icybluesmile

I was just doing a search online in regards to persistantly swollen lymph nodes and came across this board. I'm not sure if I am posting in the correct section, but it seems more fitting than most with all the lymph node talk.

I am a 19 year old female and I have been sick for 6 months now. I was diagnosed with a very bad strep throat infection and given antibiotics as treatment. For whatever reason it didn't work, and I was given another antibiotic. Same thing again, and I was given another antibiotic. Three different antibiotics total. I was given the last antibiotic in December, and I am still not in good health. The lymph nodes on one side of my neck have been persistantly swollen since this all began. They are larger than 1cm and change in size pretty often, although they have never returned to their normal state. At certain points they have been upwards of 2-3cm. Two different general doctors said that they didn't understand what was going on, and told me to see an ent. I saw an ent earlier this week and he believes the next step is getting a CT and possibly a biopsy. He says whatever bacteria involved with the strep should have been killed by all the antibiotics and that I didn't need another.

Today I was just feeling around and noticed several lymph nodes around my groin. They are not enlarged, they are pea-sized or so, but I have never felt them before. I typically keep good tabs on my body and I am constantly feeling around, so I was a little concerned because I had never felt them before. It also seems as if there are enlarged ones under my arms.

I don't have insurance, so I am trying to cut all the unnecessary crap and just get this figured out. I know it's not uncommon for nodes to stay enlarged after a bad infection, but if that's the case here then I don't understand why I am constantly feeling ill.

Symptoms:
Extreme fatigue/malaise
Fever (on and off)
Chest pain (on and off near my breastbone...the only way I can describe it that is feels like something is ripping in half. I had chest x-rays done and they didn't explain a cause).
Loss of appetite/weight loss (I typically weigh 103 and am apparently down to 88 now)
Odd body aches in my lower neck and lower back.
Extreme nausea, but no vomiting.
Absolutely horrid taste in my mouth. Not just a typical sick taste, but something horrid that I have never tasted before.
Enlarged lymph nodes in neck, and noticeable ones in other areas. They have their days of being tender, but most of the time they just ache. Almost like a sore throat, but not because it's the glands themselves and not my throat.

I was tested for mono and had a CBC. Mono was negative and the CBC was apparently normal. I don't know if this is at all what cancer would be like, or if it is something autoimmune, or if it is just an infection (which you would think would have been taken care of with all the antibiotics).

If you have any ideas as to what this could be or what direction I should move in, it would be ever so helpful. I'm just pretty much at a loss and it seems as if all the doctors I've seen are as clueless as I am. Thank you so much.