› Forums › If you have a mole that’s concerning you, but you just had an annual check, is it okay to go again?
- This topic has 5 replies, 4 voices, and was last updated 4 years, 3 months ago by
Kaitlin.
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- November 1, 2020 at 2:41 am
To start, I haven’t ever been diagnosed with melanoma, but I hope you all don’t mind the intrusion! I have a question about skin check frequency.For background information, I am heavily covered in freckles and moles. I’ve had over a dozen second degree blistering sunburns in my childhood. No sunscreen would work and I would blister within an hour of being outside. I lived in Southern California and that often meant wearing hats all the time and being uninvited from beach birthday parties because parents would panic when they noticed my blisters, even though my parents would warn them that I would likely burn no matter how much sunscreen I used. To top that off, I have a family history of skin cancer and I also used tanning beds occasionally in my college years before I gave up on ever getting a tan because I would just burn in them, even if I was only in them for 5 minutes.
Currently, I’m 24 years old and I’d guess that I have a few hundred moles and thousands of freckles. I have essentially no unblemished skin – even my lips and eyelids have freckles. The main problem, and the one that’s prompting this question, is that I tend to grow kind of weird moles. I have a lot that are irregularly shaped and have multiple colors and variations in elevation. I also grow them really quickly, though it’s hard to really quantify how many I grow in a year because I have so many that they’re impossible to keep track of. I really only notice the ones that are obvious, for example a new one that I got this year on the palm of my hand.
What’s prompting my question: I had my annual skin check this summer and the dermatologist gave me the all clear on three moles that I had asked her about. Recently, I was just rubbing my lower back and I noticed a new raised bump a little above one of the ones I had her look at. I know it’s new because I have pictures of that area and it was immediately noticeable by touch and the feeling of it weirded me out enough that I immediately got up to see what it was. The odd thing is that it’s a white./pink color and its perfectly raised, which for me is unusual. As in, almost all of my moles are a mix of brown colors and unevenly raised or mostly flat. I don’t have a single perfectly raised mole. I know you all can’t actually speak on if something is concerning, but I figured I’d add a (super bad) pic anyways: https://i.postimg.cc/K8zPCJ8W/IMG-2875-2.jpg
I’m assuming it’s a mole since I couldn’t pop it or scratch it off (though I did manage to scratch it a bit) and it didn’t dimple when squeezed like I read most fibromas would.
I’m wondering if, in a case like this, it’s better to just wait until your next annual exam or if it’s okay to schedule a new one. I’ve read the rule of ‘wait 8 weeks if you notice something new’ but at that point, would there be such a difference between waiting 6 weeks and waiting a few more months?
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- November 1, 2020 at 3:40 pm
tricky question. i am 3c under immotheray and oncologist, not dermatologist, prescribes after treatement regime a body survey every 3 months, then after some time, 6 months. the poin here is having had melanoma from a mole they are advising 3 and then 6 months reviews.there are some skin cancers that are not melanoma and not nearly as fatal.
in my case, fair skinned texan who burned all the time as a kid, i didn’t get melanoma till i was 63. derm found one suspicious mole , biopsied, cancer, then 6 months later he found another., biopsied, cancer.
so did the 2nd mole grown from nothing to cancerous in 6 months or did he overlook it originally? i cannot say.my advice is research how quickly a mole can become cancerous, if possible, and adjust your doc visits to that info.
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- November 1, 2020 at 3:40 pm
tricky question. i am 3c under immotheray and oncologist, not dermatologist, prescribes after treatement regime a body survey every 3 months, then after some time, 6 months. the poin here is having had melanoma from a mole they are advising 3 and then 6 months reviews.there are some skin cancers that are not melanoma and not nearly as fatal.
in my case, fair skinned texan who burned all the time as a kid, i didn’t get melanoma till i was 63. derm found one suspicious mole , biopsied, cancer, then 6 months later he found another., biopsied, cancer.
so did the 2nd mole grown from nothing to cancerous in 6 months or did he overlook it originally? i cannot say.my advice is research how quickly a mole can become cancerous, if possible, and adjust your doc visits to that info.
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- November 2, 2020 at 12:45 pm
If this is going to be a continuous source of worry and concern for the next 8 months, get it checked.-
- November 6, 2020 at 3:35 pm
HEY OP, I looked at your picture and to me, it looks benign. Keep in mind that I am not an MD though. I’d say that basically, you have 2 choices at this point:1. Go have it checked ASAP; or
2. Measure it and take pictures and watch it for a few weeks for changesYou know, melanoma (especially nodular melanoma) will be growing, changing. If you don’t see any changes to it within a few weeks or a few months, then it is probably nothing. However, both choices above are valid and it depends more on your level of comfort. Good luck my friend, and keep us posted!
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