Lumps on head - enlarged lymph nodes

[CountessDracula]

Took dd 13.5 months to the doctor a couple of days ago as she has been under the weather for a while with a cold, cough etc, culminating in frenzied ear poking last week. Doc confirmed that she had a bit of an ear infection and gave her some antibiotics, she is fine now.

I had noticed some little lumps on the back of her head (put your fingers half way down your ears and move hands towards the back of your head, there are two knobbly bits of bone where your head and spine join (I guess) and the lumps were on there). They seemed painful when I poked them.

I asked the doc and she said they were enlarged lymph nodes and that it was probably because she had this infection, but to bring her back in a couple of weeks to check them. I have been worried sick all weekend about this, what else could it be? If it's just the infection why does she want to see her again (I can check that they have gone down afterwards).

Anyone else experienced this?

CD, a few of us have experienced these lumps - there's been at least one thread about it, maybe 2, but goodness knows what to search for - and had panic-stricken visits to GP where they turned out to be lymph glands. Maybe your GP suspects she has another infection as well as the ears, in which case the glands wouldn't go down?

Have found it - here - HTH!

CD, there isn't very much else it could be, so I expect your doctor just wants to be able to say, "see, I was right". If the lumps are going in a couple of weeks, just phone the surgery and cancel the appointment, to save yourself a trip.

CD, there isn't very much else it could be, so I expect your doctor just wants to be able to say, "see, I was right". If the lumps are going in a couple of weeks, just phone the surgery and cancel the appointment, to save yourself a trip.

sorry!

Thanks Janh & Tissy, I feel reassured. I guess if it was something more sinister there wouldn't be two in identical places on each side of her head.

I hate being a mother sometimes. All the worry..

Countess, hope you have read the thread that I posted on as I was almost hysterical over dd1's lump. I took her to casualty in the end and it was confirmed as a gland. I didn't even know there were glands there.

I was CONVINCED it was something more serious and didn't sleep all night.

Neurotic mum alert

I did Enid, thank you. Lumps are no fun are they?

No, we don't like lumps. They are pretty much bad.

DS1 has them permanently although they don't seem too painful to him. I asked is paediatrician about them a year ago and he muttered something about eczema (quite bad social skills his paed). They're still there a year later. It's just a sign of the immune system being a bit overactive.

Oh god now I'm worried about that, I have an auto-immune disease (Crohn's) which results from an overenthusiastic immune system (to the extent where I have to take immunosupressants all the time to avoid being attacked my myself).

Hope dd's is not similarly rampant

attacked BY myself that should read

Calm down, Countess!

The lymph nodes swell up when there is an infection in the area that needs to be dealt with.
The immune system isn't so much "overactive", but just dealing with thesituation. It is also common to get these lumps in the groin from infections lower down (grazed knees, cut feet, athletes foot), and in the armpit with infections in the arm/ hand. You wouldn't be getting your knickers in a twist if your dd had a sore throat and had glands in her neck, would you?

Oh god sorry- sloppy english. I meant exactly what tissy wrote- just that the immune system is overactive because its busy fighting an infection. Sorry I was distracted by ds2 waking up so didn't read before posting.

I just mentioned ds1 as he has them permanently and they don't seem to bother him.

No I suppose not. I have just never experienced lumps in this particular place before. Must stop being silly and neurotic

FYI, Turned out in our case that dd1 had a midge bite on her head that had got a bit mucky and that was what the gland was doing.