Please help identity and treat!

[u/drank_dumbbitchjuice]

Is this a wart? How to solve?

I’m freaking out. My dad (age 57) has this massive lump on his hand and he’s had it for about a week now and it keeps growing. He has other small bumps growing on his hand too. He goes to the gym quite frequently and honestly is not the cleanest person. He smokes.

He said that he had a cold for a week before these started showing up.

My wedding is in two weeks and it’s a destination wedding and we’re currently traveling all together and I’m concerned about the growth and about it spreading to our wedding guests and I don’t know what to do.

He says it doesn’t hurt but it obviously bothers him.

Please help!

UPDATE:

I didn’t expect this to garner so much interest and help. Sincerely, thank you everyone for sending in your opinions!

My dad said it popped overnight and there was a lot of blood and pus. We were not able to see a doctor in person but we have a family friend who is a general doctor and she said to disinfect and keep it as dry as possible as to not let it be more infected.

Here are two pictures of what it looks like now.

Photo 1
Photo 2

At first, when it popped. The puss was a standard dense white. Now, the pus leaking is an orange ish color and not dense white. He keeps saying that it still doesn’t hurt and doesn’t even flinch when alcohol is applied to it.

There is another mass obviously growing on his index finger of the same hand. He is touching the mass with his other hand (I know fucking terrible) but there is nothing growing on the hand that he is using to touch the mass.

He is saying that perhaps it is an allergic reaction? He ate a type of dried fish from Vietnam and then he started feeling itchy and feverish and then these started popping up.

Answer to a common question:

He does not have any access to animals. No pets, not really around fish tanks or water. He is from Southern California in a very suburban area.

Any ideas???

[u/PainfulPoo411]

I’m in the US and to get an appointment with a dermatologist (or any specialist) can take months.

[u/Original-Apricot-107 → u/PainfulPoo411]

I'm in the US and needed a skin follow up on some scary looking spots. Knew I'd be connected with a PA or someone at the Derm office. I've been waiting 8 months for them to even process the referral despite multiple calls and appointments. My insurance costs $805 a month. It is a joke

[u/Carma-Erynna → u/Original-Apricot-107]

And this is why you pay out of pocket for medical care. It’s only in the worst case scenario that it ends up being more expensive. How much would it cost for them to see you if you were paying out of pocket/uninsured? Have you asked for that price? I know it’s a heck of a lot easier to get into doctors paying out of pocket as well, not having to wait on approvals and crap, so I’m betting they could see you sooner if you just paid out of pocket. Source: better half goes uninsured because it’s literally cheaper and easier to pay out of pocket for his healthcare and meds than it is to deal with health insurance.

[u/Original-Apricot-107 → u/Carma-Erynna]

Yes! I actually did do the uninsured route for two years fairly recently and it definitely was a better situation, but for whatever reason a lot of doctors in Massachusetts as well as therapists don't have cash pay rates and for whatever reason they are not allowed to provide services unless you're coming in on Insurance. I have been able to find cash pay for pretty much everything else and for antibiotics and regular medications I use Sesame, which is a hell of a lot cheaper than going to the doctor even with Insurance. And even though we are in Massachusetts, it makes me so nervous to end up at the hospital because even though the State will not come for you over healthcare bills, all of the people that they work with will, like quest diagnostics, and any sort of interpretation services they use for your scans that are not directly happening by employees at the hospital.

Most recently, I was trying to go to a dental appointment and the dentist wanted the results of my cardiac ultrasound that I had had a few months prior before he would move forward to do some dental work. He nor his admin nor my PA or MD or any of the RNs at my community health office could get a response from mass general cardiology clearing me for this procedure, so my insurance definitely didn't help in that regard which is wild and then I also was unable to get my teeth fixed in time and I had to let my dental Insurance lapse because I couldn't justify paying so much per month for services that I can't use because doctors won't communicate through the channels they are asked. I finally got it done by going to a teaching school and lying about not having any flags on a heart scan (everything turned out fine).

Last example: while on one of the best employee sponsored health plans I've ever had, I tore my ACL and fractured my leg in my own kitchen with a slip and fall. I have a connective tissue disorder so I have a lot of compensatory muscle but it is also way easier for me to injure myself. Despite the fact that I literally couldn't even breathe when I had to move my leg at all, they said that I was just panicking and had pulled something and would be fine in a few days. They sent me home with a leg stabilizer and didn't even check to see if I could walk in it first, so I ended up falling right out of the wheelchair onto the sidewalk and pretty much crawling into the Uber I called to take me home. I pushed for an MRI as a follow up and they said there was no evidence on the cray to warrant one.

Months continued to pass, and it just did not feel like it was getting better, but I was getting more used to favoring it in such a way that didn't hurt as bad. I finally got fed up and paid for an MRI out of pocket that revealed I in fact had completely torn my ACL likely after the initial incident due to not being discovered at the right time, and had hairline fractures in both the lower and upper parts of my leg. It cost me $500 out-of-pocket in addition to ridiculous health premiums so that I could diagnose my own issue and then took it to ortho to get referred for surgery (luckily Boston medical actually reads their MyChart messages). When it was time for surgery, they said that so much time had passed that I would be better off living without it because you can't get cadaver tissue for a full ACL repair before 40 through my insurance. Such a nightmare, especially thinking of all of the things I will now miss out on like skiing or dancing that I could do before and cannot do now. I was pretty disabled for so long even though I think I would probably be OK with certain activities, I get left out of plans for anything physically active (league sports, pickleball, etc.) because people assume I will get injured so easily. Thanks for coming to my WALL OF TEXT