Mole Got Dark… Then Flaked Off

[aloy-]

I always feel so guilty when I come back to post
Hi everyone! Sort of going through it again: the holidays are always hard for me & I admittedly haven’t been to therapy in some time due to work.
I’ve had this mole on my leg my entire life. Over the summer, I believe I cut it while shaving. It took some time to heal back up. I haven’t touched the area since because my anxiety was so bad waiting for it to heal.
the other night, I noticed the mole looked darker, and looked almost like it had some sort of hole. I started keeping an eye on it and planned to call a derm. It looked red around the skin only when I brushed it against something. Had a shower last night and kinda exfoliated but nothing more. Today, after work, I looked at it again and it sort of just… flaked off. The skin was a bit darker, and there was a tiny black spot that came with it. It didn’t bleed or anything, and now it looks exactly the same.
i can’t think of anything recently that would have caused a scab, and my mind is trying to steer away from melanoma but. Well, I’m feeling a bit vulnerable to begin with lol. Has anyone else had this happen to benign moles?

[aloy-]

Anyone? I’ve been keeping an eye on it and keep getting worried :(

[Twisted-Melody]

Hey, how do you know it is benign? Sounds like a scab or irritation from cutting it whilst shaving, but if that was a while ago better to go to a derm and check. I had mole anxiety last year, it sucks, but much better to get it checked and get peace of mind! Good luck.

[aloy-]

Thanks for responding! I guess I was asking more in a general sense, I have had the mole for as long as I can remember and I guess I’m trying to decide how much of it is my OCD. I have three cats, too, who love crawling all over me in my sleep so I wouldn’t really be surprised if they had scratched & irritated it too. I’m going to call the derm, but I’m really struggling to talk myself down from how bad my anxiety around it is getting. It’s round, pretty symmetrical, looks one shade, and isn’t hard/painful. But I keep thinking it’s nodular melanoma which sounds ridiculous every time I think of it.

EDIT: I forgot to say in this post but, I’m 24, and the mole itself is still relatively small. It’s really about the size of a marker tip. It did fully heal over the summer when I cut it shaving, so I’m wondering if this previous scab was from one of the pets rather than just… a random scab.

[OliviaD]

Hi! "Round and symmetrical" sounds really good. If it flakes off maybe it's not even a mole? I'm thinking of the info my dermatologist gave me. I have warts that flake off and this is actually a good sign.

[aloy-]

Thank you for replying too!! It helps a lot. It’s sort of hard to explain the spot really, I’ve had it for as long as I can remember and it’s always been more like a spot of pigment on a raised, otherwise skin colored bump. I have a mole on my chin sort of like this, with a similar firmness, so it doesn’t really scream something atypical from the rest of my moles. I actually looked up a dermatofibroma and it sort of looks similar to that, but is raised up like 1mm..
It looks scarred though, which I think is mostly from the last time I cut it on accident shaving.

It sucks how easy it is to convince myself it’s drastic. :(