A skin tag is a small benign growth that often shows up in areas where skin rubs together. Removal is usually accomplished by a doctor who might freeze the tag or snip it off, depending on the size.

There is a problem though if you don’t have insurance to cover this procedure. Since it is considered purely cosmetic, this happens a lot where you end up with a huge doctor bill for this simple procedure.

Given this, many people have started to think about home remedies and ways to get rid of these pesky things. Is DIY skin tag removal the way to go? And how would you go about it anyway?

There are a number of do-it-yourself methods floating around, some that may work and some that definitely won’t. There is the string procedure where you tie a piece of string or thread as tightly as possible around the tag and simply wait for it to fall off. What are the pros and cons of this? Well it’s fast and you can do it at home without spending money, so that’s a pro. But on the other hand, it tends to get very painful as you wait for it to fall off, and there is no telling how long it will take. Does it work? Sometimes yes, sometimes no.

Another method some people use is simply cutting the tag off. The obvious benefit is it’s gone immediately and there is no waiting around for it to drop off. However, again, there is the issue of pain and also bleeding. For tiny tags this is really a pretty good alternative to the doctor. For larger ones, not so much.

So is DIY skin tag removal the way to go these days? It really depends on your pain threshold and whether you would prefer to just bite the bullet and pay for a visit to the dermatologist or if you’d just like to give these DIY remedies a try at home.

Your dermatologist may refer to them as acrochordons, papillomas, fibroepithelial polyps, filoform, or pedunculated benign moles, but most people refer to these bothersome blights as skin tags.

They are very simply an overgrowth or hyperplasia of the epidermis or outside layer of the skin. They often occur as you grow older and are usually most prominent in middle age. Nothing has been proven to cause them but some conditions, such as being overweight, are thought to encourage their growth. Insulin fluctuations are also thought to be one of the possible causes as well as high levels of growth factors such as during pregnancy.

Skin tags normally occur most often in the eyelid area, the upper chest, and the groin, although they may actually pop up pretty much anywhere you have skin, so that leaves a lot of real estate open.

There is no known prevention per se but what you can do is watch for them and when they start to appear (they appear first as a tiny bump), and then as soon as you can see a tag is forming with a small stalk that attaches it to the skin, snip it off with fingernail clippers or small scissors. It’s best to do this early because they larger you allow them to grow, the more painful the excision of them will be.

If you wait too long you may have to have them removed at an office visit to your dermatologist, which will of course cost you money and, quite simply, is just a bother. But if you do have them taken off they will normally either freeze them off or excise them. It’s fairly painless so not much to worry about.

So although skin tag causes can vary, they are not dangerous and not usually anything to be too worried about other than the cosmetic issues.