Lipomas are benign tumors with the usual name wen. They appear on any part of the body except the palms and feet. Wen are usually painless, but cause aesthetic discomfort. Surgery will fix the problem, but is it necessary? Before thinking about surgical intervention, you need to find out why lipomas formed, whether it is worth removing them and how effective the procedure is.
Rice. 1. Lipomas should be removed promptly
Symptoms, signs, diagnosis of lipoma
Before you remove a wen, you need to make sure that it is exactly that. The shape of the wen formed under the skin is round or oval. It is mobile and soft to the touch; as a rule, no pain is felt when pressing on it.
Fatty deposits located under the skin of the face, neck, back, arms and other parts of the body usually do not cause any symptoms. A lipoma formed on internal organs causes the following symptoms:
- When a lipoma appears in the esophagus, coughing, nausea, and a feeling that there is a foreign body in the throat may occur;
- Chest pain may be the cause of lipoma formation in the mammary gland;
- Symptoms such as headaches, nausea, and vomiting may occur with a lipoma in the brain.
A lipoma is diagnosed visually during a clinical examination; if this is not enough, using ultrasound, x-rays, and computed tomography.
How is the operation performed?
If we talk about surgical removal of a lipoma, then in this case the doctor makes an incision in the skin over the tumor and squeezes out the wen. Local anesthesia is usually used, but if the lipoma affects internal organs, the operation is performed under general anesthesia. It is justified to use surgical intervention if the wen is located in hard-to-reach places.
When removing a disease using a carbon dioxide laser, a very thin beam “burns out” the lipoma. Typically, local anesthesia is used.
As for the radio wave method of eliminating wen, here the doctor non-contactly acts with high frequency radio waves using the Surgitron device. It cuts through the wen cell without affecting healthy ones, instantly stops bleeding and performs disinfection. With this method, the use of anesthesia is advisable if the wen is located near muscles, nerve endings or joints.
Treatment of wen
Despite the fact that a wen under the skin usually does not cause any inconvenience, many people are interested in how to remove a lipoma . First of all, you should consult a doctor, especially in cases where inflammation of the wen has occurred. Those who are wondering how to squeeze out a wen should know that you should never do this yourself.
Removing wen at home can not only provoke infection into the wound, but also leave unsightly atrophic scars. However, in addition to the medical procedures that a doctor can offer, there are also traditional medicine and pharmaceutical preparations that will help cope with this problem.
Rehabilitation
After surgery, the patient also needs rehabilitation. The doctor will tell you in detail about all the nuances in a leaflet with individual recommendations, which is given to the patient. General tips are:
- You can continue your normal lifestyle with only minor restrictions. So, it is necessary to care for the area of wen removal according to the recommendations of a specialist.
- It is necessary to treat the suture line and surrounding areas of the skin with an antiseptic and change sterile dressings every day.
- It is necessary to avoid traumatization and infection of the wound.
- It is effective to use sunscreens with SPF 30 or more if the area is exposed to ultraviolet radiation.
- After 7-10 days, in case of surgical removal of the tumor, you must come to remove the sutures. A control inspection will also be carried out here.
- Sometimes a histological examination is required; based on its results, the doctor prescribes individual recommendations for rehabilitation.
How to remove wen using traditional methods
If it is not possible to visit a doctor’s office, you can try to remove the lipoma yourself. But this applies only to those formations that have appeared recently. If the lipoma is old, it needs to be treated only surgically.
Baked onion
Onions are considered one of the most effective means for removing wen. Do the procedure at least 2 times a day.
- Take one medium onion and bake in the oven.
- Grind the cooled onion using a meat grinder.
- Grate baby soap, add to onion and mix thoroughly.
- Apply the resulting mass as a compress to the wen.
Sour cream with honey
Before the procedure, you need to take a hot bath to steam the wen. Then the components of the prepared remedy for wen will better penetrate the adipose tissue of the tumor. Carry out the procedure every other day.
- Mix equal amounts of sour cream, honey and sea salt.
- Apply the resulting mixture to the problem area.
- After 20 minutes, rinse with warm water.
How are atheromas and lipomas treated?
Atheromas are treated surgically; the type of operation will depend on the size of the formation. Small sebaceous cysts can be removed with a laser. Most often, atheromas are large in size and are removed with a scalpel. The “bump” on the skin is surrounded by two incisions, then the cyst is peeled out and removed along with a small piece of skin. Stitches are placed on the wound.
Atheroma cannot be cured by “sucking out” the contents with a needle and syringe. It is imperative to remove the walls of the stretched sebaceous gland - if they remain, they will begin to produce sebum again, and the cyst will grow again.
If atheroma suppurates, surgical treatment is performed, and the doctor may prescribe a course of antibiotics. Lipomas do not need to be treated. The operation is performed if:
- education is large and growing rapidly;
- the lipoma is in an inconvenient place and is constantly in the way;
- bothered by soreness;
- The patient himself insists on removing the lipoma.
Wen is removed in the classic way, using a scalpel. Relapses are possible, but extremely rare. Typically, atheromas and lipomas are removed on an outpatient basis; hospitalization is not necessary. Anesthesia is also not needed - local anesthesia is sufficient. The operation lasts on average 15–20 minutes.
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Treatment of lipomas with pharmaceutical products
Those who prefer to use pharmaceutical drugs should purchase Vishnevsky ointment. This product should be applied to an adhesive plaster and attached to the affected area, after 2 days the plaster should be replaced with a new one.
You can also use hydrogen peroxide. This drug should be regularly lubricated. After a few days, the skin on the affected area will burst and the contents of the wen will leak out.
lipoma treatment
Diagnostic approaches
Diagnosis does not present great difficulties when the lipoma is located subcutaneously. Often, an examination by a specialist is enough to make a diagnosis. Diagnosis is difficult when the formation is located in internal organs or cavities. For this purpose, ultrasound examination (of the abdominal organs and retroperitoneal space, heart), radiographic examination (chest, skull), and, if necessary, computed tomography or magnetic resonance imaging of certain areas of the body are used.
How a doctor can help you remove a wen
It is highly advisable that lipoma removal be performed by an experienced specialist. After a thorough examination, a dermatologist may prescribe the following procedures to remove wen:
- Mechanical cleaning. This method is considered the simplest. The procedure is carried out by piercing the wen with a needle, after which all its contents are removed. Sometimes the procedure is performed under local anesthesia.
- Removal of lipoma with laser . Laser therapy is considered the most progressive method for removing fatty tissue. The procedure is very quick and does not leave scars. In addition, the possibility of the wen reappearing in the same place is excluded.
Classification
Depending on the internal structure there are:
- Myolipomas are formations from muscle cells.
- Angiolipomas are lipomas with the inclusion of blood vessels.
- Myxolipomas are tumors containing mucus.
- Fibrolipomas are formations containing connective tissue.
It is possible to accurately determine the nature of the formation only after a thorough diagnosis. It should not be postponed for the foreseeable future, especially if the lipoma quickly increases in size and causes discomfort.
Prevention of lipoma
After lipoma removal, the following preventive measures must be observed:
- reduce the consumption of fatty meats and high-fat dairy products;
- introduce vegetable oil and fish into the daily menu;
- refuse late dinners;
- move as much as possible.
You need to follow these recommendations not only if a lipoma has already appeared, but also if there is a hereditary predisposition. Doctors say that the risk group for the formation of wen includes middle-aged and elderly people.
Possible complications after surgery
It is also important to know what complications may occur after surgery. It is worth noting that this happens very rarely, for various reasons.
The most common complication is the presence of unaesthetic scars after surgery, which can be corrected by resorting to laser therapy. Due to improper care, the tissues at the surgical site may become inflamed if an infection occurs (including this that happens upon contact with tap water).
Signs of complications may include increased body temperature, swelling in the area where the wen is removed, and purulent discharge from the wound. In this case, you need to contact a specialist.
Who is indicated for lipoma removal?
Some believe that its removal is for aesthetic purposes only. However, there are some medical indications for this procedure.
Firstly, the lipoma itself cannot “resolve”, and its growth (albeit slow) will sooner or later lead to significant discomfort (up to compression of surrounding tissues, including nerve endings). Secondly, although it is a benign tumor, there is always a risk (albeit minimal) that it can develop into a malignant tumor (liposarcoma).
Therefore, the following symptoms should be the reason for immediately contacting a doctor and subsequent removal of the lipoma:
- pain of the tumor;
- inflammation;
- changes in size, shape and color;
- watery discharge;
- discomfort caused by the tumor.
Why do lipomas appear on the face?
This benign tumor is popularly called a wen. However, this name has taken root so much that you can often hear it from the doctors themselves. This does not change the essence - this neoplasm does not pose any danger to a person, but at the same time it can seriously spoil his appearance. Unfortunately, contrary to popular belief, it is impossible to fight lipomas with medication, so in any case you will have to go to specialized clinics to remove this defect. So it is better not to waste time on various “folk” methods of getting rid of this disease and immediately come to specialists, get professional advice and seriously begin to solve this purely cosmetic problem.
Lipoma on the face, as a rule, occurs in people over 30 years of age and is a benign formation (contrary to popular belief, they are not harbingers of a cancerous tumor) from an accumulation of fat cells. It grows slowly, asymptomatically and painlessly (in rare cases, when the tumor grows, it can begin to cause noticeable pain, for example, by squeezing a nerve), and is largely only a cosmetic defect.
It is impossible to accurately determine the causes of the appearance of wen. Their systemic appearance indicates a genetically inherited disease, hypomatosis. The most common version of the occurrence of wen associates their appearance with a disruption of the metabolic processes occurring in the adipose tissue of the face. Some experts believe that this may be the result of diseases of the liver, pituitary gland, thyroid and pancreas. The wen can be located on any part of the body: on the back, legs, shoulders, hips. The tumor is localized in the upper layers of the skin; very rarely it can appear in internal organs that have a fatty layer. Defects on the face are usually more noticeable and therefore most often require treatment.
Wen presents problems only from an aesthetic point of view. Most often it is localized in the upper part of the face - on the forehead or eyelids, and is a soft rolling painless tubercle. In its external manifestation, this disease is similar to another skin disease - atheroma, which occurs as a result of blockage of the sebaceous glands, but is a fundamentally different neoplasm.
Diagnosis and examination of lipomas before surgery, in the vast majority of cases, is carried out only for large lipoma sizes. The most reliable diagnostic method is ultrasound, but it is done only in cases where the tumor has grown to a serious size in order to determine its boundaries. If there is doubt about its nature, a puncture biopsy is performed - a puncture followed by sampling of material. Then a cytological examination is performed, during which the nature of the tumor is determined. In these cases, we are talking about planning surgical removal of large wen that causes pain or various kinds of inconvenience. In all other cases, visual inspection and palpation are sufficient.
