Skin tags are a common, benign growth of the skin. They are not dangerous, but they are annoying. The official medical term for a skin tag is “acrochordon” or “fibroepithelial papilloma”. They come in all sizes and look exactly as the name implies: like a “tag” of skin hanging from your body.
Why do I get them?
Skin tags are very common and almost everyone has a few. They are probably caused by the friction of skin rubbing against skin, and that is why they occur most commonly in skin folds like the groin, underarms, or neck.
How do I get rid of them?
Removing them is fairly simple. There are two methods:
Method 1 – We clean the area, numb up the tags, and cut them off with a sterile instrument. Skin tags can bleed a lot when cut off, but we have “stuff” that stops the bleeding quickly.
Method 2 – We freeze them with liquid nitrogen. This method involves no bleeding , but you have to wait a week or two for the frozen tag to fall off. This method is useful for tags close to or on the eyelid where we prefer not to use a sharp instrument.
Will they come back?
The ones we cut off will probably not recur, but we have no way of stopping your body from producing new skin tags. If you are prone to skin tags, you will probably grow more eventually. Many of our patients come in every few years to “clean up” all of their new tags.