Removing a birthmark

January 5, 2005 10:19 PM

I have a birthmark on my face that is somewhat large and has been a minor but persistent annoyance through my life. What are some ways of eliminating it, will they make it worse, and how badly will any of the treatments hurt?
posted by anonymous to Health & Fitness (7 answers total)

These are questions you should be asking your dermatologist, who can give you an answer specific to your condition. My understanding is that the laser based treatment for "winestain" marks (which your mark may or may not be) is rather painful but well regarded in terms of results.
posted by majick at 11:21 PM on January 5, 2005

Check with a dermatologist. My father had some of this done; for relatively small birthmarks (i.e. moles and such) they just injected it with novocaine, cut it off (if it protruded), and cauterized it electrically. Some of the other ones, they froze with dry ice and they later dried up and fell off. It wasn't particularly painful. Techniques have probably improved since then -- it was a decade ago. I don't know much about winestain birthmarks, however.
posted by kindall at 11:21 PM on January 5, 2005

I had a friend in high school who had a large winestain birthmark on her right cheek. She had a series of laser treatments to burn it off. She said that it hurt like a really bad sunburn for a few days, and she took a little ribbing for having lots of little (pencil-eraser-sized) dots on her cheek. It took 4 or 5 treatments, over the course of a couple of years, but now you can't see anything there.
posted by Coffeemate at 6:02 AM on January 6, 2005

check with your dermatologist, and don't worry so much about it. My mother had a rather large birthmark on her right cheek 'burned off' way back in the stoneage of the late fifties and if you hadn't seen pictures of her when she was younger, you'd never know. No scar, no problems. (it was less complicated than a winestain birthmark though)
posted by dabitch at 8:56 AM on January 6, 2005

Yeah, just see a specialist - I ran into a girl I knew from elementary school a few years ago who I recognized but couldn't place, until I noticed a tiny bit of winestain birthmark on her chin. She had had a very large birthmark on her face when we were kids, and she looked great, no scars. It took some time and some money, but the results were pretty much ideal.
posted by mdn at 9:34 AM on January 6, 2005

Birthmarks.com, for all your port-wine-stain and vascular-deformation needs. Moles they don't really talk about.
posted by joeclark at 10:47 AM on January 6, 2005

Birthmarks.com does not provide info on cosmetic or "paramedic" tattooing, which I've seen used on nipples / areola post-masectomy and on cleft palates. I know it can be used for birthmarks, too, but I haven't seen the results of such a procedure. The process involves tattooing the area with flesh-colored ink. Most likely your physician will not recommend this as an option as it is non-medical, and relatively new.
posted by tidecat at 2:15 PM on January 6, 2005