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Dear Dr. Stoll:
I am a 31 year old female who has had palpable lymph nodes ever since I can remember (6 or 7). As a small child, I read home medical books all the time - and I always feared developing hodgkin's/lymphoma or leaukemia. Throughout the years, I have always worried because I have always been able to "feel" my nodes in my neck, underarm, groin, etc. They have ofcourse remained the same size (relative to my own body growth)since childhood. Everything I read always says you should not be able to palpate your own nodes. I always have, and I don't know if I should be concerned. They rarely ever get tender and they are always moveable, never fixed. Every month around my menstrual cycle, the ones in my neck and underarm get a little larger, and then return to normal size after my cycle. The nodes in my underarm are not at the surface - I have to "dig" into my armpit to feel them, but I can feel them, nonetheless. The one on the right side of my neck has always been the largest (the size of a med.lima bean). The others are small lima size or even smaller. Should I be concerned that I will develop hodgkins/lymphoma because my nodes continue to be palpable? No doctor that I have ever seen has ever been concerned, but I'm not sick often, so I basically see a doctor twice a year for a physical only. Please give me some insight about "normal" nodes and whether they should be palpable in "healthy" people like myself.
In Reply to: Palpable Lymph Nodes posted by Desma Kelly on June 12, 1999 at 11:10:22:
Hi, Desma.
How often do you check for your nodes? Just pressing on nodes at least once a week would be enough to make them enlarge & be more easily felt by any physician.
With LOTS of practice, anyone can learn to feel many of their nodes. If you decided to become a physician, you would be the best in your class at finding them. It is a skill. Practice makes any skill better.
HOWEVER, having said that, if you are not checking your nodes, unconsciously & regularly, generalized enlargement of lymph nodes that persist chronically over many years can indicate a generally borderline immunity. The nodes naturally enlarge to take up the slack.
Hope this is helping. Let me know how often you check your nodes.
Walt
In Reply to: Re: Palpable Lymph Nodes (Archive) posted by Walt Stoll on June 13, 1999 at 09:32:59:
I have had a palpable occiptial node on the left side for about four months now. It is small, nontender, slightly hard and inmobile. Should I be concerned? I had a CBC and the results were all normal.
In Reply to: Re: Palpable Lymph Nodes (Archive) posted by ELL on November 07, 1999 at 08:18:09:
How often do you check to see if it is still there?
Walt
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