Lymph nodes ultrasound

[PolarBear01]

Hi everyone,

I had been able to feel a few cervical lymph nodes and had been experiencing mild night sweats, so I re-visited my GP for peace of mind. He examined by neck and said everything felt normal (said he'd felt thousands and thousands of nodes and mine were perfectly fine). He believed the sweats were due to elevated stress/anxiety. However, we discussed my health anxiety and he offered to refer me for an ultrasound to give me final peace of mind.

I accepted and went for the ultrasound today. She zeroed in and spent most of the time around the area where I could feel the nodes. This also happens to be an area where I've had a muscle bulge for 10+ years and the nodes are felt in between the bulging muscle. Now I'm extremely stressed that she zeroed in on this area because they may be swollen/abnormal. She had colours on the screen - only for this area and took lots of snapshots.

I felt so confident when leaving my GP's office and now I'm back to being a nervous wreck.

[simone.]

I have an ulstrasound tomorrow on my lymph nodes and I'm a nervous wreck! I'm hoping they can tell me something there and then :(

[Tinttu]

Had she been worried at all I am sure she would have wanted a biopsy. She probably just measured them and checked they seemed normal

[hanshan]

The person doing the ultrasound is usually not qualified to make a diagnosis. The images go to a specialist doctor in medical imaging who reports on what they see, and this is sent to your GP, so some patience is necessary. In my experience, how long the imaging takes, whether the person doing the imaging seems worried, etc, has no bearing on results and trying to draw inferences from the imaging session is just needless stress.

[Brad10]

I'm going soon for one as well I've had swollen one near my jaw for 3 and half years and I'm still worried it's a couple cm and my doctor has checked it twice and said it's nothing and I keep freaking out so she said I can get a ultrasound if I want so I'm going to do it