CryoPen · ExplainedSkin Tag and Lesion Removal: What Actually Happens

What CryoPen is

A device that releases nitrous oxide through an aperture roughly the width of a pinhead, giving a controlled jet at minus eighty-nine degrees. The precision is the point: the cold reaches the lesion without spreading into the healthy skin around it, which is what makes it usable on a face and on fingers.

It is a long way from the freeze sprays sold in pharmacies, which are imprecise, shallow and the reason most people arrive having already tried and failed.

What we treat with it

• Skin tags — neck, underarms, eyelids, anywhere they catch
• Warts and verrucae — including the stubborn plantar ones
• Milia — the small white keratin bumps, commonly under the eyes
• Cherry angiomas — the bright red domed spots on the chest and back
• Seborrhoeic keratoses and age spots, following assessment

The appointment

Seconds per freeze cycle, and most appointments are under twenty minutes even with several lesions. No anaesthetic, no cutting, no stitches, no dressing to manage. It stings sharply during the freeze and throbs for a minute or two afterwards, then settles.

You go back to work straight away. Most people have several done at once because the marginal time per lesion is so small.

Healing, and what is normal

The area reddens and may blister within a day. That is the expected response, not a complication. A scab forms and separates over one to three weeks, taking the lesion with it.

Keep it dry for forty-eight hours, do not pick it, and let it lift on its own. SPF over the site while it heals, because fresh skin marks easily. Temporary lightening at the site can happen, particularly on darker skin tones.

If we are not certain what it is, we do not freeze it.

The part that matters most

Anything that is changing, growing, bleeding spontaneously, itching persistently, or that has altered in colour or shape gets assessed before anything is treated — and if we are not certain, we do not treat it. We will tell you to see your GP.

Freezing a lesion destroys it, which means destroying the ability to examine it. That is precisely the wrong outcome for the small number of lesions that need examining. A clinic willing to freeze anything you point at is not being careful with you.

If you want it looked at properly first, we offer a mole check with a dermatologist report at £60.

How many sessions

Skin tags and milia usually go in one. Warts often take one or two. Verrucae on the sole are the stubborn ones — two to four, spaced two to three weeks apart, because pressure and thickened skin work against you.

Cost

A lesion consultation and treatment plan is £30 and redeemable. A single small lesion is £60, a large or stubborn one £85, additional lesions at the same visit £25 each, and a package of up to five is £160.