You may have heard the phrase skin tags before, you may have heard someone say that they have them, and you may even have them yourself. Still, you might be wondering the following question – what are skin tags? What are they, really?
Well, skin tags are tiny little pockets of skin that stick out from the rest of your body. It would be great to be able to outline an exact description of what they look like, but there are huge swings in the appearance of skin tags – in everything from shape, to color, to texture.
You might see skin tags that are rough and irregular on the surface, and differ in color from the person’s normal skin tone, or some might be flesh colored and smooth on the surface. There’s really no saying definitively because skin tags are not defined nor diagnosed according to appearance.
Skin tags generally form where skin meets skin, and there is some heat and friction. This means you will often see them in places on the body such as armpits, eyelids, in the crook of the elbow, or on the neck. These are the common place where they grow, however, they can and will grow anywhere on the body at times.
Technically, dermatologists – doctors that specialize in skin conditions – consider skin tags to be small, benign tumors. Because they are benign, that means they are not cancerous or life-threatening. However, they can still be very embarrassing to your appearance, and they can also be inconvenient and, in some cases, very painful.
Particularly when they grow in places where they are often rubbing against other skin or tend to get caught in clothing, they can be extremely irritating and, yes, quite painful.
To make matters worse, removing them or attempting to remove them, can often leave equally painful and unsightly scarring behind.
