Hi everyone, I'm new here.
I've been trying to find examples online of chronically enlarged nodes which people have had for maybe six years or more. Not much has come up; I suppose often people might get them looked at a bit sooner than that.
I have had one in the top of my thigh for roughly that long. I found it either just before or just after my last child was born, I can't remember - it felt hard-ish and lentil-sized, and I made a note but it didn't do anything, so I just kept monitoring it. After a year or two it was probably the size of a baked bean, and then a couple of years later more like a small kidney bean I suppose. It was mobile, and smooth and seemed to fluctuate a bit - I assumed because of hormones, or whatever was causing it to be enlarged in the first place. So it got a bit bigger, then smaller again.
At that point I went to the GP about it, but she wasn't able to feel it and just said watch and wait. Anyway a month or two ago it started to feel a bit uncomfortable, like it might be pressing on a nerve I suppose, and although it wasn't really noticeably larger it was bothering me; I've been able to see it through the skin for a couple of years, in certain positions, and I don't like it being there. So I went back and she could feel it this time, and said she would send me for an ultrasound. And I had blood tests which have come back more or less fine, so I'm just waiting for an appt and freaking out a bit.
Having searched it up, it seems as though it would fit the profile for Follicular Lymphoma quite well. I can't feel any other lumps anywhere, and I haven't had any B symptoms.
I suppose I'm trying to find a differential diagnosis for it other than FL, but I can't seem to come up with much - everything seems to be either about reactive nodes, which are softer and go away after a while, or malignant ones - it doesn't feel hard like I imagine a metastatic node would, and it isn't fixed. So if it isn't an indolent form of lymphoma then I'm not sure what else it could be.
If anyone else has got, or had, a weird solitary (I hope) node like this, for years and years, I'd be really interested to hear from you - even if it was malignant. Just going a bit mad I suppose.
Thanks for reading if you got this far : )
