Persistent lymph nodes all over body

[Poolaf]

Hello, I am a 14 year old male with lymph nodes for roughly 3 years. I can vaguely remember the time where I felt my first node pop up near the back of my neck when I was 11 or 12. During that time I had no clue what a lymph node was and why there was this mysterious bump on the back of my neck. Slowly, as time progressed, more nodes began to propagate throughout my body to the point where I got really anxious. As of right now, I have nodes pretty much everywhere, neck, back of head, ears, under the collar bone, armpit, and groin. I have 4 on the back of my head, probably 6 around my neck, some near my ears, 4-5 under my jaw, 3-4 under my collar bone, 1 under my armpit, and about 5 around my groin. I think it began with the node on the back of my head and slowly, it started to grow all over my body. These nodes are painless and moveable that range from 1cm to 1 1/2cm and never grown bigger or smaller. I've been to probably four doctors (two of them were specialists) and they all assured me that it was normal, but I can't really wrap my brain around it. They couldn't identify the cause of these lymph nodes, but they did order blood tests and a chest x-ray which all came back normal. However, one of these tests was in 2016, which tested positive for EBV, but I don't think that's the cause of my swelling that's started late 2013. I've heard that you can't diagnose lymphoma with just a blood test, you have to get a biopsy done. I asked the oncologist for a biopsy, but she refused and said that the surgeon wouldn't operate on those nodes. Well now it's 2017, about 7 months since my last checkup and I'm still in paranoia. If only they could find the roots to the cause of these lymph nodes, I would probably be less stressed out. The only symptom I have is painless nodes which makes me believe it's one of those really slow growing lymphomas. Any others out there with similar symptoms?

Feedback would greatly be appreciated.

(Also, no one in our family has been diagnosed with lymphoma before)

[Ken_PA]

Hi, did they use the word 'normal' or just say 'benign'? What you have isn't necessarily cancer and very probably isn't cancer, but I wouldn't say it's 'normal'.

What you'd want is an ultrasound, which is the best step short of biopsy.

Take a look at this thread:
http://www.medhelp.org/posts/Leukemia--Lymphoma-/Lymphoma-or-false-alarm/show/2926406

[Poolaf]

They just said that it was normal and to stop worrying about it