve had them, am having them, and their frequency seems to be increasing with age.
I cut one off one time, it was large and under my arm and I kept irritating it with my arm movements. I just clipped it with a pair of fingernail clippers.
You would’ve thought my aorta was routed through this thing. I bled buckets from this little nip.
Next time I’ll try the string method.
Well, I did exactly as you described, and it was quite sore even after I loosened it a few minutes later (loose enough that I was doubting that it would be effective). After a couple of hours, I realized that the pain had increased and I was bleeding from the string cutting into the base.
The one I tried it on was exceptionally large and oddly shaped - maybe that made the difference.
You left out abscesses. Those are the best!
I’ve had one on my right shoulder blade for years. It doesn’t feel quite like they descibe them though since the base doesn’t seem to be that thin.
I might try the string method, but it’s not a huge worry since it doesn’t show or bother me. The worst that has happened was I was laying on my stomach and the cat came over and decided to bat at it.
My hubby has what his doctor termed a “forest” of skin tags on his neck and upper shoulders. He’s FINALLY getting the ugliest, most deformed ones cut off later this month, and I wish my doc would do the same with the few I have that bother me. Unfortunately she seems to think everything but a mild case of the sniffles needs to be farmed out to specialists, and I am NOT going to get yet another doc for something she used to do but won’t any more.
I’m gonna try the string method on a couple that can’t be seen and see how it works on them.
I’ve had a few tiny ones for years that I just leave alone - I developed a larger, more annoying one under my arm, and had to mess with it for a while. Because it was painfully rubbing against my flesh, I taped it down with a bandaid, and that enabled it to half-strangulate itself - which helped.
By the time it died, though, I already had a dermatology appointment, and he froze the remaining half.
That sucked, and cost more than I thought it should, so when the next tag cropped up, I decided to try other methods. Tried the string thing, and also tried painting it with nail polish, a remedy my Dad recommended.
Nothing doing, apparently. So next, I went for ice and cuticle scissors.
For reference, and your collective horror, this particular tag was on my groin, and the resultant self-surgery was a Bad Idea. Don’t know if the scissors just weren’t sharp enough (they were new…) or what, but it took multiple cuts to finally remove the damn thing.