collarbone node - Lymphomas Message Board

weston79 · 11-24-2005, 03:56 PM

Hi all, it is my first time using this site and reading through the posts I feel that you are all probably the best people to give me advice although you all have so much to deal with yourself I would understand if you didn’t.

This my all be unimportant but the doctor isn’t really telling me an awful lot and I wonder if I am over reacting. I feel so silly when I go to him.

Have had and enlarged, matted hard non tender but mobile lymph node right under my collarbone (left side) for 1yr approx (at least that’s when I noticed it). Went to docs in July who sent me to have blood work and chest x ray also noted another lymph node further up my neck . All came back clear. Sent me to hospital to see a consultant in the field of general medicine?? And he done exactly the same tests, this time LDL cholesterol cam back low. Was told it was a cyst (collarbone) with no mention of neck node, and to come back in Jan. Although two other GPs are positive it’s a node.

I now have four lymph nodes all on the left side of my neck that are visible to look at, and I think I have one on my left side rib cage beside my breast, this too is hard but moves and is quite small but there aren’t any on the other side.

I have a cough that returns every few weeks and my back hurts, as does my belly. I have had two laps for endometriosis.

Are these nodes normal and should i stop being worried or should i demand some answers from the GP. The GP seems to be asking questions but not actually saying anything. what should i be asking my GP and have any of you ever experienced the nodes i have and how did they turn out? i just need to if im going crazy or not

NY 1009 · 12-17-2005, 06:44 AM

you can always demand a surgical biopsy. same day surgery. in and out.
it's the results that take the longest.
some lymphomas are slow growing.
if I were you, I'd be alarmed about the nodes on the collar bone for sure.
that's where my brothers was.
I always thought that I had to do what my gp told me to do at their recomendation, but guess what I found out as I'm getting older and learing to speak up more and take over my own body and health?
tell you're dr that you demand an excsisional biopsy, not a fine needle biopsy(FNB)
and that you'd be more comfortable in knowing for sure rather than have to worry for the next yr and always having to touch it therefore making it enlarge even more.

that's what you can do if you have insurance. or if you have the type of insurance where you don't need a referal, you can go to a general surgeon and he will examine you, plus the node on the side of the breast, close to the ribs, which i had as well and the mamography machine can't pick it up because it's too far on the outside of the breast.
the general surgeon in our town who happens to be the best breast surgeon as well says there is different tissue or what ever is made up on the outskirts of the breast and not to worry. he even had a name for it. I've had it for yrs. now. and it's a pea size and it's hard like a rock. as long as it hasn't grown it's o.k.
hormones can flucutate it too. I'll bet it's larger when you're around ovulation time or right before mensus time. right?

hope this helps you.
go get it biopsied if it will settle your mind and heart once and for all.
most of them are hyperplastic. they get inlarged due to out stimuli in the enviroment. you could have allergies to molds and things you'd have no idea what can casue the node to swell. that means the node is doing it's job. it's on alert and working.
it's when the cells inside the node go out of whack and over multiply that a cancer starts growing.
Linda

Debbiefix · 12-17-2005, 12:02 PM

A biopsy is the way to go. My surgeon told me I would know that day, what the result was. As I was coming out of the anesthesia, he was there to tell me the biopsy was positive. He had them do a frozen section and they knew immediately. No waiting at all. My family knew before I did. I was only "under" for 20 minutes.

weston79 · 12-27-2005, 05:19 PM

Thank you both for getting back to me and sorry for not responding sooner. I have recently went back to the hospital and after a 5 min check up the "general consultant" assures me that the lump below my collarbone and on my chest are cysts. The thing is, i'm dubious to believe him because he didn't feel the collarbone one this time, I had to remind him that it was there. it seemed my referral this time was purely to evaluate the chest node which he told me that where my node was (right at the side of my breast, so when I lie back it disappears in to my breast) there are no nodes there! He once again gave me antibiotics for my chest infection........ which I seem to have every month and told me to come back in three months. I was so dismayed when I left his office that I didn't make the appointment. what's the point when he is adamant its a cyst. What concerns me is that 3 GP's have emphatically told me they are lymph nodes. now because I refuse to go back to the doctors because of the fact that either the GP's were wrong or the general consultant was wrong, I'm sat at home with what I can only describe as mono. I look like the elephant woman.... huge big lumps that stick out past my jaw line and the pain in unbelievable. Although my collarbone node and chest node is unaffected by this, they are still irregular in shape, hard and non tender. haven't grown in size at all.

I'm so confused, who do I believe? my GP or the consultant?? and should I make the (what will be the 3rd) appointment with the consultant in 3 months or should I just give up?? what frightens me most is that 3 of my 4 grandparents have died with cancer in the distant past and I'm now a single mother of a five year old. The worry is ruling my life and I am starting to feel like a hypochondriac to the point where I have been to the doctors so much over the past six months that I refuse to go even with swollen glands the size of golf balls on my neck!

please, any advice is appreciated. I don't want to make a sing and dance over nothing but I just don't know who to believe.

As for the mention of ovulation and hormones affecting my chest node I guess I should mention that I have went through two laparoscopies for endometriosis and have the marina coil fitted and just went through a six month course of decap and lival so I haven't had a cycle for over three years now.

thank you again for writing back and I am thinking of you and everyone else on this site who has more to worry about than what they fear could be wrong.

weston79 · 12-27-2005, 05:37 PM

sorry guys, neglected to mention that I have blood blisters on my tongue and since I was last it my consultant I have lost 7kilos which is strange when you take in to consideration that I have stopped smoking and should have gained weight. to give you an idea I am five ft 8" and weigh 8stone. and I am struggling to try and maintain that weight I could loose more without any effort. my clothes are a size 6 (uk sizing) which means I'm very skinny and cant gain weight.... most people would think this is a good thing but I look horrendous.