Spiralling

[mummyanxious]

I need some words. I have a mole on my shoulder which has always looked a little different and been dark. For years it's been this way. Literally years. Yesterday my shoulder was itching and it looked a bit dry. Now I'm thinking everything makes sense, weight loss, acid, complete lethargy. I'm worried that its terminal because its been there for years and now I can't see how it can't be serious. I feel sick to the stomach. I've always been a moley person and get new ones but they've always looked like your normal run of the mill moles and because I have so many I can't be going back and forwards all the time, and similarly they can't remove them all for the same reason. I'm terrified. I've left it too long and the answers been right under my nose the whole time.

---------- Post added at 16:08 ---------- Previous post was at 16:07 ----------

I also read on this very forum that if you get one on your palm it means its terminal and a couple of months ago I got a small freckle on my palm :(

---------- Post added at 16:11 ---------- Previous post was at 16:08 ----------

Perhaps all these new freckles is it spreading across my skin?

[mummyanxious]

No one? :(

[Andrash]

Hey, if you had untreated cancer for years you would have been six feet under by now, believe me.

I don't know what your other problems are (you mentioned something about weight), but the mole is definitely not causing them. Have you visited your gp?

As for lethargy and weight loss, they're symptoms of depression. I'd try to tacle that first, than see what happens.

But above all else, don't try to diagnose yourself, especially not with google. Whoever is checking symptoms on google ends up convinced he/she has cancer, MS, ALS or bubonic plague, if lucky. Remember, whoever is diagnosing her/himself has a quack for a doctor.

[emlica]

I've had freckles on and off on my palms for a few years. Don't currently have any - they seem to fade after a while - though I do have one on the 'underside' of my thumb. So far as far as I'm aware I don't have terminal cancer!!

Chances are your skin got a bit itchy because it's cold or you wore something that irritated it a bit and now you're just hyperaware of it. I have moles on my arms that go a bit itchy and dry occasionally - it's happened for years and years. If your mole had been dodgy, as Andrash said, you'd really truly know about it by now. It wouldn't just be a bit itchy.

[mummyanxious]

I'm worried its gone past the precancerous stage and is full blown. The mole itself has gone dry. I have had some go dry and gone back to normal but I'm not so sure about this :(

[Andrash]

How large is that mole?

[emlica]

I'm not really sure what you mean to be honest, and you seem to have ignored the two replies that you got entirely!

A mole that stays the same for years isn't a sign that it's just been sitting there being 'terminal' all that time! The fact that it's now gone dry and itchy is probably nothing at all - if the mole is raised - which most are - then it's more susceptible to a bit of irritation than the surrounding skin is. You wouldn't just have a mole sitting there doing nothing for years and yet somehow magically causing other symptoms (which, incidentally, are nothing to do with skin cancer at all).

[mummyanxious]

Sorry I didn't think what I'd written was clear so was trying to say it was the mole that had gone dry not my shoulder.
I wasn't ignoring your replies.
It's not very big, perhaps the size of the top of a rubber on a pencil?
This one isn't a raised one emilca, it's like a freckle more. Not a shiny mole iykwim.
But surely moles do go funny all of a sudden? Isn't that why were suppose to keep our eye on them?
I've had tons of freckles and moles come up last year and I just ignored them as they looked 'normal' to me :/

---------- Post added at 12:19 ---------- Previous post was at 12:17 ----------

And I'm really not going anywhere near google for this sort of thing! Google is for looking for restaurants etc

[Andrash]

If it is that small, odds are it is not cancerous. Especially not advanced cancer-advanced melanomas are big and clearly distinguishable. .