I have swollen salivary gland that I have had since labor day-at first they said it was an accessory gland to my parotid. It is about the size of an almond in the shell and sits just up under my left cheek bone. At first it hurt-but now only hurts intermittantly.
At first I was told I might have lymphoma, they did 2 FNAB-both came back "insufficient material for further dx"-one even had a note from the pathologist stating that the slides were "basically accellular". I have no other symptoms that would indicate lymphoma.
However, I have since then developed several other glands-first behind my rt ear- and a pea sized lump in my rt paratid-right in fromt of my rt ear. the newest one is a large cervical node-about the size of a small grape-very firm and non mobile on my lft side of my neck-as well as some strnge lumps on the backof my neck-it almost feels like I have some something under my skin-but it's not really well defined.
I have been through 3 doctors so far-my newest one had me sent to a general surgeon on tuesday for yet another FNAB-this one was the MOST painful-I think he really got in there deep. I have a bruise and it's VERY sore-it was almost unbearable pain-even with the local! I am waiting for the results still.
I guess my concern is, that i have read online that salivary cancers are very hard to dx and that the slides need to be read by a pathologist experienced in dxing salivary gland cancers. I know thats not the case here-i am pretty sure it's just a local path lab. I am afraid they are going to miss this and i'll end up with a stage 4 dx later!

My other symptoms are feelings of fullness and pain in my inner ears, problems swallowing occasionally, intermmtnt pain in my face and jaw, and the weird one is that after I eat I seem to feel like I have something stuck in my throat-even though I don't-it's like a feeling of needing to clear your throat of phlem. I will cough and repeatedly try to clear my throat but it doesn't seem to help-the sensation eventually just goes away on it's own but it's really annoying and that just started in the last month but seems to be geting more frequent. I have reported all these symptom to my drs.
I have had several CBCs w/ sed rate and they are all fine???

Only other strange thing is that last night I was getting groceries and got a sudden headache on the rt side of my head/eye area and I lost control of my vision for a minute-it was like i couldn't make that eye focus-it felt weird like I couldn't make the eyeball move right....thats the best I can describe it.

Does anyone have any suggestions help???Anything??

I will also add, I saw on here that HPV 16 is now being linked to oral cnacer-I had a hysterectomy 4 yrs ago bcs I had stage3 cervical dyplasia and I tested positive for HPV. Could they be related??

Hi there- So sorry you aren't feeling well and that you have these unexplanable symptoms How long will it take to get the results? Have you seen an ENT about your swallowing issues and also he coudl access the lumps that are popping up.

I am thinking of you and hoping that this isn't cancer.
I'm glad you are going to the doctors to get everything checked out.Make sure you go to the best possible ones you can in your area so that you get teh best care.

This is a wonderful forum lots of people here to help and give advice and just to listen when you need a sounding board.

I know this is the scariest part when you don't feel good and you don't know what is wrong. We've all been through that here.

Hopefully you will get some answers soon.

XO Kate

and yes HPV16 is linked to oral cancer-- but that doesn't neccesarily mean that is what you have. Lets see what your Drs. say. K

Having HPV cervically has nothing to do with the potential for oral HPV. What I mean is that it has never been proven to transport itself from one area of the body to another. While you may have a genetic propensity to allow the virus to infect your cells or at least did so at one time, you still would have had to have the virus introduced into your oral cavity and rebuff any attack from your immune system. At least this is what researchers currently think.

You have some classic oral cancer symptoms and others that just don't match. The loss of vision thing sounds like a minor vascular stroke, and I have known patients that have had them just like that. Have it checked out from that perspective. Complete blood counts do not find meaningful markers for oral cancer, so that is not helpful except to perhaps rule out infection / high white cell count which is a non cancer issue. I think you need to see someone that is really versed in all this, given the multitude of symptoms, please post where you are, and people here or I can point you in some good directions. Please stay after this until you have definitive diagnosis. While all these things are scary, try your best to be calm about it all, while you work towards answers. HPV and salivary issues are not connected as a rule, and they tend to like the lymph tissues on the tonsils, base of tongue etc.

I would really like to see you visiting a doctor that is on top of oral and oral pharyngeal cancers, GP's are going to not et the symptomology.