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Sam
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Believe it or not you can remove smaller moles (flat or raised) from your arms, legs and body from home pretty easily without costly surgery. Although, keep in mind a dermatologist would probably never recommend this method of removing moles yourself from home, so you should always have your moles checked out first for possible melanoma or atyipical moles that might be pre-cancerous. With that said, for those that just want to get rid of moles for cosmetic reasons for a very low cost it's possible to do it at home.
First you need to get the following:
1) A High-Temperature Cautery pen (Aaron Bovie)
2) Bacitracin Zinc Ointment and Band-Aids
3) Optional: an anesthetic (numbing) cream with Lidocaine
4) Optional: ScarAway or Mederma Skin Care for Scars (use after skin has healed to reduce redness, scaring)
To remove moles from your arm, you simply use the High-Temp cautery pen to burn off the very top thin layer of skin where the mole is. If you're very sensitive to pain, you may want to use a numbing cream before doing this, but it can be done without it. Before doing anything, make sure you shave the area around the mole to remove any hair. When you get your cautery pen, press the button to heat the tip up until its RED hot, but then let it cool slightly before lightly grazing the top layer of skin where your mole is located. DO NOT put the pen tip on your skin when it is RED hot, or else it will seriously hurt and burn the skin more than needed. Use the pen tip to simply "paint" or "draw" off the top layer of the mole.
Moles (especially on the arms) are not usually very deep, and are seemingly just located on the top layer of the skin. Once that top layer is burned off, the brownish mole will likely be gone (at least cosmetically). Don't worry if you don't get the entire mole initially, you can wait for the skin to heal and burn away anything that is left.
So once you've burned the mole away, you will want to put Bacitracin Zinc Ointment on it and keep it covered by a band-aid for at least 1-2 weeks as well while the area heals. Bacitracin with Zinc is recommended over Neosporin or Polysporin, since they both have other ingredients that may cause a bad reaction in some peoples skin. Whereas Bacitracin with zinc is in both Neosporin and Polysporin.
So you may be wondering if you'll get any lasting scars from this method of removing moles from your skin. Initially, you will have a scar/redness from the burning which over the course of 2 weeks should begin to heal up, just make sure you keep a band-aid on while it's healing. Once the skin is healed, it will remain redish/pinkish in color and then should start to fade away gradually over time. This fading can take anywhere from as short as 2-4 weeks or as long as 3-6 months. It really depends how your skin reacts, and what part of the body you removed the mole from. Typically moles on your arms that you burned away using the method will start to fade back to your natural skin color quicker than other parts of your body like your legs or trunk. You should really avoid sun light directly on the area that was burned, while it's healing for the first month. So you may want to do this during the winter months when you can easily cover up the area.
If you have more than one mole you'd like to remove and are skeptical of trying to do this yourself, then just start with one small mole to start with and see how well it heals. You can literally remove lots of moles yourself using this method (50 to 100 if you wanted). Keep in mind though, before doing this you really want any atypical moles (large moles, really dark moles, etc.) looked at by a dermatologist for possible cancer (melanoma), and then if determined to be pre-cancerous to have the moles removed by shaving them off or excision. Having moles shaved off literally takes less than 5 to 10 minutes, and is not painful at all. So it's often the prefered method used by dermotologists to remove moles, however shaved moles will often leave raised scars. If you have 50 to 100 moles, and want them removed for cosmetic reasons then simply using the High-Temperature cautery pen may be your best option and definitely lowest cost option available. Also shaving or excision will more than likely leave a larger and longer lasting scars as well.
The high-temperature cautery pen can not only remove smaller moles really well, it can also get rid of skin tags and remove Cherry Angiomas (tiny red blood spots). Larger Cherry Angiomas may not disappear with this method so you'll want to have dermatologist use a V-Beam laser to get rid of them, but small cherry angiomas usually do go away after being burned from cautery pen.
Lastly, I would not recommend using Apple Cider Vinegar (ACV) or any other types of creams to remove your moles. Some dermatologist may actually still use High-Temperature cautery to remove moles, so its a method that does in fact work to cosmetically remove moles and can be done from home at a very low cost.
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