Anal skin tags: treat inflammation yourself
Sometimes anal skin tags can become inflamed and cause unpleasant symptoms, such as itching, burning or oozing. There are therefore a few tips on how you can prevent or treat infections and inflammations:
- Ensure regular and thorough anal hygiene. Only use clean water and do not use soap, shower gels or bath additives. The ingredients can irritate the skin.
- But don’t overdo anal hygiene, otherwise you will achieve exactly the opposite. You mechanically stress the skin and trigger inflammation.
- Anti-inflammatory creams or sitz baths, for example with camomile or oak bark, can alleviate the symptoms.
- A soft zinc paste can alleviate the symptoms – but only use it for a short time.
Anal skin tag surgery: when removal is advisable
In rare cases, we recommend having the skin tags surgically removed. Surgery is recommended if the skin tags are very nodular, coarse or large. Pressure and friction can cause neighboring or opposite skin regions to become inflamed. Before the operation, we must always rule out or treat other diseases of the anal canal. Any existing inflammation should also have subsided before the operation.
The skin tag operation can be described as follows:
- The operation can be performed on an outpatient basis in the doctor’s surgery or clinic – you can go home immediately after the procedure.
- Anal skin tags can be removed under local anesthesia (regional or local anesthesia). General or spinal anesthesia is also possible. Today, we usually use an electric knife for the operation. We always try to leave as much skin as possible so that the anal skin remains sensitive. In addition, constrictions can otherwise form at the anal opening after the operation.
- We only cover the wound loosely with compresses instead of closing it with stitches. The reason is that the anal region is home to countless germs of all kinds. Infections and abscesses can be the result.
- The operation itself only takes ten to 20 minutes.
- The wound usually heals quickly within a few days – provided you leave it alone.
- You should not go to work for about three to seven days.
Side effects are possible
The operation can be accompanied by some side effects, but these are usually only of a temporary nature. Examples are:
- Bruising: Sometimes a bruise (hematoma) occurs after the operation, but this disappears within a few days.
- Wound pain: Smaller wounds usually cause little or no pain. If the skin damage is more extensive, the pain can be more severe and last longer. The body needs time to repair defects. Painkillers, for example from the group of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), are helpful. These include ibuprofen and diclofenac.
Pathologists then always examine the removed tissue under a microscope. This enables them to determine the type and nature of the cells and rule out other (more serious) diseases. Anal skin tags are soft and the epidermis is keratinized. In addition, anal skin tags have loose connective tissue and are permeated by blood vessels. This makes it easy to distinguish them from other diseases.
