Just wondering if anyone is in the same boat please or has been before.
I am 34 years old and have had a light coloured mole at the side of my left ear for ages. It could well have been there my entire life. I certainly cannot remember a time without it.
I asked my GP to check it and he said his gut feeling was that it was ok but he referred me to a clinical trial where they get a picture of the mole and it is assessed by AI to determine whether it needs to be seen by a dermatologist.
Iv been today and it came back to say I needed to be referred and it could be melanoma. I am absolutely terrified. I have health anxiety anyway and this is sending me over the edge.
what could I expect at a dermatology appointment? Has anyone had experience with the AI assessment? Thank you.
Hi Hev70 and a very warm welcome to the skin cancer group which I hope you'll find is both an informative and supportive place to be.
I haven't had a referral to a dermatologist via AI but I can tell you what happened to me when I was referred to a dermatologist via my GP.
The dermatologist looked at my lesion using a dermatoscope, which is a hand held small magnifying glass. He also checked the rest of my skin and asked if I'd noticed any other unusual skin changes. They may also check your lymph nodes closest to the mole to see if they look or feel swollen.
My dermatologist didn't think I had melanoma but decided to arrange for me to have it removed and biopsied as he wasn't sure what it was. Your dermatologist may advise checking it regularly rather than removing it if they think the mole is a dysplastic naevi. Your dermatologist may ask you to come back in a few months to check if the mole has changed. Or they may arrange for you to come back regularly to have photographs taken of the unusual mole.
As I previously mentioned, my dermatologist decided to remove it and I got a phone call a few weeks late to arrange for an appointment for an excision biopsy.
It's natural to be worried that your mole could be melanoma but I've had two removed over the years and only one of them was a melanoma.
Let us know how you get on and, if the dermatologist decides they want to remove it, I'm happy to give you more information about that.
((hugs))
"Never regret a day in your life, good days give you happiness, bad days give you experience"
As the GP didn't think my lesion was anything serious, I wasn't referred under the two week wait that was the target when I was diagnosed. The wait was going to be about 8 weeks so I paid to see a consultant dermatologist privately and then had the lesion removed about a month later.
If you are in England the 'two week wait' was replaced last year by the Faster Diagnosis Standard (FDS). This target is that you should not wait more than 28 days from referral to finding out whether you have cancer or not.
I agree that waiting for appointments and then possibly results can be very stressful. I tried to spend my time doing things that I enjoyed so that I didn't have so much time to worry about 'what if'. Lots of people find mindfulness really useful and, if this is something that you'd like to take a look at, clicking here will give you more information.
"Never regret a day in your life, good days give you happiness, bad days give you experience"
Yes, that makes perfect sense 
My initial consultation was about £180, but that was 8 years ago now. You should be able to find out the current costs if you look on your local private hospitals websites.
I did transfer back to the NHS for the excision biopsy as I didn't have private healthcare. My dermatologist wrote a letter to my GP asking him to refer me to his NHS hospital practice.
"Never regret a day in your life, good days give you happiness, bad days give you experience"
