Getting a mole checked

[flibbertigibbert]

I saw the GP yesterday about a mole on my leg which has recently doubled in size and she referred me to a dermatologist at the hospital.

My appointment is next week, and I'm not really sure what they'll do, or what to expect.

Has anyone got any experience of this?

At this appointment, they'll just take a look at the mole. If they decide to remove it, they'll set up another appointment purely for that. At least that's what happened to me.

Good luck

When I saw the GP yesterday she looked at it through a small telescope-esque thing. Will the dermatologist just do pretty much the same thing then?

Basically - yes! Was a very big magnifying glass with a bright light. Guess it's the dermatologist's decision whether to remove or not so they get to check it out too.

So they don't do any tests on it until they decide to remove the mole?

If they do remove it, any idea how long it takes for test results to come back?

I had mine taken off at the doctors surgery, results were back within a week.

AFAIK (& I'm no expert), they can't actually do any tests until they remove the mole, as that is what they will test - send it off to pathology. They just looked at the mole, asked a load of questions & then decided whether or not to remove it.

Can't remember the exact time-line, but it was fairly quick. Maybe a couple of weeks after seeing the consultant to having the mole removed & then another couple of weeks to getting the letter with the results. Having said that, I know someone who had a mole removed recently & he was phoned up with the results pretty quickly.

If it's a melanoma, you will go in for another operation to remove a load more tissue around the original mole, which will then go off for testing to check there are no cancer cells in it. Fortunately for me, there were no cancer cells in the second operation so I did not need any further treatment. Not sure what happens if there are, sorry (& hopefully you won't have to find out either).

Both my operations were done under local anaesthetic, but the other person I know had the first done under local, but as he needed a skin graft after the second (mole on neck) that was done under a general.

HTH

Jetbaby - thanks for all the advice.

The doctor said it was highly unlikely to be anything sinister because it was fairly uniform in shape and colour, the only dodgy thing was that it had doubled in size in the last year. Also, I have dark skin which makes it even more unlikely to be anything bad.

That sounds positive - good luck for next week.

When I had a suspect mole, I was offered a biopsy at the first appointment. However as I wanted to have it out to cut out uncertainty, I had asked if they would do it on the spot and they did.
The results took about a week.

i have had a suspect mole too [it got bigger and lumpy] and went to hospital where the consultant checked it and told me it was fine.
good luck next week