capillary/superficial hemangioma

Anyone who has seen the Monkey in the last five or six months has to have noticed that bright right spot just to the right of his nose. It's called a capillary/ superficial hemangioma.



The kind of scary definition? It’s a benign self-involuting tumor that is connected to the circulatory system and filled with blood. A little less scary? It’s an abnormal buildup of blood vessels in the skin, also called a vascular birthmark that will eventually regress on its own in a couple of years.

However you want to define it, it’s a freakin’ raised red mark on my kid’s face that he likes to try and scratch off resulting in a scary amount of bleeding. One thing we can be thankful for is its size: it could be sooooo much worse.

It seems to be very common, occurring in 1-3% of infants (depending upon what source you read) and most disappear on their own by the time a kid is ten years old. We talked to our doctor and she said that based on it's position we shouldn't worry about it. If it's still there when he's five, we can talk about seeing a dermatologist to try and have it removed.

It's not the appearance that really bothers me (though it does), it's that once it gets to a certain size, the Monkey rubs and or scratches it off which causes a TON of bleeding and discomfort/pain. We end up having to pin him down, pack it with gauze and cover it with neosporin and a bandaid or two. Every time we try to change the bandage it starts the excessive bleeding all over again. Poor guy -- poor us!

This is what he looked like the other night:



September 22, 2011