Sick throughout the year, Lymphoma fear

[JayJay123]

Hello! New to this website, but not new to hypochondria. I’m 21 years old, and don’t have a huge history of getting sick, but this past year I’ve been sick 4 times. Once in September and January with small infections. Then had mono about a month or two ago. Now I’ve gotten something else in the past couple days, but nothing major it seems. I also recently had a friend who got diagnosed with Lymphoma and in her post about the situation, she talked about how she was dealing with upper respiratory infections all year that wouldn’t go away. My brain and anxiety has been putting two and two together, thinking I’ve had multiple viruses and infections this past year in the throat/upper respiratory region, and I normally only get noticeably sick once a year if that. I’m not to the point of freaking out about it yet, but the possibility of me having lymphoma or some type of blood cancer is always lingering in the back of my head.

 

[RobbyH]

Sorry to hear of your struggle. I had a girlfriend pass away from lymphoma 30 years ago and I never knew of her having upper respiratory issues. Swollen lymph nodes, persistent fatique (not just being tired but almost constantly exhausted), some itching and the big one - night sweats were her main symptoms.

Also you mention having mono - mono can mimic many of the symptoms of pymphoma and although you may be "over" mono - it stays in your body for a long time so those symptoms can pop back up from time to time.

I am not a doctor but I think you are ok BUT having hypochondria will make those symptoms seem more and more real.

 

[JayJay123]

Thank you for the reply! The fever has gone on for another week so I went to the doctor on Tuesday. They did blood tests and my wbc and everything else was normal, but my monocytes were at 25. He said he’d never seen anything like it and was really confused. He called me afterwards and said to come back on Thursday so I did and he redid the same tests again. Then he came in and said that it’s what he thought had happened. He thinks the machine that analyzes the blood misread something because my monocytes were at 2.4 which he said was normal, but my lymphocytes were a little elevated. I had mentioned that I’d had mono about two months before, and I had lymphoma and leukemia in the back of my head. After the 2nd round of blood tests, he said he was almost definitely sure I didn’t have Leukemia and didn’t think it was lymphoma either. He and his son who’s a hematologist said that they both think it’s residuals of the mono. Still a bit worried though since I’m still running low grade fevers at night and have some itching, but I feel like I’ve always had skin problems and itching. I’m also going out of the country for a couple months soon, so that’s another reason why it’s still on my mind.

 

[daysinthesun]

I have this thing where I itch constantly. I get red patches and welts on my skin when I do scratch. I was also paranoid that I had a form of cancer. I went to the emergency room twice but nothing was detected in my blood work. I still struggle with the fear that I am dying because I’ve had itchy skin for years now. None of the other symptoms though so I have to talk myself into calming down. I just wanted you to know that you are not alone. If you ever want to talk, message me. I’m around if you ever want to scream your frustration or discuss the fear.