hello!

I just wanted to pop on here to provide people reassurance as I have looked at these forums to help with my own anxiety. 

I had multiple swollen lymph nodes in my neck and swelling above my collarbone.. a few google searches later and I convinced myself I had lymphoma. 

hours/days of googling and getting myself worked up turned into weeks and I had multiple panic attacks over this time because everything you read is super scary and worst case scenario. 

I booked to see the GP who felt my neck, said everything was fine and sent me on my way. Because I didn’t feel satisfied I requested another appointment and a second opinion. 
The second GP took the time to do an examination, feel my lymph nodes, feel my abdomen and do physical health checks. He said everything seemed normal but because of my anxiety he referred me for bloods, chest X-ray and ultrasound.

bloods - normal, xray - normal.

10 week wait for ultrasound - again not good enough for health anxiety riddled me, so I used my credit card to pay private because the stress was causing me hell. I saw the head/neck and soft tissue consultant who completed the ultrasound and he told me that all my lymph nodes were normal, there were no tumours etc. and to stop worrying and go live my life. The tears of relief were REAL.

so all in all and the moral of the story is; PLEASE don’t google. If you have any concerns - go to your GP and don’t keep feeling your lymph nodes.

i still have swollen lymph nodes now after 9 weeks and who knows whether they’ll go down, but the relief I feel is immense and i hope this can provide people with the reassurance I was so desperately craving!