Melanoma Anxiety Over Weird Mole... can anyone offer any advice?

[Bianca1996]

Hi all,

I want to preface this by saying I am unable to see a doctor at the moment as I am in a foreign country so I am just looking for some advice or similar experiences to ease my mind.

I'm 20 years old and I've had a large mole on my right breast for as long as I can remember. My friend mentioned that she had a mole looked at and I started panicking about this mole, and I can't tell if it's always looked this weird.

It definitely fails the ABCDE test, but I don't think it has changed over time. It hasn't gotten any larger. It's bigger than a pencil eraser, but only slightly, has blurred and notched edges, and is slightly raised.

I am TERRIFIED that this is melanoma. I know that I am fairly young (although it's common in the young too), I don't have fair hair or eyes, and it's on a part of my body that has never ever been exposed to the sun. Still.

I had my mom look at it and she kind of brushed it off, saying some moles grow like that and she's had some herself, so I want to believe her and stop worrying.

I've literally worried about every cancer there is but this is the one that anxiety can't make up he symptoms. To make things worse, the lymph node on that side (or maybe just my breast because of PMS) feels super tender, and I'm beyond CONVINCED it has spread to stage 3.

Can anybody give me peace of mind? Are atypical moles like this common? Everywhere I look on google it diagnoses me with melanoma. I'm terrified, I haven't been eating or sleeping.

Thank you all for your help.

[TattooArtist]

I can only say that out of all the moles we were suspicious of, the one that turned out to be melanoma surprised me when it was diagnosed. YOU don't really know what to look for but a dermatologist DOES. Rest assured that moles that stay the same and have been there all your life are almost always benign. When you return, contact your derm office to do a skin check but don't worry too much. We all have moles.

[Aussie11]

I have checks every 6 months and have had a couple of moles removed. Dermatologist said to me that if one is melanoma it will change quick rapidly, say over a couple of weeks. So if hasn't changed, sounds like you can just monitor until you can have checked by doctor again. Take a photo of it on your phone and monitor it against that for a while, helps to be objective rather than mind playing tricks on you telling you it looks different when doesn't.

[Dubmom]

I have lots of moles. Ugly ones, normal ones, new ones, old ones. I have them in the "suspicious places" on bottom of foot, on my lip, on my fingers, etc. I finally got brave enough to go to the derm and she said that every one of them was normal. If it's been there for a while and hasn't changed, I would try really hard not to worry about it! I have been where you are and know how overwhelmingly scary it is!

[NervUs]

I agree it's doubtful that a non-changing mole is malignant. NOrmal moles can have some of the ABCD signs- I have some moles that have blurred edges, for instance, and they are fine. I have also had moles meeting ABCD criteria that turned out to be dysplastic (abnormal cells but not malignant).

You could always watch the mole for change- and by that, don't look at it too frequently as you will not be able to detect change if you're looking all the time. Just look once a month.

And, maybe it's a good idea to schedule yearly skin checks? I don't know if you have a lot of moles or if you are in a high risk population (I am), but it might be good to making them part of your health care routine if you have an atypical mole. Again, atypical does not mean bad!