ConstantWorrying

I've thought for years I probably have an indolent form of leukemia or lymphoma. Best case scenario is some rare autoimmune disease. I think at this point it's undeniable. This type of stuff has been waxing and waning for years. This time I don't think it's waning, though.

Stuff is starting to return but I still feel full/bloated after smaller portions.

I figure they all have to be related somehow, but I don't know how. I had a red, slightly elevated lesion on my back that persisted for years (I started worrying about it in 2014). It eventually faded in color several months after I had started worrying about it/analyzing it with a dermatoscope, but an elevated portion remained. The next year, I had all of these small, weird, permanent white deposits/bumps/patches in my skin that appeared seemingly overnight on my upper back, shoulders, and chest. They never went away. I also started experiencing unexplained bruises above my knees a time or two per year. It's an annual thing. Actually, in the last few years, they've started to instead appear on my thighs or calves. Back in 2010, I thought I had periodontitis because I started developing petechiae on my gums. They eventually went away and I haven't had those on my gums since then. However, in 2014, I started noticing petechiae appearing on the rest of my body. Not very many of them, but every now and then, within a few would appear here and there. I've had urticaria for years. It started out being a problem when I was using a space heater in the winter, and now they come out in reaction to the cold. I first noticed an asymmetric abdomen in the summer/fall of 2018. It seems to have evolved slightly over time as far as how much more it sticks out on the right side than on the left (slightly increased in certain areas). The area of concern is next to and below my belly button on the right side of it. Last year in the summer, I noticed a thin, horizontal bulge further down my abdomen...right side. I initially thought it was a vein. It's by the epigastric vein. I developed GERD-type symptoms in early 2019, after having woken up with acid in my mouth a couple times over the span of a few months. Every so often, I wake up with it rising up in the back of my throat. I suspect I may have a hiatal hernia. I've had excessive gas in the morning since at least 2018. I remember having bad stomach pains waking up in the morning after eating certain foods in years before that, though. Some time in 2019, I had the sensation that something was pressing on my windpipe. It would resolve after I slept, but then come back after I woke up and got going. This went on for WEEKS before finally going away. It recurred a few times, but didn't last the way it did the other times. I had hyperacusis develop in one of my ears in 2018. Again, this lasted for WEEKS before finally resolving after I woke up dizzy one morning, took a shower, and noticed I wasn't hearing the amplified sound of the water/feeling pressure in my ear. It actually recurred after the second dose of the covid vaccine this year, but went away within 48 hours as the side effects faded. I have spontaneous scars that appear in various ways on my body. I have hypertrophic scars on my chest and upper back/shoulders that I used to associate with acne...but now I'm not sure they're from acne, as some of them just formed without any known trauma. The ones my chest actually flattened out after tons of years. I also seem to have spontaneous dents/pitted scars that form on my face, absent any acne lesions. I still suffer from acne at age 36. I have a large, faint mark that appeared under one of my eyes overnight and never went away. It looks like either a long dent or some kind of hyperpigmentation. I have some kind of notch in my neck above my right clavicle that I discovered in 2014 and thought was a swollen supraclavicular lymph node. I have an irritated sensation that comes and goes from my urethra/prostate. My left testicle is way bigger than the other, and the difference seems to be related to a soft, veiny thing attached to the bottom. I thought it was just the epididymis, but the diagrams show that only attaching to the back, so I'm not sure. I never really worried about it being cancer, though. I now have no appetite and no sex drive, as you can read about in my other threads. I have a clicking sound when I swallow that started in 2018 after waking from a dream where I was screaming. I sometimes see sparkly shooting stars in my peripheral version. Sometimes when I lie down, I feel like I have trouble breathing. Before my complete loss of appetite, I would have cramps after bowel movements, and I noticed I wasn't feeling hungry like I used to. I found a tiny pebble-feeling lymph node in the left tonsillar area several months ago. I'm guessing I'm forgetting plenty of other symptoms. What could it be?

I was thinking it was a psychological component (loss of sex drive started Monday), but now I'm wondering if it's some kind of cancer affecting hormones or other chemicals in the body. Maybe a brain tumor?

In the last few days, I started to notice there might be something wrong with my appetite. I would be eating and then it would all of a sudden "shut off" out of nowhere. At first I thought it was because I was eating rice, and I was overeating it to the point where it was deceptive how much I was eating. But then it happened again without rice. Then yesterday, after a bowel movement, I was ready to eat dinner...I noticed I had no appetite after just eating small amounts. I have mild constipation as of now, but I've never really had this kind of appetite loss from constipation in the past. And before this period, I was noticing that I was having cramps after bowel movements. I was thinking it was gas pains, but I never really ended up passing gas to accompany those pains. And then I was also contemplating things and was thinking I can't remember the last time I was really hungry. I've had urges to eat, but not the starving/craving like I used to have several years ago on back. Combine this with the abdominal asymmetry, and I don't see how it's not bowel cancer. What I don't understand is how I noticed this asymmetry three years ago and I'm still alive.

Doesn't seem to be healing, but it's also not getting any worse. Doesn't feel painful anymore. I think this is going to be like a lot of the crap on my skin and just turn into a permanent red, elevated scar.

100s of staph infections? What's the cause? I don't think there's really much to drain with this thing. It's red with a sort of purple in the center.

When is an inflamed lesion something worth seeking medical attention for? A few months ago I had another lesion (on my leg) I figured was a staph infection, but it eventually resolved. Now I have one on my arm, and 8 days later, it's still not healing. What worries me even more is I read recurring staph infections can be a sign of various cancers.

This never used to happen, and I'm wondering what could be causing it. I believe it's the left side, but maybe it has happened on both sides now. What I mean by this is that sometimes when I'm chewing, something will head towards the back of my tongue/mouth and then slide into my throat where I don't want it to be. It's in an area where I can't reach it with my tongue, and I have to do weird suctions in order to get it out. I'm always afraid I'm going to choke, and one day, I think I will if this keeps happening. What could this be? Some kind of muscle weakness in the tongue? Tooth problem? Some other problem? I don't even know what search terms to try on Google.

Nobody addressed what I actually asked, though. Common sense says that if tumors grow from the wall into the inside of the organ, rather than outside, it would cause obstruction before it would cause asymmetry on the outside. I wouldn't think it would cause asymmetry outside 2.5 years ago, and somehow I'm still able to have bowel movements. Plus, if it grows outside the wall of the organ to where it causes asymmetry, I would expect it to metastasize immediately after that.

It's over anyway if it's cancer.

That won't put my mind to rest when they confirm it's cancer.

I first noticed abdominal asymmetry around the summer of 2018, and then about a year ago, I noticed a horizontal bulge further down. Some weeks after that, I noticed that the asymmetry that was higher up had worsened from what it was in 2018. So if this is some kind of colorectal cancer, or perhaps small bowel cancer, wouldn't I have noticed other symptoms by now? From what I read, the tumors start inside the organ, and will usually grow to the point of obstruction, rather than growing outside the wall and causing asymmetry before any symptoms of obstruction. But perhaps I'm mistaken?

As I noted before, while I haven't been constipated in the technical sense, I haven't been passing as much stool as is normal for me. I've been trying more fiber, more water, etc., but it hasn't totally normalized. And the stool seems a little on the dry side. But what's concerning me even more now is my reduced urine output. I've been drinking plenty, and I'm someone who has always urinated frequently. I have once before had this problem, and it resolved after the constipation I also had at the time resolved. I don't really know how they're linked. But this time, I have had moments where the constipation has sort of seemed to clear up, but I haven't resumed full volume in urination. I have read that colon cancer can cause reduced urine output, but I'm not sure why.

Been eating tons of fiber. Nothing's working. I did finally just pass another small stool after eating dinner, but this is the worst constipation I've ever had. 36.

This is BAD. Haven't had the urge to go at ALL today. I suspect the minimal stools I passed the previous few days were whatever was left on the left side of the colon, and the cancer on the right side has completely blocked everything else. Forgot to mention my urine output has also been restricted, despite drinking TONS of water.

If it doesn't change it's not cancer. Also, there's no evidence that "odd" moles are any more likely to have melanoma arise from within them than "typical" looking moles. Most melanoma starts "de novo," meaning it was melanoma from when it first appeared on the skin, but occasionally melanoma can arise from within a nevus. However, as I said, there's a lack of evidence that "irregular" nevi are any more prone to that happening. If you've had it for ages, and it's not changing, nothing to worry about. At least, not any more than all of your other moles.

This has been going on for a week or two now. While in the "technical" sense I'm not constipated, as I still have bowel movements every day, the amount of stool I pass is nowhere near as much as it should be given the quantity of food I eat. I'd say it's at about 30% of what it should be. I don't care about what the internet says...this is abnormal for me. Particularly because I can't figure out reason for it.

Whenever I eat certain foods, I tend to get this milk-like aftertaste that I never used to get. What would cause this? GERD? Esophageal cancer? Throat cancer? As I said last year, I have had a few instances of waking up with acid in my mouth since the start of 2019. I have also had problems swallowing at times when eating, but this comes and goes and seems to occur when I'm transitioning from eating one type of food to another. I have also had a clicking in my throat when I swallow since (I'm serious) I woke up after a dream where I was screaming at a vending machine. Ever since then, the clicking never went away. Something's scraping against something there. I think this was in 2018.

Problem is it's probably too small to even biopsy. They'd have to wait for it to grow.

Not with the texture of this. If it were on the surface of the skin I would figure it's a keratinizing lesion...like I could pick it off. Feels like a grain of sand is in there or something.

When cancer spreads to the lymph nodes, does is grow on the lymph nodes? The sense I get is this is cancer that is growing on the outside of the tonsillar lymph node or something, which is why I feel this tiny, hard bump. I don't think lymph nodes themselves are only 1 millimeter or so in diameter even when they're healthy, so I would think this has to be a growth.

This might be hard as a rock. I can't tell. I can't get a good feel of it because it's so small. The smallness and general feel of it is what makes me think this is probably cancer. I would guess it's about a millimeter in diameter. I don't even know if they would be able to biopsy the thing because of how small it is.

I have all kinds of permanent shotty nodes in my neck (have since I was a kid), but what worries me about this one that I just discovered is it's much smaller and has a different, disconnected sort of feel to it. It feels like a tiny pebble that's loose in there...it's much smaller than the size of a pea. I'm not even sure what to compare it to. It's like a really small seed or something. Not even sure it's a lymph node and not just cancer of something else in that region.

I don't understand this. Just a couple of weeks ago, I was noticing how my upper abdominal asymmetry didn't seem as noticeable as I remembered it being from about 2 years ago, despite the lower abdominal bulge that I discovered within the last few months. Now it seems to be noticeably worse than I remembered it being. Is it just that I had forgotten how I had palpated it before? Or is my body somehow able to actually create symptoms like this? Seems far-fetched. But here's the thing: I also developed unexplained bruises on my thigh (worst I can remember having) just a few days after contemplating whether or not the spontaneous hypertrophic scars on my shoulders/upper back/chest might actually be from an indolent form of leukemia. I have had minor recurrent unexplained bruising that appears around once per year for the last several years, and it was always over one of my knees. But just a few days after thinking about leukemia again, out comes the worst unexplained bruising I can remember...and in a different location. I understand psychosomatic symptoms, but I don't imagine your mind can do that.