Undiagnosed still - No end...?

Welcome (unfortunatrely) to the lymphoma forum.  I'm sorry to hear that you are going through this...2 quick questions:

1.)  Are the night sweats you are experiencing light...or are they drenching (as in having to change your clothes)?

2.)  Did you post here because you suspect (either through Google reseearch or Doctor comment) that you might have lymphoma given your symptoms?

It can be hard to nail down a lymphoma diagnosis without a lump present (then doctors usually take things a lot more seriously!)

JesZamora said:

Hi Dante, thank you for your

Hi Dante, thank you for your reply.

The night sweats are light now, but I did not have any 2 weeks ago. As for why I post here, is mainly because of researching on my own. The only areas that have not been scanned in my body are the pelvis and the brain... I will try to push for MRIs on these areas to rule out other causes. The thing is that I don't have symptoms in there at all.

The nodules that were found on my thyroid should have a biopsy next week. Still, from what I have investigated they would not produce weight loss unless the cancer (if it is thyroid cancer) has metastazied to other parts of the body.

Jes

The first line of your original post sounded familiar...I was a healthy 36 y/o male who worked out 6x/week and never smoked/drank...and then found out I had stage 4 lymphoma...it can be quite a shock! 

I am not a doctor, but some of your symptoms (night sweats, chest pain, weight loss) can be very indicative of lymphoma.  However, there is a member who posts on here who said there are roughly 60,000 diseases and only 150 detectable symptoms...so things can seem to align perfectly to a certain diagnosis only to not be so.

If you are looking for some encouragement in all of this, if you do have lymphoma or thyroid cancer, both of them are usually VERY treatable and curable.  

JesZamora said:

How did you find out you had lymphoma?

Thank you Dante,

Yes, it can be attributable to many other things. The one issue that affects me the most is the uncontrollable weight loss and muscle loss (incredibly fast). How did you find out about yours? Did you see any symptoms before the lump?

i know, at least either cancer is not terminal. I am also glad that the ct scans have not shown any other nodules, which would point to metastasis.

I had a lump on my supraclavicular region (kind of between neck and collarbone)...they did a biopsy.  I also had night sweats and severe fatigue.  

Even if you metastatic lymphoma it can be cured (stage 4 lymphoma is nothing like other cancers...it can be very curable)

Yes, I have been in remission for a year...everything is back to normal (hope it stays that way)

Max Former Hodgkins Stage 3 said:

Overall

Jes,

I just re-read all of your posts, which I did not comment on earlier.   As a layperson, with no medical certifications of any kind (i.e., the kind of person allowed to write on these Boards),  is seems to me very unlikely that you have lymphoma.   In this, I agree, of course, with your doctors.   I say that in that they have not referred you to a medical oncologist.

Foremost are the two negative CTs.    Gastric pains, of whatever etiology, are easily confused even by emergency medical personnel with heart attacts;   I have been told myself that I was in unstable angina in an ER and following several EKGs.   But further testing at a larger hospital showed that it was severe reflux instead.  My symptoms at that time were a crushing pain center-chest, pain radiating down my arm, and a contorted jaw -- all classic symptoms of a coronary.

You mention 'extreme weight loss.'    Going from 198 to 182 is around 7 %, in around a month and a half.   Certainly not extreme, and more readily attributible to the various stomach ailements that you have had.   Lymphoma with NO grossly enlarged nodes anywhere could not do that.  Oncologists do not ordinarily adjust chemo drug dosing in patients until a trip-point of 15% weight loss is met, but some use 10% instead.   Yet, as you were already very fit, the weight loss must be accounted for somehow, and is significant.    Blood-cancer-induced night sweats (lymphoma, leukemia, multiple myeloma)  are not the same thing as sweating in your sleep, or mild:  they are drenching.   My wife used to make me sleep on a beach blanket, with a body towel over my pillow, and they could always be wrung out the next moring, and had to be washed daily.  But the majority of people with lymphoma do not have any night sweating.  It is most common in HL types, and is regarded as a "B Symptom."

You have something wrong, and good luck with getting it properly diagnosed, and hopefully soon, for your peace of mind

I laughed a little about you sleeping on a beach towel. My wife did the same thing. I can't believe I just thought I was too wrapped up in the comforter. When my GP started realizing I might have lymphoma he asked me if I had night sweats. I know  my eyes must have gotten huge. All I could think was how did he know. I was there because of the weight loss.

Lym999 said:

They thought I had an upper

They thought I had an upper respiratory infection in my lung and I had an X-ray done. I then had a ct scan immediately afterwards and was told I had cancer.

After the CT was it biopsied?

Lym999 said:

No. I did this at an Urgent

No. I did this at an Urgent Care and was told I had lung cancer after they did the CT scan on site. I was then sent to a hematologist who did the biopsy and that was when we discovered it was Lymphoma, not lung cancer. I was very lucky!

On having a very treatable form of cancer unlike my relative who has small cell lung cancer. Good going!

Lym999 said:

The scary thing was I wasn't

The scary thing was I wasn't even going to do the biopsy. The hematologist also thought it was lung cancer and I was ready to give up. My wife actually saved me by forcing me to do the biopsy even though I didn't want to. Thank god for her pushing me into doing it. My Hematologist was quite shocked when it came back as Lymphoma. It is not very common for Lymphoma to be in the lung. 

Lym,

A few things in your last post (6-16) suggest that the doctors you are using have odd ways of proceeding.   Your hematologist 'thought' that you had lung cancer ?   No cancer diagniosis is ever confirmed, much less classified, by what anyone 'thinks,' MD or not.    Beyond that, no insurance carrier would begin to pay for therapy until they had received a copy of the biopsy and confirmation as to its contents.  This is true of Medicare and Medicade also.