<p>Last week, I went to the dermatologist for a mole check. I don’t do them that often – my last one was a few years ago.</p>
<p>So he peers at this mole on my back (which I can feel, but can’t see without using a hand mirror) and he says hmmm…next thing I know, he’s scraping off a piece of it to biopsy. </p>
<p>I asked him if he was worried (he said no, but hey – it’s not his mole) so at first I wasn’t worried, but then I started googling melanoma and freaked out. Plus I had to ask D to put a fresh bandage on (didn’t want to tell H — because he would have me worry more) and she was annoyed at the request.</p>
<p>So today I called for the results --got put on hold – then someone else picked up. She sounded very serious – I couldn’t breathe – then she said: No cancer. Just a funny looking mole.</p>
<p>Thank God!</p>
<p>Now I will go every year for these mole checks. It wasn’t part of my normal line-up of medical visits, but now it is. You hear these scary stories – people die from this.</p>
<p>I was born with a funny looking mole on the back of my arm. One day, an edge of it looked funny. Damn if it wasn’t melanoma arising out of a funny looking mole. That was 7 years ago. It was early. I’m fine now. But melanoma can be deadly.</p>
<p>{{hugs}} Classof2015. Went to my primary care doc last week, mentioned a funny spot on my face, and right away she referred me to a dermatologist. I went yesterday, waited for almost an hour - “oh, I"m so sorry…he never runs this late…blah blah” Finally had to leave to get to another appointment. Rescheduled for 2 weeks from now. I wasn’t anxious before, but now I am. Just a little. I’m hoping to hear “just a funny looking mole” too…</p>
<p>Get the funny looking moles checked out. And while you’re there, get the derm to do a full body check. A friend was having an injection in her back, and the nurse said to her – you have a mole back her that I really think you should get evaluated. It turned out to be early stage melanoma, and thank goodness for the advice. She’s been five years now through really detailed skin checks and is still clear, but having lost another friend to melanoma in her early 30s, I don’t see any reason to not get it checked. </p>
<p>PRJ – so sorry for the delay; I hope you get good news soon after they’ve biopsied it.</p>
<p>Good news indeed, OP.
I have “skin prone to growth” (ewwww) as my doctor says. Have had a bunch of things removed, all of them benign, and a cancerous spot the size of a lentil on my forehead zapped about a year ago. Sunscreen is now a part of my daily morning routine year-round. Which is a long way of saying, take care of your skin folks, and when something does crop up, don’t panic but see to it right away. Skin cancer treatments have come a long way but the sooner, the better.</p>
<p>He has very fair skin. Lots of moles and freckles. He has had several suspicious looking moles checked out over the years and visits the dermatologist fairly frequently. I noticed a mole in the middle of his back that changed in appearance. I nagged him to go check it out for a few months.</p>
<p>He stopped at the dermatologist office on his way to work one morning to make an appointment. The receptionist had just had a cancellation and took him back straight away. When does that ever happen? My D said the doc’s silence as he examined him said more than any words could. Within 10 days he had surgery to remove the mole and then within another week had a second surgery to remove his lymph nodes in both armpits.
Someone was looking out for him that is sure!!! he had a very aggressive melanoma that we caught in time. He had all the classic signs of melanoma- uneven dark color, scalloped edges.</p>
<p>We live in the south and my kids are the palest around and my eldest has already had a couple of moles removed. This is not something you mess around with. If I ever hear kids complaining about sunscreen I quickly remind them about my husbands 2 surgeries!</p>
<p>As a lass of northern European decent, who spent a lot of time at the Jersey shore with my Italian & Syrian BFF’s, I make sure I go for full body checks once a year. This year was the first time that anything looked funny, and it turns out it was a “little” funny. I can’t remember the exact term (the postcard is at home) but I had to go back in 3 months for a recheck (it was fine) and now I am on 6 month recalls. Which is fine by me. </p>
<p>Don’t mess around. At least have your GP check you when you go in for your routine physical.</p>
<p>I inherited a tendency to get ‘funny looking moles’ (ironically all in places that actually have little sun exposure, and never any on my arms or face for example). I go regularly, get ones excised sometimes. Some have been precancerous, sometimes not (though precancerous doesn’t mean they will necessarily become so). Some doctors are way more aggressive than others I’ve found. Ones that would be taken off by my doct in the US would never be touched by my last few dermatologists. Different approach. I’m okay with not having a ton of scars on my body from an overzealous doctor.</p>
<p>I go in every six months to a dermatologist for a full body check. She takes pictures of all my moles and then compares them at the next visit to look for changes. Been doing this for 20 years. She has caught a few pre-melanomas this way. When my dermatologist sees something suspicious she will shave it off and send it in for a biopsy and it if comes back positive, then she will do a deeper and longer removal. I was appalled recently when hubby’s family practitioner took off a mole and left a huge scar on his chest for the initial biopsy. Another friend had a physician to do the same thing because the doc said “this way you won’t need to come back if it’s positive” both of these moles were benign.</p>
<p>I have lots of funny-looking moles, all of which seem to be of no concern to my dermatologist, although I point them out on every visit.</p>
<p>But a tiny little skin-colored thing that would occasionally bleed turned out to be the tip of a rather large basal cell carcinoma, which had to be removed in an icky, messy procedure a couple of years ago.</p>
<p>Glad to hear everyone is getting those moles checked out. Melanoma is very treatable, if it’s caught early. If not, the outcome is very poor. (Which is why melanoma survivors hate hearing people say, “it’s only skin cancer!”)</p>
<p>The key thing to watch for in a mole is change. Anything that grows or has irregular borders or uneven color should send up a red flag, as should a mole that itches.</p>
<p>Now if I can get on my soapbox, since you all probably have teenage kids, how can we reduce teenage tanning bed use? I keep reading that it is still very popular with teens, and this appalls me. For sun safety and for vanity’s sake - think how their skin will look in a few years!</p>
<p>^ Wow that is horrible! I mean the tanning bed use. I actually don’t see that in our neck of the woods. The kids aren’t even lying out in the sun like we used to do as teens. If you have a tan it’s mostly met with raised eyebrows (likes what’s up with that?).</p>
<p>Be sure to skin checks monthly yourself…it is important to know what is normal for you. One of the ABC’s you always hear about with melanoma is change. Anything that changes, get it checked. You will pick up a change in a mole far quicker than a doctor that only sees you once yearly; and with no disrespect to a dermatologist, will they recognize a change if they see you just once a year. The average melanoma is there for two years before being noticed. </p>
<p>Twelve trips to the tanning bed increases your chance of melanoma by 75% and as our teenagers age, 1 out of 7 of them will develop melanoma.</p>
<p>I don’t see the tanning bed use either. The girls here do expensive spray tans for special occasions like prom (with varying results – some do look kind of Oompa Loompa).</p>
<p>I agree with the need to do annual full body mole checks. This was my most recent one - -last one was 5 years ago. I feel like I am never in the sun so I felt like I was being hyper-vigilant, but who knows.</p>
<p>I wonder if my dermatologist is being careful enough about this. My mole was itchy, and raised. Biopsy showed no cancer, but what does that mean? No “signs” of cancer now, but could those nasty malignant cells start reproducing tomorrow? Should I get checked every 6 months instead of every 12? </p>
<p>If your teenagers won’t kill you, cancer will :)</p>
<p>I recently went to my family doctor for a physical & mentioned a mole that I don’t remember having seen before. I am VERY fair, so I do watch my skin. The doctor wants me to have it checked by a dermatologist, since it is flaky - supposedly that can be a precancerous condition. I am supposed to have a “mole mapping” … anyone here know what they actually do when you have a mole mapping?</p>
<p>Moles are funny. I have had two removed, and with all my sun exposure as a kid (I used sunscreen, but it wasn’t good back then) the moles were in non-exposed areas. One was REALLY where the sun don’t shine … discovered & removed by my gyn. Both moles were classic “bad moles,” although biopsies were clear on them. I do know that skin cancer comes in moles of all types, though, and not all appear nasty looking.</p>
<p>“I wonder if my dermatologist is being careful enough about this. My mole was itchy, and raised. Biopsy showed no cancer, but what does that mean? No “signs” of cancer now, but could those nasty malignant cells start reproducing tomorrow? Should I get checked every 6 months instead of every 12?”</p>
<p>The biopsy will show atypical cells if it is not normal. Atypia can be mild to moderate to severe, and with a moderate to severe atypical or dysplastic nevus (mole) the derm will want to do another wide excision on the remaining tissue, to ensure that any stray cells are removed.</p>
<p>I would suggest making sure your biopsy was read by a dermatopathologist. If it was and was benign, then just relax and keep an eye on your remaining moles.</p>
<p>“I am supposed to have a “mole mapping” … anyone here know what they actually do when you have a mole mapping?”</p>
<p>Mole mapping is special photography of the moles on your body. At subsequent visits, new photos are compared to previous ones and a computer (or human, I suppose) tries to detect significant changes. Mole mapping is usually suggested if you have an unusual number of moles that may be hard to track on your own.</p>
<p>If you can feel the mole, i.e. it is raised, it probably isn’t melanoma. Melanoma moles are usually flat - not raised above the surrounding skin. But you were wise to get it looked at. Better to be safe than sorry.</p>
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<p>Back in the day we used to bore people with home movies. Now we can bring out our mole portfolios instead.</p>
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