swollen lymph nodes everywhere. questions.

[Stacey Lou]

hi all. im a 23 year old female and recently joined the forum after lurking for a while trying to curb my anxiety. like many of you i have had the dreaded fear of swollen lymph nodes, and this really kicked off back in october when i got sick with a viral infection and woke up a week later with a bulge above my left collarbone. then started to find swollen lymphs everywhere that i hadnt noticed before. like all HA sufferers i googled and sent myself into a downward spiral of severe panic. went to the docs who ordered bloods and an ultrasound, bloods came back fine apart from low iron which iv had before so nothing unusual. unfortunately i ended up getting that poorly and losing so much weight (possibly caused by anxiety) that i got rushed to hospital. doctors at the hospital were concerned so admitted me straight to a ward and had an ent specialist come down and see me. she was also concerned and sent me for a ct scan, which showed a few enlarged lymph nodes (including in my chest) but the radiologist stated no evidence of lymphoma and therefor the doctors were no longer concerned. i followed up with an ultrasound 3 weeks later on my neck which came back lymph nodes within normal range. went back to my doctors and he told me all tests were reassuring, the ct report was in depth and that everything was fine. this reassured me a little, but as all HA sufferers know, theres always something that makes you wonder. i have a huge array of symptoms like back pain, chest tightness, pin prick blood spots although only in places where the vessel are easily breakable (arms legs) and not loads, strange vibrations in chest and stomach when breathing, almost like the muscles are rubbing and a number of other things i can connect to that awful disease or to anxiety.im trying to trust the doctors but its hard to do when im still not feeling great and im still swollen everywhere. im convinced the swelling in my chest and node in my groin are getting bigger although anxiety can cause your mind to play a lot of tricks on you. so i was just wondering


1 if any of you fellow HA sufferers have had lymph node swelling in strange places?

2 what your symptoms of anxiety have been and how you have managed to rationalise your mind and get over health worries.

3 if you can give me any advice to take my mind off things?

4 if you have ever prodded something so much you actually made it swell?

if you managed to read all that i appreciate it and thankyou to anyone who takes the time to answer. iv been a long time sufferer of anxiety for a long time, especially about my health, and this is the first site iv come across thats actually put my mind at rest a little. stacey xx

[Fishmanpa]

It must be node month here on NMP :)

I literally just posted this but hear me out. I'm a survivor. I know nodes and I know cancerous nodes intimately (even have pics to prove it!).

Cancer is an uncontrolled growth of abnormal cells. It doesn't come and go nor does it stop once it starts.

The "fact" that the nodes resolved proves they're not "swollen" anymore nor is there anything sinister going on. Medical professionals and scientific medical testing affirms this. You're using the word "swollen" to validate your fear.

That being said, if you're poking and prodding (which you obviously are) then you can aggravate and cause a perfectly normal node to swell. Do it too much and they can become permanently swollen (shotty).

You're not feeling great because you have anxiety which throws everything off kilter. Treat the real issue and you treat the symptoms associated with it.

Positive thoughts

[Stacey Lou]

thankyou so much for your reply. its so nice to get answers so fast. the fear itself was started with the bulge above the collarbone, but im assuming since the bulge is still there and the nodes in my neck were within normal range that thats probably some kind of tense muscle in spasm causing the bulge? the swelling in my chest unfortunately hasnt gone down, its gotten to the point where people can actually notice it, although i will be the first to admit that iv prodded and poked alot so i reckon iv made that swell on my own. so for the past few days iv had frozen peas on the area to reduce the swelling and have managed to not prod and poke the area. the groin node is large enough to cause a swelling, however i dont actually know how big that was when it was meassured on the ct, plus i have lost weight so its possible it could of been that size and iv only noticed because iv been looking and of course prodding it has probably made it larger. my fear at first was throat cancer which my nanna died of and my mum had one the size of a golf ball removed from her thyroid which fortunately turned out to be ok. but then of course you got to google and see lymph node=blood cancer, and of course i have a lot of the symptoms, most of which have probably been there for a very long time and i know arent anything to worry about. but of course my HA brain goes into melt down. iv found this forum really good for curbing my anxiety and people like yourself to be especially reassuring with your answers. especially since you have been through the real thing yourself and i hope that everything is better for you now also? i think i know in my head most of my symptoms are caused by anxiety, and that as the doctors were so quick admitting me in the first place and doing scans that if they say everythings ok then it probably is. fear is an awful thing isnt it :(