Swollen occipital node. Painless. Terrified.

[Cutecat25]

I just got back from a 2 week overseas trip. During that trip I got slight sunburn on my scalp as well as two pimples on my neck. It was around this time I noticed the swollen node. It feels like a hard pea. Painless and immovable all signs of lymphoma. What worries me is the sunburn disappeared a few days ago and the node is still there. I had bloods done earlier this year and they were normal except I was anemic (my iron is now normal again). I also had a neck ct and ultrasound for health issues unrelated which didn't show anything.

Just so terrified this is lymphoma. How can I ever get over my HA when these very physical synproms keep showing up?
I have a gp appt tonight.

[ErinKC]

I’m sorry you’re struggling! It really sounds like you explained the nodes. They can take longer to shrink than the underlying cause takes to heal.

As someone who has struggled with health anxiety for almost a decade, but gotten much, much, better, I’ll say getting over heath anxiety isn’t a matter of not having any more physical symptoms, it’s a matter of not paying attention to every physical symptom or being able to live with harmless physical symptoms. This is incredibly hard because health anxiety makes us hyper vigilant and hyper sensitive to everything about our bodies. But, everyone on earth experiences random pains, swollen nodes, twiching, dizziness, headaches, and whatever other things throw the health anxious into a spiral. But those people simple take note and move on. That’s the real key to getting through it. But it’s so so hard!

One thing I used to do when my health anxiety was very bad was if I had a scary symptom I would note it and then schedule a reminder for one week to check in on it. I couldn’t panic about it until then. If it was still there in a week I could call my doctor and say - this thing has been going on for a week. But, maybe times I’d long forgotten whatever it was.