Lymph node pain

[batnat12]

First time posting, so not sure if I am posting in the correct spot.

I have one swollen (approx 2cm) lymph node under my jaw. I have had it a few months and it never really bothered me. I eventually got it checked out (about a month ago) and they did a fine needle biopsy and ultrasound. Everything came back A-Okay (Yay!). A day or two after the biopsy it has started to hurt (which is new) and I called the doctors office. They said it was probably a minor infection after the biopsy. Antibiotics prescribed and finished. While on the antibiotics I was no longer in pain. I have been off them for 4 days now and the pain is back... I don't want to bother the doctor again (he is hard to track down) if there is nothing to be done. I am not interested in pain meds either (other than OTC NSAIDs). Is there a point in taking more antibiotics? Any idea what I can expect/has anyone dealt with this? I like to go into appointments with an idea of what questions to ask... a huge part of my job is lecturing and this thing is really getting in the way. Anything I can do from home? I haven't had much luck finding non-cancerous based treatments for swollen nodes.

I am open to antibiotics... or just taking the darn thing out. Or whatever else will just let me not have to deal with it, haha.

Thank you for any and all responses. Best.

[AussieNeil Administrator]

I would encourage you to get back to your doctor, as you may just need a longer course of antibiotics. Let him decide with his training and experience and seriously consider whether you need better access to medical support to what you have now. It could well save your life later. Meanwhile, this topic of painful nodes comes up regularly and this one from five years ago includes suggestions for temporary relief:

healthunlocked.com/cllsuppo...

You've posted fine if you have a diagnosis of Chronic Lymphocytic Leukaemia, though assigning a topic can help others find your post easier in the future and you may have preferred to limit visibility of your post to this community only, rather than having it discoverable by anyone searching via Google, etc. You can edit your posts and replies at any time by selecting the 'More v' under your post and then 'Edit'.

Neil

[Lola69]

Hello 👋 i had one under my jaw just like u at first they thought it was a salivary gland infection. 4 years later I was disgnosed with advanced SLL! Get it checked out as SLL stage 0 is curable. I was too late.

[AussieNeil Administrator in reply to Lola69]

Lola is right about SLL being potentially curable if it is limited to one or only a few nodes. There's a good discussion about this possibility in this post: healthunlocked.com/cllsuppo...

[MsLockYourPosts Passed Volunteer]

Batnat - You said that the biopsy of the node came back OK. Just to be sure there isn't confusion, have you been diagnosed with CLL? A node biopsy would be one way of finding it. The advice if this node isn't related to CLL could be different than if it is.

Either way, I would check in with your doctor again. If there is an infection going on that the antibiotics helped, but did not completely clear, you don't want to ignore it, especially given it's location. Warm compresses might help to give relief from the pain temporarily, like over the counter pain meds, but you need to find out what's causing the pain, not just mask it.

Let us know how this turns out. I hope another, maybe longer, course of antibiotics is all that is needed!

[batnat12 in reply to MsLockYourPosts]

I have not been diagnosed with anything other than a long term "reactive lymph node". My doc said I probably wouldn't have even noticed it if I wasn't a relatively thin/small human. If it wasn't so annoyingly painful I would just monitor it and leave it be.

I am unfamiliar with CLL (although I have googled it now) and am unsure if that has been specifically ruled out. When I went in initially it was just as a cancer screen.

Thank you for the response I will continue with the OTC pain relief and compress. I'll update after my follow up.

[AussieNeil Administrator in reply to batnat12]

Chronic Lymphocytic Leukaemia/Small Lymphocytic Lymphoma or CLL/SLL (now recognised as the same disease) can sometimes manifest itself in the lymphoma form, where the cancerous cells aren't detectable in the blood. If it originates in a lymph node (SLL), it can be cured before it spreads systemically via targeted radiation of the swollen lymph node. In your case, the fine needle biopsy has most likely ruled out a SLL diagnosis, but if that node continues to cause discomfort and particularly if it enlarges, ask for it to be re-checked.

Neil

[batnat12]

Thank you for the replies! Spoke with my Doc's medical assistant today. He is out of town but wants to get me in to re-val next Wednesday. In the mean time: more antibiotics, pain meds, and warm compress. Hopefully just a longer course of antibiotics is all I need. Worst case- they will take it out. (Which terrifies me... so if anyone has first hand experience with that, please feel free to share).

I'm a young (21), relatively healthy (competitive runner, nonsmoker/drug user etc.), so he doesn't think I should be too worried about anything. Better safe than sorry though. I will update as appropriate. Thank you again for all the responses!!1

[MsLockYourPosts Passed Volunteer]

Good that your doctor is following up on your pain. Many CLL patients have a complete node removed for biopsy without complications. If yours continues to be a problem having it removed might be the best course of action. Given the location you might want to ask about having the surgery done by a doctor who specializes in facial issues. You certainly have the right to a second opinion before deciding on surgery. Hopefully the antibiotics will take care of things and you won't have to even think about anything I wrote above!