lump in cheek

Summer76

I found a lump in my cheek in Jan 07 I've seen 3 doctors and gotten 3 different dx. I called my endo and he all of a sudden wants me to see a new doctor at the univ of chic my cheek bone has been hurting and the lump is now visable when looking at me. My thyroglobulin is not at 0 but still very low. Does anyone know if this could be thyca moved to my face? It has never moved out of my neck only between my ears and collor bone.

Rustifox

Hi, Summer,
Sorry that you are going through this. I have not ever heard of thyca moving to the face, even though it is called a 'head and neck' type of cancer (and have done a fair amount of research on it, as well as helping out on a few different support groups).

With that said, of course it is always best to get things checked out, so your endo is certainly doing the right thing for you.

Other things (ie treatment side effects, etc) come to mind, depending on the area of the cheek this is located. Salivary glands can often cause problems for us after radioactive iodine treatment - and these are located in many areas of the mouth, so either a blocked gland or a stone in a salivary gland would definitely cause some discomfort; if it is near the eye, some of us will also experience blocked tear ducts, again with the radioactive iodine treatment after effects, although that (fortunately) doesn't happen frequently.

Other than that, I would hazard a guess that it may not be related to your thyca at all.

I did have a similar painful type of problem in the bottom of the cheekbone area, which turned out to be a 'hidden' abcess at the top of one of my back molars. Ultimately found on dental xrays, once they pulled the tooth the abcess let loose - it was particularly nasty, but after a few rounds of antibiotics it was over. Hopefully this is also something relatively benign for you. All the best.