- Hi everyone.
Dr. Michelle Rodriguez here.
Dermatologist at Chroma Dermatology.
Great to be chatting with you about little lumps and bumps
on your skin,
what to look out for
and when should you see someone about it.
So today we're gonna be talking about a few little things
that can occur on the skin that are generally benign,
but we're gonna talk about
some really important warning signs of when you might need
to see your local doctor or dermatologist.
So, moles are a common type
of benign skin growth on the skin
and they can occur anywhere.
They don't necessarily have to just occur on the face.
Most commonly people develop moles early on
in their childhood
and then as we get older, we can develop more.
Most of the time moles are created from pigment cells
and that's why they look brown.
But there are really important features
to determine whether or not
you should see someone about your moles.
Number one, if you have a really large number of moles,
they really should be checked once over
by either your local doctor or a dermatologist,
but also other important things to look out for
is the ABCDE rule.
So A stands for asymmetry.
If a mole is asymmetrical and not quite the right shape,
it should get seen too.
Number two is B for borders.
Borders, if they are irregular,
is a warning sign sometimes for skin cancer
so it's important to get that checked.
Three is colour.
If there's multiple colours within a mole,
or if the colour is changing over time,
that is a warning sign to get it checked.
D is for diameter.
So if the mole is about six millimetres or more
then it should probably be checked.
And E is for evolution or elevation.
So if a mole is growing upwards over time,
or if it's growing and changing over time,
it too needs to be seen by a dermatologist
or your local doctor.
Secondly, skin tags.
So skin tags are actually just excessive amounts of skin.
They can look like a little flap
or soft piece of hanging skin,
and they most commonly occur in areas of high friction.
And they're generally benign,
they have no cancerous potential.
And I know there are a tonne of tips and tricks online about
how to get rid of them yourself,
but the safest and most effective way of doing this
is by seeing your local doctor.
There are a couple of ways that this can be done.
Number one, and the thing that I like the best,
is actually snipping them at the base
under a little bit of local anaesthetic.
It's generally a pretty painless procedure, quick, easy.
Remove the skin tags
and the skin looks beautiful afterwards
and it heals up really, really nicely.
Another way of treating them,
especially if they're smaller,
is using a little radio frequency device.
So we use a bit of heat.
Heat the tissue and it falls off over time.
I know that a lot of people advocate
for something called liquid nitrogen cryotherapy
or freezing the areas off.
And while this can be really great for people
that have light skin types,
it can cause post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation
or brown marks in patients that have skin of colour.
Milia is definitely no skin tag.
Milia are little cysts that occur in the skin.
They can be quite small, generally speaking they are,
but we can actually get giant Milia.
And they can occur anywhere on the body
though they are most common on the face, cheeks
in particular around the eyes.
And they can be dealt with pretty easily.
Again, we can use a radio frequency treatment
that burns them off.
If they're larger, we might need to just slip them open
with a little blade and pop them out.
It's really straightforward,
it doesn't even need a local anaesthetic in most cases,
and they are completely benign
they have no cancerous potential.
So, freckles are little brown spots.
They effectively occur more commonly on sun exposed sites.
So their area is like the face,
in particular the nose as well as the cheeks,
but it can occur anywhere, including the arms,
the back and the chest.
Areas that see sun over a prolonged period of time.
And they're basically an accumulation
of the cells that make pigment.
But it's really important to think about
if they are growing or changing in any way,
or if you're starting to notice differences
to get it seen too because occasionally skin things
that are a bit more dangerous can pop up in these areas
and it's important to get that checked.
But freckles in themselves are totally benign,
but they can be removed.
If you're wanting to lighten them,
it's important to think about a really nice sunscreen,
broad spectrum, UVA, UVB blocking.
So things like retinols, tretinoin,
other forms of vitamin A can also help reduce
the appearance of the freckles.
I think the other thing to say about freckles
is that you can embrace them.
Nowadays I have patients coming in talking about
how they're getting freckles tattooed on their faces.
People really love them,
so I guess the question is why get rid of them?
Unless they're a cosmetic bother.
And if they are, there are definitely options out there,
but we can all embrace the freckles that you have.
They're cute.
Another thing that can occur really commonly on the skin
is warts.
And warts can take on many different shapes and forms.
But there are some that look quite flat and skin coloured
and these are called plain warts.
They can easily be mistaken for moles or for age spots,
but all warts are effectively caused by viruses.
And so those viruses just live on the skin
and can replicate and cause more and more warts
as time goes on.
Depending on the kind of what you have,
different treatments might be appropriate.
We can freeze them with dry ice or liquid nitrogen,
we can treat them with a little bit of heat therapy,
we can also utilise topical creams,
both over the counter and prescribed
to try to assist in bringing these back
or removing them completely.
One other little spot on the skin that's quite common
are little red dots.
And often these red dots
are seen more commonly in females than males.
They're more commonly seen during pregnancy
or during breastfeeding.
They're little red dots that can occur on the face,
on the chest, on the arms, really anywhere,
but more commonly in those exposed sites
that we've just mentioned.
And they are microscopically
just a collection of blood vessels under the skin.
They're not skin cancer and they can be removed
either with little heat device therapy or with a laser.
There are actually so many different things
that can cause spots on the skin.
It's really hard to get an exhaustive list going here.
But I think it's really important to say
if something is new, if something is changing,
if something looks different to what it looked like before,
if it's painful or bleeding or oozing,
or you're just not sure,
it's really important to get it checked
by a medical professional.
Thanks so much guys for listening in.
If you have any comments or questions,
please pop them in the comments below.
And if you'd like to check out any more videos
of me talking on various things,
please look at the links across the side.
See you guys. Take care.