Skin Tag Causes, Prevention, and Treatment

After I gave birth to my child, skin tags started to appear on my neck. At first they were on the back and the sides. Now they're spreading to the front and other places on my body. They get painfully snagged, are unsightly, and it's affecting my life.

The tendency to develop skin tags is a genetic one. Family members will often recall that their parents or grandparents were bothered by tags as well.

It is possible that the high levels of estrogen that occur during pregnancy can make tags grow faster and more in number. This is the same reason that some moles and blood vessel growths get larger during pregnancy. Weight gain is another factor that is often associated with developing skin tags.

There are only a few things that a person can do to reduce the development of skin tags. The main factor is to reduce friction where the tags tend to develop. Necklaces are the common provoking factor in skin tags growing more on the neck. Friction under the arms can also promote growth of tags in that area. Friction-reducing powders or powder deodorants may help reduce the irritation that can make tags grow faster under the arms.

Dermatologists are asked by patients to remove skin tags on a daily basis. Tags are easy to remove but the removal is not always covered by health insurance, unless the areas are significantly irritated and causing pain, bleeding or swelling.

If you have the manual dexterity to tie a thread around a tag, it will strangle off the blood supply and make a skin tag fall off in most cases. This process might hurt a little.