Hand hold- melanoma

[burntoutmum]

Hi

About a year ago I went to the GP about a mole that I felt had changed ( I burnt my shin - area of mole- 4 years ago). GP looked through a funny scope thing and said all ok but keep an eye. 6 months later I’m there again for something else and ask GP to look again ( diff doc) and again told looks ok, however referred as I’m worried.

App 6 months later ( no not urgent referral!!) on Tuesday, dermatologist took one look and not happy . Checked me all over for other moles- fortunately I’m not moley- and looked through scope thing whilst hmmming. Said wanted it off, so had it taken off that day.

She was a mix of concern and not so much concern as I’m not classed as high risk ( no family history, not moley, not sun bather)

I’ve been as cool as a cucumber since. Until now, and I’m a mess. Hate that I’m not back at the hospital until 28th. Cracking Christmas I’m going to have.

I’m relieved I have Christmas to concentrate on but not sure how I can wait 2 weeks for the results

I don’t know what to do with myself

was there anything in particular that bothered you about it? did it grow, have irregular borders, bleed or itch, crust or ooze etc?

some moles are just ugly and weird. i had a loveheart shaped mole removed when i was 19 after it developed a dark patch - lots of warning signs. it came back clear!

I'm more moley than a little freckled mole that has moles under its moley fluff.

I've had a few removed privately because skin cancer runs in our family and I lost my grandfather to it.

There is a 'hmmm' - airing on the side of caution noise, and a 'that needs to come off immediately' outburst with my specialist.

urgent appointment booked...

I think they are removing it to be on the safe side.

I was sat down a few years ago when on a regular check up, my mum (who had only two moles) showed my specialist and one had to come off immediately!

He said had I not come in, my mum wouldn't have been with me in 6 months time.

Maybe it's just my specialist being direct (which I prefer) but not to give you false hope, I think this is just a precaution.

Thanks both!

The only change was a small black mark that appeared, no itching, bleeding etc .

On a positive she said it wasn’t raised so likely if sinister to be an early stage. My friend decided to tell me yesterday about her MIL dying of Melanoma, great timing!!

A couple of years ago, I noticed a mole on my back whilst trying on a dress. I’m very moley but something about it didn’t sit right but I decided it was nothing and I didn’t want to bother the doctor. But it kept playing on my mind so I went to have it looked at.

He referred me to the dermatology unit at the local hospital (after having a weird photo shoot type affair with a photographer taking close ups of my mole while I stood in front of a white screen!) and I had it removed and sent for testing. After a while I got a phone call from a doctor saying they’d had to have it checked twice as the first time they thought it was cancerous but after double checking, they determined it wasn’t BUT it was on its way to being cancerous so I went back for a “deep excavation” where they took out all of the rest of it. I now go back every six months and have all of my moles checked by a dermatologist.

It’s a very scary thing to go through and that wait for results is awful. I think most moles do turn out to be benign, my dermatologist said he removes hundreds of moles and very rarely do they turn out to be cancerous (pre-cancerous maybe, like mine was) good luck for your results!

Hi all,

Thought I’d update. It was melanoma , fortunately though very thin ( 0.6mm) so I “just” needed to have more taken off and apps for the next year. Scary but feeling lucky that it’s been found and is now gone

Whew. Sorry to hear the original news, stressedoutfred, but am glad that it all seems to be in order now.

@stressedoutfred I'm glad they caught it in time. Keeping an eye on you for follow up appointments are obviously to keep you safe and should anything else occur, they can move quickly and stop anything before it starts.