Hello all - Oral papilloma/wart

[nightcat]

Hey everyone! I'm a 22 year old male from London who has developed some serious health anxiety over the past three months - not fun :weep:

It all started in September when I randomly one day got a feeling of having a bit of food stuck between the left side of my tongue and the wall of... my mouth lol. The day I felt it I thought I would have a look with a light, and there was a horrid lesion on the arch (from google images I think it's called "palatoglossal arch"?) of skin that's in front of your tonsils when you stick your tongue out. It's quite small and smooth and is attached to a really thin base on the arch, like it's just about hanging on. It also has tiny blood vessels in it when you look closely at it. I guess I would compare it to a skin tag?

I went to the gp a few days after discovering it because it was still there and the horrible feeling wasn't going, it didn't hurt at all though which also worried me a bit more. I saw a nurse on my first visit because I rang in the morning for any appointment ASAP that day and she told me that I had infection in the back of my throat :ohmy: I didn't even have any pain in my throat lol. Anyway, she didn't even really look at the lesion and sent me away with strong antibiotics.

Over the next two weeks I got lower and lower and I just started to break down everyday because I could feel it constantly and I was convincing myself that I had oral cancer because it just wasn't going away :weep: There was no way I could put my tongue comfortably without feeling like something was stuck on the left side of it. So anyway, I went back to my gp and saw a doctor who looked at it and told me he was positive that it was a papilloma :huh::huh: and he is positive it's nothing serious, but he referred me to an oral surgeon. obviously I googled and just made my mind go crazy with what I was reading. So I have an sti that is going to give me cancer :weep: now I realise how silly that sounds, but I've just been so negative because this has not changed (I became obsessed over the next two months with googling "papilloma" and "oral cancer")

I felt a bit better from seeing him , but feeling this papilloma was seriously getting to me and I was breaking down everyday for like the rest of September/most of October. It took forever for a referral letter to come so I went to the dentist and got him to look/also get the letter to hurry. One finally came like a month after seeing the doctor for a consultation on the 26th October. Panic came all over me and I was a mess.

I saw the surgeon and he took a glance at it and in a jolly voice said "nothing to worry about, it's just a wart" and told me it should be straight forward when taking it off. Obviously it's nice to hear an oral surgeon reassure me that it's nothing malignant, but this feeling is seriously making me want to pull my tongue out :weep::lac:

I waited 2 weeks for a letter to come about getting this vile thing cut out, but being impatient/uncomfortable all the time I rang and she told me that I wasn't booked in till the end of January :scared15::scared15: I start Christmas work on the 2nd and the thoughts of having this for the entire time made me want to scream and cry a bit more, so I begged for it to be put forward and she got me booked in for the 23rd of this month (this Saturday) :yesyes:

Now I'm sitting here, happy that this is all finally happening, but I'm being so negative about how it's all going to go down:doh: I'm thinking like "what if even when they take this wart out of my mouth I will still feel something there" and "what if them taking it out makes the feeling even worse" :weep: I'm just so exhausted from being so upset/ uncomfortable constantly from this tiny piece of skin over the past almost three months and I just want my normal mouth back. I'm extremely fed up now with this feeling.

Idk if anyone will even bother reading this lol, but it's nice to find a place where I can share how awful I've been feeling and have others relate. Hoping to share after Saturday that I will be feeling a lot more upbeat.

Hope everyone is well :bighug1:

[Andria24]

Nightcat - go back to your doctors and discuss ways and means for the treatment of anxiety disorder. That is what you're suffering from. You have an illness that you're passing over in favour of succumbing to it.

Cure the illness, cure the fear - so deal with it.

Good luck on the 23rd and welcome to NMP :welcome:

[nightcat]

Hi Andria and thank you! I do feel like I should go back to see a doctor. I've broken down about six times today, even though I know that this should all be coming to an end Saturday.

I also only just got over an hour of sleep a while ago. I really hate feeling like this everyday and just not being able to relax :weep:

[Menocu]

Nightcat,

Your post sounds exactly like what I'm experiencing!

I will start by saying I've had anxiety disorder for years. It is only relevant because it makes the whole situation worse.

About 1 year ago, I started having the sensation of something like food stuck way back in the corner of my throat. Upon self examination I found a small bump or two, both relatively hard, on the arch you mentioned, just in front of the tonsil, and near the junction of the arch an tongue.

Doctor looked at it and said it's papilloma and can't possibly be causing irritation. This is where you post has helped me. Clearly your doctor not only believed it could cause irritation, but thought it was worth doing something about it.

I was wondering if your symptoms come and go occasionally? It seems like some days I can't tell it's there, but others, like today, it's driving me nutty. This is the case most of the time, so the days that I can't feel it are wonderful, but also overshadowed by the knowledge that it won't last.

I am also extremely anxious to hear what your experience is with excision of the papilloma. I want this thing OUT.

PM me or something if this is the wrong place - I'm not so interested in the anxiety aspect as I think it's pretty normal to be anxious and upset under these circumstances. At least in my experience, nobody has been willing to listen, but they've gladly taken my cash half a dozen times this year, while pretty much ignoring me and telling me that if I'm not coughing up blood and dying, it's "not worth coming in." When I said I'd GLADLY pay as much as ten thousand dollars cash if that's what surgery cost to put an end to this, my doctor laughed. You'd think that might make him say "wow, this guy is clearly hating his life right now" but no. He laughed. (do I need to specify that I'm in the US?)

[Sophie1986]

Hi, I have the exact same thing, how did u get on?

---------- Post added at 00:15 ---------- Previous post was at 00:14 ----------


Nightcat,

Your post sounds exactly like what I'm experiencing!

I will start by saying I've had anxiety disorder for years. It is only relevant because it makes the whole situation worse.

About 1 year ago, I started having the sensation of something like food stuck way back in the corner of my throat. Upon self examination I found a small bump or two, both relatively hard, on the arch you mentioned, just in front of the tonsil, and near the junction of the arch an tongue.

Doctor looked at it and said it's papilloma and can't possibly be causing irritation. This is where you post has helped me. Clearly your doctor not only believed it could cause irritation, but thought it was worth doing something about it.

I was wondering if your symptoms come and go occasionally? It seems like some days I can't tell it's there, but others, like today, it's driving me nutty. This is the case most of the time, so the days that I can't feel it are wonderful, but also overshadowed by the knowledge that it won't last.

I am also extremely anxious to hear what your experience is with excision of the papilloma. I want this thing OUT.

PM me or something if this is the wrong place - I'm not so interested in the anxiety aspect as I think it's pretty normal to be anxious and upset under these circumstances. At least in my experience, nobody has been willing to listen, but they've gladly taken my cash half a dozen times this year, while pretty much ignoring me and telling me that if I'm not coughing up blood and dying, it's "not worth coming in." When I said I'd GLADLY pay as much as ten thousand dollars cash if that's what surgery cost to put an end to this, my doctor laughed. You'd think that might make him say "wow, this guy is clearly hating his life right now" but no. He laughed. (do I need to specify that I'm in the US?)

Hi just wondering how u got on?