Mary is a dermatology trained family nurse practitioner and can assess your skin using dermoscopy for benign skin lesions and for suspicious type skin lesions. Benign lesions can easily be removed under a local anesthetic as needed or desired. Assessment of suspicious lesions can also be done with referral as appropriate.
Benign lesions may include
Sebaceous Hyperplasia
Enlarged sebaceous glands seen on the forehead or cheeks of the middle-aged and elderly. Sebaceous hyperplasia appears as small yellow bumps up to 3 mm in diameter
Skin tags
Very common soft harmless, lesions that appear to hang off the skin. Skin tags develop in both men and women as they grow older. They are often skin colored or darker and range in size from 1mm to 5cm.
Fine telangiectasia
A condition in which there are visible small linear red blood vessels (broken capillaries). It is important to distinguish between inherited vs. acquired classifications of the telangiectasia before attempting to remove. This can be determined on assessment.
Lentigines
Also described as solar lentigo is a harmless patch of darkened skin resulting from exposure to ultraviolet (UV) radiation, which causes local proliferation of melanocytes and accumulation of melanin within the skin cells. Solar lentigos or lentigines are very common, especially in people over the age of 40 years.
Seborrheic Keratosis
A harmless warty spot that appears during adult life as a common sign of skin aging. Some people have hundreds of them.
Milium Cysts
A small cyst containing keratin (the skin protein); they are usually multiple and are then known as milia. These harmless cysts present as tiny pearly-white bumps just under the surface of the skin. Milia do not need to be treated unless they are a cause for concern for the patient.