Sebacious cyst removal and scarring

I'd be interested in the answer to this, I have one on my wrist and one on my leg. You can't really see the one on my leg, but the one on my wrist is quite noticable and its making me quite self concious. The doctor said there is no need to remove it, but aside from it not looking very nice, if I catch it on anything it really hurts.

Oh God, will all medics please leave the thread now please.

I'm not recommending your do this, because I did it in a crazy moment, but it demonstrates that the whole thing's a piece of cake.

I had one on my earlobe, and I treated it myself by lancing with a sterlised needle, squeezing out the sebum and the knobbly bits of keratin, applying tcp and a plaster, and that was it. It was about a centimetre across, and I have no scar. I can still feel a bit of keratin inside it, so imagine it could flare up again in the future. This was about 5 or 6 years ago. <faint>

Oh, that sounds good. Well, not good, obviously- it sounds grim- but encouraging ?

I'm the Queen of cysts! Sadly ?

I've had about 6 removed from my scalp, one from my foot, had a rather nasty, mahoosive bartholin cyst removed, which then resulted in future labia reconstruction (some might remember that!), from my back and GOK how many after breast reduction when my body reacted with the internal stitches and caused cyst abscesses.

Erm .. what was the original question?! ?? I can't see the OP !

Oh yeah, scarring!

Well the first ones I had removed from my scalp was done by my GP, in the surgery, and badly IMO. He cut out loads of hair around the cysts and then proceeded to dig away, which hurt like hell (and I could feel everything as the surrounding hair was being touched by his hands) and of course I could hear everything ? Even though I was in my teens or early 20s, I remember it all too well!

And I have scars. God forbid I ever lose all of my hair. I can feel the scars now, and the hair never did grow back. Even now I have to look in the mirror to make sure the little bald patches are covered up ☹️

As for the rest - the bartholin one I don't need to mention really as it's not relevant to what you have.

The one on my foot did scar, but it's not too noticeable as it looks like a vein and blends in with the other veins and bone lines.

Boobs - lots of little scars from subsequent surgeries (cyst removals) after the big surgery (which, incidentally I only examined yesterday and have to say almost 3 years on I'm rather proud of my new ❤️❤️ even if they are bigger than they were immediately post-op

Oh, forgot to mention that if you do decide to have it removed, my advice would be to go to a specialist. When I had mine done by a plastic surgeon, a) I felt no pain and b) the scarring was hardly noticeable.

He removed something from my face (mole/growth - not sure what it was, but it had to come off as GP thought it might be more than what it was, but it wasn't in the end) and you can't see the scar at all. And it was quite large for something on the cheekbone right below my eye. No scar, nothing. True genius!

He also removed lots of cysts - from my scalp mostly. And again, minimal hair removal and no scars that I can feel. Unlike the Hannibal Lecter job the GP did on me.

Where is your cyst?

I had a cyst removed from my foot on Monday had to have a GA, not sure on scarring as its still got a dressing on it, but surprisley I feel no pain which is bizarre. It was quite a big cyst too. All this talk of lancing cysts is making me feel ?

My Mum had one removed that looked about the size of a small marble from her midriff - no scar, and was done by her GP, and my brother had one removed by his GP from his neck - again, no scar involved.

I had something that looked like a cyst but was only about a millimetre across that was on my face and about a month ago I went the LouM route and took a sterilised needle to it. Same result as Lou's, only it's completely gone now, with no knobbly lumps remaining.

?

I had quite a small one come up on my neck, right at the front. the doctors told me it was harmless and they wouldn't remove it as it was cosmetic. To cut a long story short, a few years later it bacame infected and got very large, swollen and painful. By this time I had private medical insurance through work who agreed to refer me to a specialist as it was infected and no longer cosmetic. Saw a plastic surgeon who was very angry at both doctors and ppp who had suggested that it was cosmetic and harmless, as apparently when they are just small lumps they can very easily just be drained but once they become infected, it's a whole different kettle of fish!

To cut a long story short, the cyst burst (lovely) and all the puss came oozing out. This was good (apparently) as the infection needed to come out before it could be operated on. I had threee progresssively longer and stronger courses of antibiotics to get rid of remaining infection so that doctor could operate. Eventually I went into our local private hospital and cyst was cleaned up under a local anesthetic, it wasn't very pleasant and I had to have several stitches, so now obviously I have a small scar on my neck although doctor did a neat job.

Unfortunately, when I went back for a check up some time later, the doc wasn't satisfied that he had got all of the cyst out because it had ruptured and was a bit messy, so he had to go back in to clean up the site and re stitch me. This time all went well and I have had no further bother.

The moral of this story is to please ignore your doctor if they try to tell you that they are cosmetic as my surgeon (who also works for the nhs) was quite insistent that due to their volatility (is this a word ?) they should have drained it on the nhs in the first place and not left it to get infected which was really quite horrid.

Oh and if I was you, I wouldn't try to squeeze it or burst it myself, which may be tempting as this could just lead to it becoming infected.

hth

I apologise in advance for this link but this thread reminded me of it!

(Not for the squeamish) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkf2Jdo2IWE

Why did I just watch that? ?

Urgh that was truly grim ?

Thanks everyone. I've got an appointment with a dermatologist (the system is slightly different over here so you self-refer rather than seeing a GP first).