Before starting, I am not qualified to give any medical advice and I also have no official credentials in anything related to medicine. I just wanted to write this post to bring together information I think is interesting.
Over the years we have all at one point or another had a bump on or under our skin.
First, you end up filling out some sort of symptom diagnosis tool on a site, then you start looking up pictures of skin cancer, then you compare the bump/sore to the photos, then you get confused, then you get more conufused, then you sit on the floor and proceed to rock back and fourth in the darkness and . . . *gasping* . . . hyperventilate. . .
This is not a good approach.
Before proceeding, obviously if something is causing severe pain you should go and get it checked out my a doctor. But, what if there is minimal pain or inconvenience?
I wanted to write this blog post to define a few things a bump under the skin could mean other then cancer and give you actual solutions for home treatment.
Situation #1: The bump is an abscess
An abscess is essentially a pimple under the skin. An abscess starts small and grows overtime.
The abscess is a result of your body isolating bad bacteria. It has a core of puss, with a wall of dead white blood cells around the core. The dead cells are essentially quarantining the bacteria so it doesn’t spread futher.
What can happen is the body can continually isolate that puss and build up a thicker and thicker wall of dead white blood cells overtime leading to a growing bump under the skin.
Having an abscess isn’t good but the silver lining is that it isn’t cancer and there are home remedies for this problem.
If you go to the doctor they will do one of two things
- give you antibiotics
- cut the abscess open with a scalpel and drain it.
You may need to go to the doctor if the abscess is quickly growing or causing severe pain, but if you don’t feel that it is an urgent situation you can first try options available at home.
Solutions to getting rid of an abscess
The main thing to point out is that if you apply heat to the abscess that the outer wall will, “melt” this could allow the abscess to drain without the need to cut it open.
If you want to try this approach the thing to consider is that the puss in the abscess will then be released into the body. This may be fine, but depending on the situation you may want to be taking a rotation of antibiotics & probiotics to prevent negative effects from the abscess draining.
Antibiotics are typically gotten via a prescription but you can get probiotics easily without going to the doctor either as tablets or kombucha.
Situation #2: The bump is an corn
A corn is just a calluse that’s under the skin.
Calluses build up as a result of repeated friction to a specific section of the skin so really stop and think for a moment, has the area in question been experiencing repeated friction for any reason???
An example of this is if you wear some piece of equipment for work such as a heavy tool belt and it causes extended periods of friction on the skin. This may cause a corn to develop.
How can you get rid of a corn?
One option is to have a doctor cut the corn out with a scalpel– are you seeing a pattern here??
If you want to avoid this, when researching ways to remove a corn I came across an interesting piece of information, if you soak a corn in apple cider vinegar a few times it will remove it.
Unlike the abscess, there isn’t a core of potentially harmful bacteria in the corn so you can try the home remedy without worrying about an infection.
Solutions to get rid of a corn
We looked at a few different reasons you could have a bump under your skin other then having cancer and some easy solutions that can be tried at home & before going to the doctor.
Once again, if you are experiencing severe pain go to the doctor right away. This article is directed towards people with a bump that is not causing any immediate problems but has been persisting.
Thanks for reading & I do not have any medical credentials!
To start off the Bible discussion for this post I want to bring in something from the current day
https://www.instagram.com/p/CeorE9OjqX9/
In this video Justin Bieber talks about a health struggle he is facing, if you skip to the last 20 seconds he ties things together by saying that he trusts God that his present struggle is for a reason. His attitude transitions well into the Bible verse I found for today.
Romans 5:3-5
3 Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, 5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
For context, Romans is a letter that Jesus’ apostle Paul wrote after Jesus’ resurrection.
Paul was attempting to spread the word of Jesus and Romans is essentially a pep talk to the Roman people full of advice and encouragement to pursue the word of God. Re-read the passage but mentally imagine the words coming across in the tone of a sports coach hyping up a team before a game, I like to think of this particular section in that way.
One of the things I’ve often observed as a counter argument for Christianity is why do bad things happen to good people?
This is a tough question, but I think that the Bible provides insight into the fact that sometimes if something bad occurs it provides the opportunity for new mental insight that could not have been obtained if that struggle had not occurred.
It’s not necessarily the answer I want. Just as any human, I would love to have everything in life go smoothly. But sometimes, you get a bump under your skin and maybe, …. the worst case scenario occurs and that bump ends up actually being cancer.
We all won’t get cancer, but we all will experience some form of struggle. In preparation for those times, I pray that I can be spiritually mature and look at the big picture instead of dwelling on the suffering in the moment. It isn’t the easy answer, but, it is what the Bible/God/Jesus/The Holy Spirit says.