Nair, I have a question about the mole we talked about back…

Ok, here it is before the scratching:

Here it is after I scratched it:

Here's what I found this week (I did rub it at some point).

The weird thing is that I feel like I might be overreacting. The original picture has *some* red to it, also I did rub it at some point (not enough to traumatize it, but I guess I might have sensitive skin) - I've been applying Cortisone cream to the spot yesterday and today, and it seems to be doing something. Also, originally I could see redness w/ my naked eye, but now it's hard to see any redness until I take a picture.

Ok, thanks. Could the redness be a leftover of when I scratched the mole? (that was back in October? - longer than 2 weeks)...could it still be healing in some ways from that? When the scab originally fell off this is what it looked like:

Also, if the redness doesn't get better, should I consider biopsying it? I've always been concerned (since it is elevated, and most of my moles aren't) about both melanoma and nodular melanoma.

One last question, then:

When should I worry about redness in a mole? I've read that inflammation and redness can be signals for malignant change. I guess the fact that I have a history of scratching this mole negates that - even if that scratching took place about a month and a week ago. And I know that trauma alone can't lead to malignant change, but sometimes I also read that traumatized moles could have always been malignant and trauma can make malignancy more apparent. Maybe I'm reading too much. :)

So, I took some more pictures of the mole and it's increasingly looking like it did when I originally traumatized it. So I guess I must have traumatized it again.

Here's the original traumatized pictures, the black portion in the middle was scabbing:

Here's a pic from today. Originally the mole felt elevated, and I just felt it and it didn't feel elevated - and that darkened part looks a lot like the scabbing from above - both evidence that I must have traumatized it again.

Nevermind. I had this answered by another expert.

No, it was a different question that I realized was more appropriate for another thread. No biggie.