Worried my son has lymphoma

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I’ve realised my son has a lump/swelling/mass under his chin and I’m anxious that it could be lymphoma. I’m angry at myself for not realising sooner. Son says it’s been there for many months and called it his fat lump. I don’t usually jump to worst case scenarios but he’s lost weight over the past 6 months. He’s 5 foot tall and weighs 5 and half stone. I can remember thinking a few weeks back that’s it’s weird that he has a double chin when the rest of him is skin and bones. He’s also very lethargic and occasionally complains of backache. Before finding the lump I put his weight loss and lethargy down to his autism and anxiety but now I’m anxious it could be due to lymphoma. We are waiting on blood tests but I can’t sleep for worry. He doesn’t any signs of an infection and has only left the house a handful of times since November. Has anyone experienced anything similar, I’m hoping maybe it’s just a cyst or something?

My daughter had all those symptoms. Every single one. It turns out she has a permanently swollen lymph node under her chin, low ferritin levels, raised platelets and an odd response to viruses. Nothing life threatening, just fiddly odd things. Fc your son is the same xx

How old is he op?

I was very much like this as s child it was a permanently swollen lymph node in my neck. I also had pernicious anaemia.

Oh gosh that sounds scary. Try not to be too hard on yourself. I hope it will be something like iron deficiency or something. If he has autism does he eat a limited diet?

He’s 12. I’ve not had a very good feel of it as he’s not keen on being touched but he says it doesn’t hurt. He says it’s been there a long time but it’s become much more prominent in the past few weeks. Feels quite big.

Yes, he has always been on the skinny side, has quite a limited diet and only eats tiny portions. However, I wouldn’t say he eats any worse the past 6 months than he always has. His trousers from last year are falling off him.

My son had a similar swelling under his neck, gp said it was swollen lymph glands probably fighting an infection but he hadn’t been ill. Eventually referred to ENT had scan which showed something growing on the floor of his mouth, took several more weeks for MRI then waiting for results was horrendous but eventually diagnosed with a cyst growing behind his tongue and it had nowhere to go so came under his chin. Fortunately nothing sinister and no treatment needed it disappeared after about 6 months but told if it comes back it will have to be removed surgically.
Hopefully you’ll have a similar outcome but I remember the fear we felt waiting for the outcome. Whatever the outcome once you know what it is you can deal with it, it’s the waiting that is hell.

Good to hear there are lots of other options for things it could be.