New raised pigmented spot on back!

[Double_Rainbow]

Hi lovely people, I was doing relatively well lately but now I can really use some support!

Yesterday while adjusting a bra I felt a raised spot on my back, and it looked like a slightly raised mole. I don't remember any raised moles on my back so I checked my high resolution full body pics from 4 years ago and sure enough, it wasn't there back then! The thing is, it's only 3mm small; I have lots of solar lentigo on my back from childhood sunburns and it looks just like one of the lentigines, only it is new and a bit raised. But it is the same color and overall appearance and so it blends in pretty well, hence I am not sure how long it has been there. This freaks me out like crazy, I only got maybe 3 hrs of sleep this past night. Waiting for the derm office to open at 8am to set up an appt, hopefully this week and ASAP. I know it doesn't look suspicious and it can be a bunch of benign things (seborreic keratosis for one) but it also can be a nodular melanoma. Nodular melanomas tend to look innocuous when early stage and can grow deadly within a matter of weeks! I am 26 weeks pregnant and I am just besides myself with worry, I am only 36 and have young kids, I don't want to die anytime soon! Please, any words of encouragement are welcome. It is 4:30am and time tends to drag and drag so slowly...

See the pic below. Not the biggest mole at the bottom (that is a solar lentigo from forever) but the next one above it.

mole.jpg

[Double_Rainbow]

Seeing a derm today in 3 hours. It is a PA but a PA is better than nothing. I was previously seeing a PA at my other derm (unfortunately she left out of state) and she was good. Hoping this one would be okay too.

[Worrywart1234]

Think of the warning signs - red, itchy, changing. You haven’t described any of those at all. A new mole appearing is not the same as one you’ve had changing. New freckles and moles appear on everyone. I think the good thing is you are seeing a proper doctor to get it checked - your anxiety may give you a hard time until then, the doctor will look at it and most likely say it is nothing and hopefully you’ll feel a lot better. Have you shown it to your partner? I had the exact same worry a few months ago and found it extremely helpful to show my husband first and get some perspective. You are also pregnant at the moment, so think how your hormones are working - my anxiety was always through the roof with every pregnancy and for a while after... Use some strategies to fight your anxieties until you go to the doctor. I’m sure you’ll be fine

[Double_Rainbow]

Thanks so much for the kid words Worrywart. I appreciate your time to respond. My bf thinks that its nothing but he thinks that everything is nothing. The spot isnt itching or bleeding but those are the last signs, there is no way I'd want to get there. This is so freaky, ugh! I know it could be either a seb K or even a new solar spot which got irritated and swell a little, but there is no way for me to say. I didnt even Google much because I obviously cant tell the difference. All i know I'm freaked out of my mind, and yes, I agree hormones do play a big role.

I'm sitting now in the gown waiting for the doc to come in. They did shift me to the doc after all, go figure. In my mind I'm already prepared for a biopsy but if he says it's nothing and no biopsy, that's gonna be a whole new level of stressful!!!

[Double_Rainbow]

Worrywart, did you get a new mole or a spot? What did it turn out to be?

[Double_Rainbow]

The derm looked at it for 2 seconds and said: I really don't think that it's anything but I can take it off if you want. So they took it off. Now it will take your standard 2-3 weeks for a biopsy.
I overheard him speaking to the patient in the adjacent room, he said: I don't think that it's melanoma but we can take it off. I can't help wondering how many people with HA they see every day.

In fact, I think that the recommendation of self skin checks, taking pictures, even yearly skin checks at the derm are really geared at people with at least some propensity to HA. Do you guys know anyone without HA and without any personal or family history of skin cancer who regularly does at least one of those things? I don't.

[Worrywart1234]

Worrywart, did you get a new mole or a spot? What did it turn out to be?

It turned out to be a combination of my anxiety and national melanoma month and a heap of commercials lol I never got it checked, it never itched again and I survived it...I don’t know if you read my other post about self care, but I made a conscious decision to change channels every time the melanoma ads were on, and also made a conscious decision to believe what my husband said. I always wear a hat and sunscreen now and don’t even think about it anymore

[Worrywart1234]

My psychologist does yearly skin checks, just to be sure. She was the one who got me on to the whole self care thing - make good, healthy choices and try to let the other stuff go...Not easy, but definitely worth it

[Double_Rainbow]

It's been a week since my biopsy and I am really stressing out. I am back to the melanoma anxiety sh*t hole. The thought of having to wait another week (at least) for the results is making me uneasy. I have looked at nearly all melanoma pictures in Google but the more I look, the more anxious I become. I dont want to look but I cant resist. What if its melanoma, what if its nodular melanoma, what if its advanced, what if i need treatment that i cant get due to pregnancy??? I just feel like jumping out of my own skin!!!! Ugh. What kind of life is this???

[Double_Rainbow]

It turned out to be a combination of my anxiety and national melanoma month and a heap of commercials lol I never got it checked, it never itched again and I survived it...I don’t know if you read my other post about self care, but I made a conscious decision to change channels every time the melanoma ads were on, and also made a conscious decision to believe what my husband said. I always wear a hat and sunscreen now and don’t even think about it anymore

Well, self care is always good. I was staying off of the melanoma bandwagon for a while, I didnt even look at my skin or anything. I wasn't looking per se, I was adjusting a bra and felt a little bump. It felt like a pimple, but when I looked it was actually brown! I didnt expect it, got immediately shocked. I had pics from 4 years ago and it wasn't there. Now it makes me even more anxious that I didnt look at my back for so long. Although I had a skin exam by a derm about 9 months ago, so technically I was good. But I have no idea how long this bump was there. Apparently it was so small, the derm didnt even understand which one I wanted taken off and almost took off another one, good thing I corrected him. But it is new and raised, a lot of early stage melanomas dont look ugly or cancerous per se. Ugh. This argument is impossible to beat. Any melanoma once used to be tiny. Arrrgh. I just wish the time passes quicker!