What should you know about laser skin tag removal?

A skin tag is a soft, benign growth that often hangs from a narrow base, commonly where skin rubs against skin or clothing. Other skin bumps can look similar, including warts, moles, cysts, or lesions that need a different assessment. A clinician may use examination and, when needed, testing to confirm the diagnosis before choosing removal. Laser energy can seal or vaporise selected tissue, but the method depends on the size, position, attachment, and diagnosis.

Do not try to burn, cut, or tie off a bump at home. Home treatment can cause bleeding, infection, scarring, or delay assessment of a lesion that is not a skin tag.

Tell the clinician about medicines that affect bleeding, immune conditions, healing problems, allergies, and previous raised scars. Keep the site clean and follow the dressing instructions after treatment. Avoid rubbing, picking, swimming, or applying irritating products until the surface has healed. Sun protection can help reduce lingering discoloration.

Arrange an assessment before removal if the bump changes in size, shape, or colour, bleeds without clear injury, becomes painful, develops an open sore, or looks unlike your other skin tags. After treatment, contact the clinic for spreading redness, increasing pain, pus, fever, persistent bleeding, or a wound that is not healing.

Ask how the bump was identified, why laser is suitable, whether another removal method is safer for its location, how the wound will be cared for, and whether the tissue needs examination after removal.