I have a hole in my shoulder. Not a big one; about one-eighth of an inch in diameter. This has been diagnosed in the past as a sebaceous cyst. It presents on the posterior, above the scapula. I do not remember when it originally manifested, but it’s been there at least ten years. To the naked eye it looks like a very enlarged skin pore.
So far, so good. But from here it gets a little bit gross and biological and ends with a bleg for free dermatological advice. You can skip the jump and move on to the next post if you don’t feel up to it.
Normally this “cyst” is filled with a tough gray substance. From time to time, this area of my shoulder feels as though the area around the cyst feels as though it has internal pressure and sometimes it itches, not unlike the way an emerging whitehead does. It is not painful but it is perceptible. I’ve been told by doctors that it is harmless and while I could have it removed, it isn’t doing anything in particular.
This morning, after I took a hot shower, the feeling of pressure was palpable. I gently pressed down with my fingers on the skin and tissue about an inch away, and the cyst erupted. About an inch of beige-colored material extruded out from the cyst, in a manner similar to the way toothpaste is ejected from a tube when pressure is applied to the back side of the tube. This was not painful, but the material had a strong and unpleasant odor, not unlike stinky cheese. Once I pressed on my skin near the “cyst,” the eruption continued of its own accord for several seconds.
The material — it’s not clear to me whether it was tissue from my body or some accumulated foreign matter — was spongy and a little bit sticky. All told, about an eighth of a teaspoon of material came out. This is the second time in less than three months the cyst has erupted in this fashion with this substance; the previous eruption produced much less of this material and I didn’t think much of it. This time, I rubbed it down with some alcohol. I did not preserve a sample of the mystery substance emitted from my shoulder. I’m grossing myself out with the idea that what I’ve done is actually expectorated fat tissue from within my body, and I’m at once disgusted and fascinated with the manner in which it happened but frankly I’ve no idea of the human body behaves this way and whether this actually might be a within-normal-expectations sort of event.
Upon later inspection of my shoulder, Mrs. Likko pronounced the area had never looked better; the hole was clean and smaller than she’d noticed it before. Now the area itches and feels just a bit weak — but that is likely at least partially psychosomatic.
So what happened here? Do I really have a sebaceous cyst, or is this hole in my shoulder something else? I’ve never heard of a cyst behaving this way. What was the tissue, or foreign substance, that was ejected out of my “cyst”? And what, if anything, should I do about this? I’m going to get to a dermatologist eventually, but I’ve got a lot on my plate at work right now and this obviously isn’t doing me any harm, so it’ll take a lower priority.
All the same, it’s a very strange way to begin one’s workweek.
It sounds like a sebaceous cyst to me. Sebaceous cysts fill with accumulated sebum, which is a fancy word for “greasy schmutz your skin makes.” Bacterial break-down of the accumulated material would account for the smell. It sounds like yours spontaneously erupted, which would obviously result in it being smaller and less obtrusive. The material may re-accumulate, or it may not. In any case, the cysts are essentially harmless.
Thanks for the reassurance. But man, was it gross and disgusting!
You would be amazed how much perverse satisfaction doctors and nurses get from extracting/evacuating utterly disgusting stuff. (Some of the stuff they dealt with in the Major New York City Hospital emergency department where I did my residency exceeded my limits, however.) One of my best friends in the world is an ICU nurse, and you should hear the astonished pride in her voice when she tells some of her more luridly gross stories.
This seems like basic human nature. There are analogies in the world of law, typically involving the questionable sexual choices of clients and/or witnesses.
I’m not a doctor, but I think this is the stage right before your fly hair starts growing out of your back and you develop super strength.
That would be kind of cool. Until it wasn’t anymore.
Yeah. It’s all fun and games till you have to vomit on your food.
Yes, I checked WebMD and this is exactly what it said to watch out for.
Knowing WebMD, that wouldn’t surprise me all that much.
There was a clip Daniel Tosh had on his show awhile back of someone popping a humongous one. Stuff kept oozing out of it for like a minute.
YES! I was just thinking of this!
W/ all the advanced warning on yours, I kinda expected pictures.
(accidentally hit enter somehow)
I’m not that cruel. But I did invite the gross-out comments, so keep ’em coming.
I’d dose the site with an OTC Betadine solution until it’s stable.
I might pay the $500 or so for a ticket to Vegas if you can promise that we all get to take turns making your shoulder ooze various horrifying pastes.
That would not be the most humiliating thing I’ve had to do in Las Vegas. High on the list, yes, but not tops.
And the answer to your next question is “no.”
I don’t know if I would have made a good doctor or not, but I do know I would be able to handle stuff like this well. Particular smells can make me vomit (3 day dead cat in 90+ temperatures is, hands down, the most awful smell in the world, and I’ve had the pleasure thrice), but visual things don’t bother me at all. I’m the kind of guy who looks really intently at the photo of Joe Theisman’s leg being compound fractured because it’s fascinating. I remember in college watching a guy drill a hole in his fingernail to release blood from a blister underneath it, and suddenly realizing that of the 6 who were watching when he began, only two of us were still there when he hit paydirt. I have no idea why I’m not very squeamish, but–to tie this into another current post–it sure helped not to be when I started changing diapers and cleaning up kiddie puke.