What’s Growing on Your Skin? | Dermatologists Explain

Ajouté : 2026-05-26

[00:00:11]super satisfying. But what on earth was that? There are so many things that we see in the office as dermatologists every day that are growing on your skin, on my skin, and you wonder what they are. So, in this video, we're going to be talking about common skin lesions that we see in the office, what they are, and what to do about them. what's growing on your skin. Here we go. Here we go.

[00:00:35]So, the first one to avoid rage baiting all of you. This is a dilated pore of whiner and that is what you saw being extracted in this video. These are basically a blend almost as if a cyst and a blackhead had a baby and you are left with this open pore, a structural hole in the skin which is filling up with dead skin and keratin debris.

[00:00:56]Right? So, it looks like a blackhead, but it's not actually coming from a pore or a hair follicle. It's actually its own cyst sack that's open to the environment. And by being exposed to air, it turns black through oxidation. I actually have the smallest dilated pore of winer right here on my skin. And when I squeeze out the blackhead from it, it fills back up because it's basically like a cyst wall where it's continuing to produce that keratin debris, right?

[00:01:21]And so even though you can get these extracted like you saw in the video, one of the more discouraging things is it will probably come back unless you cut it out in its entirety.

[00:01:29]>> And that video was from Dr. Pimple Popper, Dr. Sandra Lee, the goat of extractions. And so shout out to her for that video. Next up are these little white growths on your face. Classically, they're around the eyes. We will often see people trying to pop these at home, but again, a source of frustration because you cannot, right? So you can get white heads that again come from a hair follicle or a pore. This is not coming from the pore. This is actually a ball of keratin that's built up underneath the surface of the skin and it essentially gets trapped there. So very very common around the eyes as you can see from this image here. You can also get them on the lower face and this is basically just keratin balls getting trapped into the skin. Now there are many things that you can do to try to treat and prevent these but the truth is we actually don't fully know what causes this. We believe that some type of occlusion can occur, whether it's a skincare product or a makeup product or even a sunscreen. That occlusion prevents your skin from exfoliating and then these keratin balls get trapped underneath the skin. And so using things that don't clog your pores or clog your skin can be helpful, but we really can't give you any recommendations on what to avoid. Now, in my opinion, retinol and exfoliants do help to prevent these from happening because it keeps that keratin from getting trapped underneath the skin. But once these develop, I haven't found that retinol or exfoliants do a great job of getting them removed and you actually do have to get them physically extracted from the skin, right? And so while you commonly see these ingredients being used, yes, to treat them perhaps better at preventing them, extraction is the best way to get rid of this. You can have your esthetician do it, although there are some restrictions in certain areas. Your dermatologist or someone on their staff can do this for you, but again, your fingers, Q-tips will probably not be enough. Next up are skin tags. These are fleshcoled bumps that generally occur on the neck or really any flexural area. So also the armpits and the groin. And so they often do occur due to friction, but they can also be associated with diabetes. And there's a video here of Dr. Maxfield actually cutting off a skin tag that I had on my neck. And it was likely due to either a collar or from my necklace creating that friction. And although these usually occur in isolation or have a strong genetic component, they also can be signaled from growth factors like insulin light growth factor. So if you have metabolic syndrome, if you have other things like diabetes, you may see more of these as well. Not everyone will have this association, but if you have a lot of these symptoms or signs together, you might want to get that checked out, right? And this is something that if it's bothering you, it's getting stuck on things, you don't like the way that they look, you can come see us in the office as a dermatologist. We can generally either just cut them off and they're completely painless, or we'll numb it before we cut it off. Some doctors will freeze it. I generally just cut it. I think it's cleaner and easier to do. Another growth that most people will have are these little red spots that show up on your skin. Now, we did a whole video on this separately, so if you want to look more into this, that's fine. But these are called cherry angiomas. Again, cherry angiomas, we have a whole video on it. We don't really know what causes these. They can be genetic in some cases. So, a lot of family members will have these, but they're often red, cherry colored, as the name might suggest, and they're just a collection of blood vessels that occur in the skin, completely harmless, and they can show up all over the body. I have some myself. I try to treat them when they're small and there's really two ways to treat these. We really treat these with either an electric needle where we basically burn them off and then they just slo off new skin comes in beneath them or we treat them with a laser that targets redness. So there's lots of lasers that are out there that specifically target redness and by blasting them they just explode and then they again slough off and go away. It sounds very dramatic but in real life it's almost one of the least dramatic treatments you'll ever see but also it's one of the most successful treatments you'll ever get. So, if these are important to you, meaning that you want them treated, make sure you verbalize that to your dermatologist because the healing is so fast, the results can be so good. This one responds really well.

[00:05:13]This next lesion that we're looking at is called a sebereetic keratossis. And I was always hesitant to talk about these on social media because they're brown, they're irregular, and they can be scary looking. And so, I don't want anyone to watch this video thinking, "Oh, I have a brown irregular thing on my skin, and it's a sebria kerattosis, which is a completely benign and harmless lesion."

[00:05:33]and then avoid going to see a dermatologist because there are other very scary things. They can be abnormal, they can be brown, they can be irregular, and these things can be melanomas. And so very important if you have something and you don't know what it is, definitely go see a dermatologist. But seated kerattosis, we can show you a bunch of different pictures of what these look like. They look very different on different people, but they're often raised. They're often scaly. They often look like they're quote unquote stuck on. Like they're they looks like you could peel them off, but you can't peel them off. They're attached to a base. These are basically just skin growths. They're basically growths of the epidermis that become brown and irregular, but they are harmless.

[00:06:09]>> Right? And again, this is very difficult to talk about online because they meet the ABCD and E of melanoma. They're asymmetric with irregular borders. Their color is irregular. The diameter and size is big. And yes, they're always new, dynamic, and evolving because of when they come on in life. So, if there's any question, see a dermatologist about these. Treating them. oftentimes we're still just stuck using liquid nitrogen or cryossurgery where you freeze it, spray it, give it a couple weeks as they're red and irritated and then they heal off, sloth off. Lots and lots of companies have tried to come up with treatments for these, even pharmaceutical companies.

[00:06:40]None of them have really been successful to the sugarin of many people, but if you have any questions, just see your dermatologist, right? So, simply freezing them off is tends to be the best treatment. And people can get many of these. So, they can be all over the body. Sometimes they can occur on the face. They most commonly occur in in single clothd areas we say. So not often in the groin. So they tend to be in the areas where you wear a shirt but not as often on the face but you can get them on the face. And we treat these on the face all the time. And so easy to diagnose by a dermatologist can be confused for lots of other things. Now with any growth on the skin your dermatologist may pull out one of these.

[00:07:16]This is a dermatoscope. And they'll look closely at the skin. And with a melanoma versus a sebraic kerattosis, what they'll be able to see is these keratin pearls underneath the skin. It's very classic for what a sebre kerattosis will look like. And then a melanoma, you'll actually see different pigment networks that look irregular underneath the skin.

[00:07:34]And so these are two things that dermatologists might see underneath the skin that could distinguish between these two, which is why it's important to see a dermatologist rather than diagnosing yourself at home. And the last growths we'll talk about really occur across all ages. sometimes in kids, sometimes in adults. But what we'll start with are the common warts.

[00:07:50]Warts. This is a huge topic that has plagued existence since the beginning of time. And this is actually caused by a virus called the human papilloma virus.

[00:07:57]And there are many subtypes of human papilloma virus. And some of them are associated with cancer. Now the common wart that you'll get on the hands and the feet and in other areas tend to be completely harmless. And what these are essentially a growth of skins that due to this virus infecting your skin cells tells your skin to continue to proliferate causing these growths on the skin. And what we can classically see in these is actually little blood vessels, little thrombos blood vessels within them that can kind of look blackish and sometimes reddish underneath the skin.

[00:08:26]And when you look closely at them, you'll notice that this is actually a wart versus, for example, a corn that won't have this or molescum contagiosa which will also not have this. So those seeds, as they're commonly called, are thrombos capillaries. They're pathogonic, meaning that it's almost diagnostic of it being a wart, treatment for this is pretty straightforward.

[00:08:44]Although you have a lot of options, but it's always going to be destructive because the cells that are infected with the virus need to go. And while up to 70% of warts resolve at the end of a year, allegedly by the studies, in the office, we see the selection of those that don't. And so, we'll classically freeze them with liquid nitrogen, which is much more effective and stronger than those freezing tips or even freezing sprays you can get over the counter.

[00:09:06]Otherwise, you'll see in the office high concentrations of salicylic acid even combined with an ingredient called five floruril or you have the over-the-counter version which is a lower strength of salicylic acid up to 40% but still a lower strength that will be catalytic break up those skin cells and hopefully destroy the infected skin right and we have a whole video maybe 20 minute video on warts that are available on YouTube so if you want to know everything about warts and how to treat them including I think witchcraft was an option that we had put out there to treatment. You can check out our entire video on warts.

[00:09:38]>> I totally forgot we shot that.

[00:09:40]Completely forgot about that video.

[00:09:42]>> Um, okay.

[00:09:44]And then associated or similar is or what can look similar is something called molescum contagiosumin which is very very common. If you have kids or you have nieces and nephews, you may recognize this lesion. Right? So the most classic feature on this is this umbilication or this little central dell on each little bump. This also is caused by a virus, the pox virus. It's one of the most classic hytoologgical images you'll ever see and ever be tested on dermatology residency. But also in the real world, you can see signs that'll clue you in as well. It has central umbilication, a little dell. They're shiny. They look like little bubbles.

[00:10:18]Maybe you can pop them, but you cannot.

[00:10:20]They're actually growths of the skin, and they lack those little black spots that you'll see on a wart. Yeah. And these can classically occur in areas like the elbows, the arms, the knees.

[00:10:29]And you're usually only going to see this in kids and young kids. usually toddlers, maybe people in daycare, maybe a little bit older than that. But once you develop immunity to them, you generally don't get them again. So usually you don't see adults developing molescum contagiosum other than in very rare cases that they weren't exposed when they were younger. But once you develop immunity to these, you generally don't develop these lesions anymore. So they're one of those things that show up when you're young. Once you develop an immune system to them, they just completely go away. Treatment for this is a little bit more difficult because often times you're dealing with a very young patient population. You don't want to traumatize them. You really want to avoid any scarring if possible. And it's very common to get dozens to even hundreds of these on the skin. And like Dr. Shaw mentioned, I have never seen a kid who has molescum turn into an adult who has molescum. Like it just doesn't occur. Always this seems to go away on its own. But if you want it treated, same methods either destruction like freezing, mechanical like curetting, or even through irritation, trying to stimulate the immune system like with tininoan off label to try to help bring your own body's defenses to recognize the virus and get rid of it. Yeah, this can be very frustrating for parents. So, they're always looking for some type of treatment, but they generally do just go away on their own. Now, the risk with these is that they do spread. So if you're to itch them and scratch other areas, they can spread to other areas and they can spread to other kids and family members not just through touching but also through towels for example. So it is possible to spread these to other people. So just be aware it is caused by a virus which is a contagious virus.

[00:11:57]Hence molescum contagiosum. So those are some of the most common growths on your skin. If you have something growing on your skin that you want us to look at, please don't send us pictures. Please go in to see your dermatologist. That's the really the best way to get them evaluated. But if there are things growing, if there are topics or things you've heard about you want us to talk about, please let us know in the comments and we'll take a look.

[00:12:16]>> Thank you all so much for tuning in.

[00:12:17]Hopefully you found this helpful. Let us know in the comments what you want to learn about next.