Knowing More About Penile Skin Tags

Description

Skin tags, medically known as acrochordons or cutaneous papilloma, are small, harmless or benign skin outgrowths that can appear anywhere on the body. Most go unnoticed and eventually wither and fall off without even bothering about them.

But some are persistent and can grow in the most unwanted places to cause discomfort or embarrassment. That includes the genital area in groin folds and even on the penis and scrotum. Skin tags in them are like tiny fingers protruding out of skin and have the color and consistency of the penile or scrotal skin.

Causes

The occurrence of skin tags has no definite medical roots and can afflict just about anyone, young and old with increasing prevalence as we grow older. Plump toddlers and kids as well as overweight and obese people are more prone to skin tags which have been observed to result with frequent skin to skin rubbing and irritation from tight clothing on them.

In addition, some people regardless of health are just more susceptible to skin tags than others leading to a suspicion that there is genetic predisposition to it. Skin tags on the penile shaft and the scrotum are no different but are often found in older people than in kids.

They are often found in the penis of sexually active men which only confirms that frequent rubbing or irritation due to sexual intercourse or masturbation could cause skin tags in people predisposed to it.

Health Risks

Skin tags are acquired aberrant skin conditions but not contagious. Left on their own, many eventually shrivel up and fall off without treatment. And apart from being accidentally nicked off when shaving if one should happen to grow on your chin and get some minor bleeding, skin tags pose no health threat and thus require no treatment.

The same is true if they happen to appear on your penis scrotum as they don’t normally interfere with sexual intercourse. But they grow large enough, which they sometime do, and interference gets annoying or discomforting, then some treatment is in order.

Diagnosis And Treatment

Treating a skin tag is a simple straightforward matter of cutting it out. Your doctor has a number of methods in his surgical arsenal but it often just requires a local anesthesia and a scalpel or surgical scissor to cut it off.

Ligation is another, where a thin suture gets noosed tightly around a skin tag’s stalk to deprive it of blood nourishment so that it eventually shrivels and fall off or easily scrubbed off. These procedures can even be done at home which your doctor can be more than willing to prescribe.

The more exotic treatment will, however, be confined in the clinic like cryosurgery where liquid nitrogen is applied to freeze the affected skin area to deaden the skin tag or electrocautery where an electric current is passed to burn out the skin tag.

But for penile and scrotal skin tags, your doctor may need to do further diagnosis to ensure their benign nature and rule out genital warts caused by viral papilloma infection or even skin cancer. For this, a skin tissue biopsy may be required. Once confirmed as a skin tag, your doctor can proceed surgically excising one or recommend the necessary procedures you can do at home.

• Read More On How To Remove Skin Tags

• Understand Your Skin Tags Before You Undergo Any Treatment