Except you’re a dermatologist, you most likely don’t know the right way to take away pores and skin tags the correct method—as in, with out hurting your self or probably inflicting different points like extreme bleeding, scarring, or an infection. However you’re undoubtedly not alone should you’re trying to reduce a type of suckers free.

Pores and skin tags—or acrochordons, if you wish to be fancy and use the right (Latin) identify—are a brilliant frequent sort of raised development. In reality, as many as 60% of adults will get at the least one of their lifetime.¹ They’ll develop anyplace on the physique, however they have a tendency to indicate up in spots with pores and skin folds—just like the neck, armpits, groin, or under-boob space.¹

To be clear, these fleshy little protrusions are thought of innocent, from a medical perspective, however that doesn’t make them any much less annoying. In case you have one and also you’re not pleased with the way it seems or feels, you’re not essentially caught with it.

We requested dermatologists to stroll us via all the pieces it’s essential find out about pores and skin tags—together with whether or not or not it’s price it to get them eliminated.

What causes pores and skin tags, precisely?

Like warts, they develop out of your pores and skin on a stalk and include their very own blood provide however little innervation (i.e. nerve provide), Sarmela Sunder, MD, a double-board-certified facial plastic reconstructive surgeon in Beverly Hills, tells SELF.

And so they can are available quite a lot of sizes and styles. The shapes: beady or fingerlike projections and even smooth, bag-like fibromas. The sizes: anyplace from one to 5 millimeters, although pores and skin tags so long as 12.7 millimeters have been recorded.² Whereas consultants concur that there isn’t a singular trigger of those fleshy growths, there may be proof that pores and skin tag formation is linked to a lot of elements, together with friction from skin-on-skin rubbing or tight clothes, genetics, and sure well being situations, Dr. Sunder says. Hypertension, insulin resistance, sort 2 diabetes, and excessive ldl cholesterol, for instance, are all correlated with the presence of pores and skin tags.³

Again to high

Why am I instantly getting pores and skin tags?

There’s no direct connection between age and pores and skin tags, Tracy Evans, MD, board-certified dermatologist and medical director of Pacific Pores and skin and Beauty Dermatology in San Francisco, tells SELF. However many situations that correlate with (not trigger!) their formation are likelier to develop in maturity than in childhood. Analysis means that pores and skin tags can seem as early as your teen years, however are more than likely to indicate up after you flip 40 (and that chance ranges off once more after age 70—who knew?).¹

No matter your age, should you discover you’re getting a complete new crop of pores and skin tags, schedule an appointment together with your dermatologist or major care supplier, particularly should you’re experiencing different signs that aren’t typical for you: “There are conditions the place a major variety of pores and skin tags can sign an underlying difficulty, resembling sure autoimmune situations like Crohn’s illness, sure polyp-causing gastrointestinal syndromes, or a growth-related syndrome generally known as acromegaly,” Dr. Sunder says.⁴ “Growing a pores and skin tag doesn’t imply that you’ve considered one of these ailments, and having considered one of these situations doesn’t imply you’ll get pores and skin tags, however we generally see an overlap in each.”