Hi Chloe.  Welcome to the forum.

Sorry to hear you're in this situation, but most mouth lumps turn out to be harmless. I discovered a lump on my lower jaw inside my mouth last Xmas.  The dentist checked it out and said was something called a Torus  - which is Latin for Bony Lump.  It's completely harmless.  I also have another harmless lump inside my cheek, caused by friction against the teeth.  Again it's harmless.

I haven't had a referral for a mouth problem but a couple of years ago I had a referral for a persistent sore throat.  At the first meeting with the specialist, he took a medical history, looked inside my mouth, and then put a small endoscope up my nose and had a look around.  At one point he looked down at my vocal cords and watched them working while I spoke.  It wasn't painful or uncomfortable. He then referred me for an MRI, which found nothing wrong.  Then I was referred for a Panendoscopy under general anaesthetic.  That also found nothing wrong.  As you can imagine, I did get pretty scared at times by all this, but in the end no cancer was found.  Of all these tests, the MRI was the worst! 

Incidentally, if anyone finds an unexplained mouth lesion then you might find it better (and possibly quicker) to see your dentist rather than your doctor.  Dentists are far more familiar with the mouth than doctors, and if necessary they can refer you to a specialist for rapid evaluation and any treatment. 

Good evening.

Thank you for taking the time to reply with all of that information. It's nice that there are lots of other possibilites for what this could be. Sadly due to Covid i haven't been able to see a doctor in person for a little while as I am someone who was told to shield, so the doctor only saw the small clear lump on a picture that was quite awkward to take as its at the back of my mouth!

I suppose as this is the first time i'm dealing with something like this and I suffer from health anxiety as I have quite a lot of unrelated health issues as well it makes the worrying that much worse! Your reponse has eased some of the worries though as I haven't managed to find anything else the pain and lump could be apart from the possible mouth cancer and my doctor didn't give any other conclusion on what it could be but only stated it isn't an ulcer and could possibly be mouth cancer. So thank you very much. 

I was supposed to have a denist appointment just a few days ago but had to cancel it due to a household member coming down with covid symptoms (all clear though!) so i'll mention it to her when i manage to get an appointment again. 

Thank you for your response, it is greatly appreciated. 

Good evening.

Thank you for taking the time to reply with all of that information. It's nice that there are lots of other possibilites for what this could be. Sadly due to Covid i haven't been able to see a doctor in person for a little while as I am someone who was told to shield, so the doctor only saw the small clear lump on a picture that was quite awkward to take as its at the back of my mouth!

I suppose as this is the first time i'm dealing with something like this and I suffer from health anxiety as I have quite a lot of unrelated health issues as well it makes the worrying that much worse! Your reponse has eased some of the worries though as I haven't managed to find anything else the pain and lump could be apart from the possible mouth cancer and my doctor didn't give any other conclusion on what it could be but only stated it isn't an ulcer and could possibly be mouth cancer. So thank you very much. 

I was supposed to have a denist appointment just a few days ago but had to cancel it due to a household member coming down with covid symptoms (all clear though!) so i'll mention it to her when i manage to get an appointment again. 

Thank you for your response, it is greatly appreciated. 

Hi Chloe.

Something I forgot to mention..  Mouth cancer is categorised as "Head and Neck" cancer.  There are no specific statistics for mouth cancer, but there are for Head and Neck cancers.  The incidence of H&N cancers for people aged 23 is in the region of 1 in 100,000 per year, which makes it highly unusual.

GPs are trained to refer for quick evaluation anything which is even vaguely suspicious, but given your age, the chance that this is mouth cancer is really tiny.  Of course, it is quite possible that the consultant will want to go through the motions and give you a battery of tests just to be 100% certain, so don't panic if these tests are mentioned. You may end up having an MRI and a panendoscopy, just like I did.  And it turned out well for me.

Please could you let us know how you get on at the appointment.  Your experiences and feedback allow people like me to write better answers in the future.