milliways
13-03-17, 21:28
I am a 25 year-old male in good physical shape. I've been dealing with an anxiety disorder and associated physical symptoms for most of my life. I am currently in therapy but have been having a particularly bad bout of hypochondria recently.
It all started in January when I decided to take a new job and move 1500 miles away from home. Understandably this created a lot of stress in my life which made many of the physical symptoms I had been dealing with worse. At the beginning of February, just days before I was scheduled to leave, I came down with a pretty nasty cold. This caused drainage, coughing, and a strange prickle/itch sensation that occasionally hits a random point on my body. I wouldn't have thought much of all this but during my travels I discovered a small lump on the side of my neck. As the title suggests, it is firm, painless, and immovable. It is also strangely shaped - wider than it is tall, almost like an enlarged vein that runs across the width of my sternocleidomastoid muscle just below my mastoid bone.
Of course I looked up "itching + lump" and everything suggests lymphoma, especially if the lump is painless and doesn't move. I suppose the good news is that it hasn't grown at all. I saw an ENT last week and they seemed sort of puzzled by what the lump was. I was referred for an ultrasound and the results were unremarkable - just one clinically insignificant lymph node (<1cm). They wouldn't even be able to biopsy it if I wanted.
While my cold has gotten better the prickle/itch sensation has continued. So the question is: why do I have this small mass on the side of my neck? The timing of the cold, itching, and lump make me wonder if they are all due to stress and the big move. The specialist mentioned something about my stress levels allowing the virus to stay active in my system. Regardless the anxiety over all this has made me a nervous wreck and I've had very little time to enjoy my new job and surroundings.
It all started in January when I decided to take a new job and move 1500 miles away from home. Understandably this created a lot of stress in my life which made many of the physical symptoms I had been dealing with worse. At the beginning of February, just days before I was scheduled to leave, I came down with a pretty nasty cold. This caused drainage, coughing, and a strange prickle/itch sensation that occasionally hits a random point on my body. I wouldn't have thought much of all this but during my travels I discovered a small lump on the side of my neck. As the title suggests, it is firm, painless, and immovable. It is also strangely shaped - wider than it is tall, almost like an enlarged vein that runs across the width of my sternocleidomastoid muscle just below my mastoid bone.
Of course I looked up "itching + lump" and everything suggests lymphoma, especially if the lump is painless and doesn't move. I suppose the good news is that it hasn't grown at all. I saw an ENT last week and they seemed sort of puzzled by what the lump was. I was referred for an ultrasound and the results were unremarkable - just one clinically insignificant lymph node (<1cm). They wouldn't even be able to biopsy it if I wanted.
While my cold has gotten better the prickle/itch sensation has continued. So the question is: why do I have this small mass on the side of my neck? The timing of the cold, itching, and lump make me wonder if they are all due to stress and the big move. The specialist mentioned something about my stress levels allowing the virus to stay active in my system. Regardless the anxiety over all this has made me a nervous wreck and I've had very little time to enjoy my new job and surroundings.