There is no prize for rushing. Easy does it, one calm step after another, and most problems turn out smaller than they first looked.
This photo shows a woman with short dark hair seen from behind, with a large, tight, dark red lump on her upper back just below the shoulder blade, while a doctor’s gloved hands hold gauze beside it.
A lump like this is most likely an inflamed epidermoid cyst. It starts when a blocked follicle forms a small sac under the skin that slowly fills with keratin.
The upper back has many oil glands and is hard to reach when washing, so blocked pores there often go unnoticed until a cyst has already formed.
Once the cyst becomes inflamed it can grow to golf-ball size within days, feel warm and shiny, and ache whenever a bra strap or a chair back presses on it.
A doctor will look at the lump closely, feel whether it moves freely under the skin and ask how long it has been there and how quickly it grew.
If it is a cyst, the skin is numbed, the lump is opened through a small cut and drained, and the sac is removed so the swelling does not come back.
The area is then cleaned and covered with a light dressing, and it is usually checked again after a few days to make sure it is healing well.
Washing the back daily, wearing clean breathable fabrics and leaving new bumps alone all help keep new blockages from forming.
Easy does it, and let the people who do this every day take over. The videos below show back cysts being treated by professionals.
