4 Year Old Having Lipoma Since Birth. It Is Getting Sore, Hard And Red. Any Ideas?
Thanks for writing in.
I understand your concern. While lipomas are usually harmless and do not need removal, they do become infected or inflamed in certain cases , where they need to be removed once we take care of the infection.
In your son's case, I think the lipoma has become infected and the following will help:
a. Apply warm compresses to this area.
b. To reduce the pain you can give him Children's Motrin 1.5 tsp every 6-8 hours with food. This needs to be given only till he has the pain
c. He needs to be started on a course of oral antibiotics like amoxicillin-clavulanate or a cephalosporin.
I would suggest you see his physician for the antibiotics. Once the infection resolves, you can get the lipoma removed by a surgeon.
Hope this helps
Let me know if I can address any more concerns.
Regards
Thanks for getting back.
Lipomas can get infected and this does not necessarily happen after a trauma. The mechanism of how they get infected is not clearly known. The temperature and the cold could be due to a separate viral illness or an allergy and would not cause a lipoma to become swollen or sore. These 2 things are not connected.
We usually take care of the infection first. If this gets repeatedly infected, we remove it.
Regards
You needn't be sorry. To answer your question, I dont think there us anything sinister to it. Extremely rarely, lipomas do turn malignant and then it is called a liposarcoma. But typically, here the lipoma would enlarge and this would occur over atleast small period of time ( not suddenly as in your son's case).
I dont think you need to worry about this. Your son's just fine.
I hope I have addressed your concerns. If you have any more questions, I'd be happy to help. If not, please close this discussion and rate this answer.
Regards