I saw my doctor last week for my “yearly” check up. I mentioned the skin tag in my armpit that periodically becomes inflamed. He suggested a dermatology referral, where I could get it snipped off. I explained that I called the dermatologist a few years ago when he made the same suggestion, but was frustrated by the 10 month wait for an appointment. He reminded me that his group practice had very specific protocols, and skin tags get a derm referral, period.
He asked the nurse to get my BP, then he left the room for a minute. When he returned he asked the nurse to get me paperwork for a derm referral. As soon as she left, he took something out of his pocket and placed it in my hand. He told me to put it in my pocket, and “figure it out” when I got home. (We are friends outside of the office; he’s pulled stuff like this before)
When I got to my car I checked out his “gift”. It was an unopened box containing a sealed bottle of 80% Trichloroacetic Acid. I read about its use in removing skin tags and got to work!
So, for 10 days now I have applied Vaseline to the skin around the tag and then applied the acid to the tag with a Q-Tip. It stung a bit the first few days, and looked white right after application. Then, in the last couple of days it has begun to shrivel, like a raisin in the sun. I’m optimistic.
Anyone been through this? How long did it take? How long to I continue daily application? What eventually happens to the skin tag? Can I put it under my pillow?
If the skin tag has shriveled, it’s probably ok to stop now. If there’s anything left over in a week or two, you can add more TCA. And yes, you can put it under your pillow, or feed it to your cat, or plant it alongside a kernel of corn. Or a marijuana seed.
And this is what I hate about modern medicine. Us primary care docs can do a lot more, more economically for patients than many private health care systems allow us to do. That’s because specialists get paid more to do those things. Hence, referral is required.
The public sector system I am in has its flaws, but I’ll stick with it. I choose when a referral is needed, after discussion with the patient. Not some manager.
Yep, my PCP is my age (60) and has grown weary with the system. He is looking forward to retirement, although he loves the idea of really “practicing medicine”.
I’ve had success with tying a piece of thread around the base of the skin tag and pulling tight. Then in usually falls off on its own. I had a couple on my face that I had dermatologically removed…no ten month wait.
The dermatologist who my insurance likes has always had a long wait unless you say it is an emergency. Sorry, but I’m not going to lie. When my vitiligo began to manifest, my PCP told me it sure looked like vitiligo, but I should see a derm. I actually only had a 6 month wait, but I was worried the whole time. When my appointment came, she looked at me and said, “vitiligo”. She then had her assistant person get me her vitiligo handout and I was on my way.
That’s me too, down to the same age. I love practicing medicine. But I hardly do that anymore. I’m just grateful I’ve gotten to do more of it than many of my same aged peers, thanks to leaving private practice.
I’ve seen so many colleagues leave medicine, despite really wanting to continue practicing. It represents a huge loss of experience, wisdom, and teaching ability. All because we don’t fit into the “health care provider” slot that corporate medicine deems necessary to maximize insurance reimbursement and minimize legal liability.
Anyway, I’ll stop ranting, as this thread is (mainly) about skin tags. Of which I’ve removed several hundred, at a minimum.
Possibly not “best practice”, but when I get the occasional skin tag that I can reach here’s how I handle it.
Get a pair of tweezers with flat tips. Grab the skin tag at the base a squeeze hard for a minute or so. This crushes the blood vessels and in a day or two the tag dries out and falls off.
On really small ones I don’t wait for it to dry up. Just squeeze and twist it off.
There are all kinds of different cauterants on the market. Tea tree oil is one OTC product I ran into when I was researching the topic. Dilute TTO is used in healing piercings, but used in an undiluted form it is pretty nasty.
Salicylic acid is another commonly used chemical, silver nitrate another.
I bought some wart remover from walmart and used that on a skin tag on my neck that was making it hard to shave. It took 2 applications but it eventually fell off.
Well, no wonder my previous doc was so happy to handle a corn* removal in office–gave him a chance to play around with a scalpel and local anesthetic. He did a great job, too, it’s never grown back.
You want pointless restrictions on duties? I go to the main Kaiser hospital (with satellite medical offices) and I won’t go to the lab there to have my clotting factors checked because, get this, they only have phlebotomists there, not “technicians.” The technician uses a lancet to get a drop of blood from my finger to put into a little meter, basically the exact same process as home glucose monitoring. You’d think someone who went to more schooling to learn how to draw blood could be trusted with a finger stick, wouldn’t you? But no, apparently because the technicians “give results,” i.e. they read the number off the screen of the monitor, they and only they can do finger sticks and the main lab of a large hospital doesn’t keep a technician on staff. So I go to a satellite clinic where they DO have techs on staff in the lab. How ridiculous is that? Every person I’ve asked about it at Kaiser either has no idea this policy is in place or can’t figure out why the fuck that’s how they do things, aside from the one phlebotomist who knew the actual answer. Freaking weird.
*or maybe it was a bunion? Dunno, some nasty lumpy hardish growth on my toe that was making me walk weird.
I had a skin tag in my underarm once. Didn’t seem to have any sensation at all, though I never tried putting acid on it. It must have at some point became twisted in such a way to cut off blood supply, because one day I happened to touch it and it came off in my hand as a small black gangerenous lump. (No harm to surrounding tissue.)
Also, I’ve seen cans of compressed air marketed to freeze off warts and such–uses the side effect of the expanding air absorbing heat and turns it into a product feature.
Thanks–you can see how much attention I pay to my feet! I have another one of the bloody things on the other foot, on the outside below my pinky toe that makes walking barefoot on wooden floors a challenge. Ever so often I carve a bunch of layers off it after a good hot shower just to keep it in line. Stoopid weird foot things. shakes tiny raegfist
Not to be a party pooper re the idea of skin tag self-removal/destruction - but there are potential drawbacks.
Depending on agents used to destroy a skin tag (or fibroepithelial polyp, to use the pathologic term), there can be damage to surrounding skin (most notably with “black salve”, available online for do-it-yourselfers). Infection is a potential risk i.e. if snipping off a skin tag and not disinfecting the skin/tool before doing so.
Most potentially serious is misdiagnosing a lesion as a skin tag and doing removal that turns out to be incomplete (leaving minute/microscopic bits behind). A lot of (mostly) benign things can simulate skin tags, but rarely malignant tumors can do so. Anything more than a few millimeters in greatest dimension, which lacks a typical skin tag appearance, bleeds or is unusually colored/variegated should be looked at by a physician before you attempt a home procedure.
*it should be noted that health insurance may not pay for dermatologic skin tag removal if it’s seen as “cosmetic”. :dubious:
