Enlarged posterior lymph nodes

[laneydaze96]

I have two very large posterior lymph nodes; about 4 cm in diameter, they look like ping pong balls inside my skin when I bend my head to the side. There is one large on on each side of my neck (bilateral) which is good news. There are smaller, but still enlarged, lymph nodes according the one on my right side which are each 2 cm or less. I’ve had one swollen one for years that never went away and I assumed it was from scarring. It has gotten larger in recent months and the small ones have started popping up, as well as the one on the other side of my neck.

I have no other symptoms at all except for being hot at night occasionally. (Not necessarily sweating) The nodes are firm but moveable to an extent, and are not tender at all.

I’m not sure if I should be concerned or not.

[Ken_PA]

Hi, everything at this point goes on tendencies this way and that. 1.5" is large enough to be very concerning. But it's worse if they are rounded rather than oval. Being round tends towards being cancer rather than scarring from granuloma and inflammation.

Plateauing in size tends more towards being benign rather than always growing ever larger. Multiplying is somewhat concerning, but is not a sure sign of cancer. It altogether seems like a tossup for now.

You also cannot be certain at this point that they are actually nodes.

You probably have sufficient reason to get a scan, such as a sonogram, to rule out a blood cancer. A sonogram can tell a lot. Short of that, you can have a CBC to look for evidence of an infection. A doc might try a round of antibiotics to see if the nodes go down.

There's the Lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) test, but that really doesn't differentiate very well between blood cancers and other (benign) causes like infections.