Hodgkins Lymphoma Symptoms??

Max Former Hodgkins Stage 3 said:

Thoughts

Fingers-crossed,

We are not doctors, we are not medical professionals. We give our opinions or take on things, based on a lot of personal experience and self-study. Regardless of what anyone here says, it will not "prove" that you have anything, or don't have anything.

It is curious that you received "hostility " at Yahoo Answers, but that is not a place I would go for any form of medical information anyway.  Most "medical" forums and medical information on the Internet is nonesense, more harmful than good.  The exceptions are sites run my medical centers (universities, hospitals) and, to some extent, sites like WebMD.  This site (CSN) is good, in that it is run by the ACS, with monitoring and numerous ACS links.  The best sites are places like Sloan-Kittering Cancer Center (NYC), MD Anderson CC (Houston, TX), Johns Hopkins (Baltimore), The Cleveland Clinic, etc.    The WORST are "Alternative Medicine/Holistic" sites.

My strongest first impression is that your tone is "frantic." There is no need to be frantic, even IF you have Lymphoma, since lymphoma is virtually always treatable and managable.  Panic and extreme anxiety in writers here is usually indicative that their issues are something other than lymphoma, especially if they have been seen a few times already by a doctor, such as you have.  While a few of the things you mentioned are somewhat associated with lymphoma, so are dozens of other things (fatigue, the itching).   Your overall presentation (description of symptoms) does NOT scream "Lymphoma!" to me.  Could be, but I suspect not.

You ask for stories on how we were diagnosed.   That is of little use for someone else, since no two of us were diagnosed the same way. Most people begin with a large, palpable nodes felt somewhere.  These nodes are mostly not like the throat episode you described.  Someone no doubt presented that way here, but hundreds of thousands of people get lymphoma.  I have been through advanced, Stage III lymphoma, and I have never felt a palpable node anywhere, ever -- before or after treatment. This is despite large nodes all over, from my lower neck to my pelvic area. My biopsy node was golf ball sized, but it was not palpable. My doctors said my that, at random, my nodes were too deep to be palpable.  But my case was very unusual in that regard.  My point is: No two cases is identical. How someone here had an experience similiar to your current one would NOT mean that "you have lymphoma."

Your first sentence in your last paragraps is intriguing: You don't want to go to an appointment and it be a "repeat of multiple doctors with no answers."  You have been doctor shopping, seeing a lot of them. Second opinions are always OK, even smart. It is the thrid, fourth, fifth opinions that are less reasonable to seek out.  The doctors apparantly do not see you as at risk of lymphoma. While a doctor occasionally will miss something, at some point they are right, especially if two or more are telling you the same things.

The cheapest and earliest tests for lymphoma are ordinarily blood panels: CBC, a few specialty tests.  Some doctor might order these, since it won't break the bank or your insurance.  But your case does not sound like lymphoma to me.

Bless your efforts and peace of mind to you,

max

 

Thanks for your reply but trust me I have not gone Doctor shlopping. Far from actually. Let me explain more. I didn't want to go in depth because I didn't want to make the post too long and lose out on advice. I guess first is like to say I'm not frantic just annoyed that I still feel so sick (it's been about three months of feeling like something is wrong with my body) and still not help. So I'm mores exhausted I think than anything haha. 

As far as my commentary with seeing multiple doctors go this is what essentially happened. Three monthsbago I had a very swollen throat and clogged up nose and went to the doctor. They said it was a sinus infection and gave me meds. A week or so later it was still there but had gotten worse and added a horeible cough to it so I went back and explained that and they said they thought it was acute bronchitis and provided me with some meds (one being the z pack). After about two days of taking that fhe cough died down but I began itchy from head to toe especially bad around my throat and on my arms and feet. I began burning up and went to an emergency walk in center and they told me to stop taking the new meds and provided me with a steroid thinking it was an allergic reaction. While the steroid meds helped the itchy was still bad and persistent. I had two other similar reactions rhe weeks following this which lead me to another doctor (who again prescribed me a steroid thinking it was an allergic reaction) and than finally to a dermatologist who said it was a rash and not allergy related. He prescribed me something. And it didn't work. At this point over a span of a few weeks I spent about 400 dollars (which im a young 20 something with very little money to spend and very little credit due to school debt) so being fed up with all the visits and all the money spent only to still feel horribly itchy I decided to just stop going and deal with it. Here I am three months later still itchy only now I feel like I have no energy (can't even screw a cap on without feeling exhausted) incredibly week, with a few other symotims I think I listed above. So in my doctors appointment Tuesday what I'm really nervous about is that they're going to prescribe me some steroid or some other symptomatic fix and send me on my way and I'm another 60 dollars down and still feeling sick and itchy. I just want to feel okay again and I guess what I was really hoping from this thread was to find out how others finally got their doctors to listen and test for more concerning things.