Welcome to OCF. I am very hopeful that you will not need our services for your son. I am basing this partly on his age. You are a good strong parent making sure your child is taken care of. He may need an advocate to ensure he is thoroughly checked. We have seen some young people with oral cancer (OC) come thru here. The youngest person I know of with OC was only 17 when he first got it. His was a direct result from using chewing tobacco. We also had another young girl here who was 18 when she was first diagnosed, I believe she had been a smoker. I know of another young person who is 17 and going thru a childhood form of cancer in her mouth, Im sorry but I do not know the name of it but I could probably find out.

The ENT is the one to go to for this. A scope would be able to see whats in there that is bothering his throat. A tender lymph node is a sign of infection so the antibiotics could be helpful. But a virus would not be affected by them. It could be just post nasal drip irritating his throat. I really think a qualified ENT is the way to go and they will be able to get to the bottom of whats going on. I dont think they will order a CT scan until other things have been checked. But then again I am not a doctor, I am a 3 time oral cancer survivor with 5 years of learning things from this forum.

Good luck!!!!