“My daughter has a red mole that will be operated on. Does she need anesthesia?”
My 14 year old has a reddish mole on her shoulder that the dermatologist wants to remove and test. He is also taking some skin around the mole. I'm wondering: how does this procedure happen without causing her pain? Will she be under anesthesia for this procedure?
6 Answers
Local anesthesia, yes, general anesthesia or sedation, no. Some offices use nitrous oxide inhalers. This is analgesia and not anesthesia. It relaxes the patient and is safe and easy.
She will receive local anesthesia by means of a small injection into the area to be removed. This is standard procedure and not complicated
They generally use local anesthesia.
Suzanne Sirota Rozenberg, DO, FAOCD
Suzanne Sirota Rozenberg, DO, FAOCD
Typically it’s just local anesthesia ;)
Not a good idea to cut a potential cancer for testing. If it is a cancer, damage to it will cause it to be spread into the blood and around the body such as the brain, liver, etc. If it looks suspicious, total removal for testing is the best. Local anesthetic is usually used in this type of procedure.
Dermatologists utilize local anesthesia rather than general anesthesia so instead of having the risk of putting patients to sleep we do it all in the office. This means we use local injections of lidocaine which stings for 5-10 seconds then the pain of the procedure itself is not felt. Board certified dermatologists have many tricks to avoid the pain of the injection you just have to ask.
