For about a week now, I've had a couple of swollen, sore, tender lymph nodes in the left side of my neck. My neck also feels sore when I move it around and I know it's not my muscles aching or tensing.
When I feel the lymph nodes, they feel like rubber and move around. Sometimes it gets bigger, sometimes it gets smaller. I feel several sore, tender areas in different places on my left side of my neck.
I saw a doctor about this and she just felt around my neck and say it was a viral infection, but how can she be so sure without a scan or any tests?
Sometimes, it hurts to lift of my head because my neck is so sore.
I do get a slight sore throat here and there, and when I swallow, the left side of my throat feels sore. What should I do? Please help, I'm so worried.
I don't have mono. I don't have a bacterial infection that I know of and I don't remembering having any previous cold that I'm coming down from. Please help, thanks.
I don't have any dental issues and the doctor didn't give me any medication as she said it should go down on her own. And I don't have bubonic plague or any diseases, I'm pretty much a healthy person.
Answers & Comments
Verified answer
Denisedds is not a doctor, but she would make a very good one.
She is precisely correct.
The best test here is the "test of time."
There is no "scan" that would help here.
I would have checked a CBC - but I like CBC's - and I like to look at peripheral blood smears thinking I can figure things out by how the white cells look under a microscope. ' Very old fashioned. I doubt that many doctors look at blood smears for their patients anymore. We had no charge for this in the 1980's and 1990's.
Lymphomas are usually not tender.
This sounds like a normal lymph node response to a viral infection upper respiratory infection - pharyngitis.
I like your sense of humor - bubonic plague does still exist in the world - Yersinia Pestis bacterial infection - but it is rare and you would be very, very sick.
A swollen lymph node that's been there for months does not mean it's cancerous. I've had a swollen lymph node on the left side of my neck for the past 6 months and had numerous ultrasounds and a biopsy and it came back normal. Often times on these blogs people don't bother to come back on with updates to their situations. Always best to get a biopsy to ease the mind. Wish you the best!
Scans cannot help determine a type of infection. She knows it’s viral, because you do not have symptoms of a bacterial infection. If you’re pretty much a healthy person don’t worry about it. It you have not improved in 2-3 weeks return to the doctor.