A ^Retired Plastic Surgeon's Notebook

Yuck! What are these things?

Seborrheic Keratosis – looks bad but is totally harmless

Seattle Plastic Surgeon discusses icky but harmless skin lesions.

I just finished treating a lovely middle aged lady with about 20 of these unsightly skin lesions on her back.  Since she turned 50,  they have been popping up like mushrooms in our wet Seattle. 

These nasty looking lesions are seborrheic keratoses and despite their looks, they are totally harmless. 

Most patients who develop seborrheic keratoses are over 50 and most have a family history.  They usually develop in sun exposed areas but not always. 

There are several ways to treat these.  My treatment of choice is to numb up the area with local anesthetic and then scrape the lesions off with a curette and then zap any little areas of oozing with an electric needle.  It takes about 7 – 10 days for the areas to heal, depending on the size of the kertosis.  The really nice thing about treating these is that the treated area usually heals with minimal scarring.  Removal of seborreic keratoses does not require going all the way through the skin layers.  Usually I just have to go into the middle layer of the skin and that accounts for the fairly rapid and scarless healing. 

One big work of caution.  Do not have these treated unless you can spend a couple of months without sun exposure to the area.  UV radiation can turn the healing area brown and then you just end up with a brown scar where the brown spot used to be.  Rather counterproductive.  The lady I treated today won’t be exposing her back until next winter when she goes to Hawaii.  Perfect timing.

SOOOO – if you have some of these nasty little spots that bother you (or anyone who has to look at them), give my office a call and we can set up a time to remove them.  Fall is the best time because then you have a whole 6 – 9 months before any worry about sun exposure. 

Thanks for reading!  Dr. Lisa Lynn Sowder

 

Category: Aging Issues, General Health, Now That's a Little Weird, Plastic Surgery, Skin Care | Tags: , , , , , ,

Next Post:
Previous Post:

Back to top