Sunday, January 23, 2005
Whoopsie! Forgot to update....
Totally spaced out mentioning the results of my ENT appointment. Saw him Thursday morning about the swollen lymph nodes. He noted that not only are there several, they are in a long chain, starting from behind my ear and going all the way down to the collar bone. Some have very hard knots in them.
He looked at my sinuses and in my throat and said there was evidence of Sjogren's damage in both areas. I also have inflammation on the inside of the throat. He did a culture on the sinuses, and we'll wait on the results on that to see if I need any meds for that.
His opinion is that, at this point, the cause is autoimmune. But he was quite adamant that we watch this closely....I am to follow up in three months, sooner if I develop swelling in lymph nodes in other parts of the body or one of the swollen areas suddenly gets much worse. There is about a 10 percent chance this could develop into lymphoma because of the Sjogren's.
One of the frustrating features of Sjogren's is that the symptoms can be identical to those of non-Hodgkins lymphoma. That's why it's so important to get a doc's opinion. I know two ladies with Sjogren's who had the very same type of swelling become cancerous, but both had good docs who caught it early, and both were able to treat it successfully.
He told me that if I do experience any dramatic worsening, he'll order a cat scan of the neck, and, if necessary, do a biopsy of one of the problem nodes. So I won't really worry about it for now.
He looked at my sinuses and in my throat and said there was evidence of Sjogren's damage in both areas. I also have inflammation on the inside of the throat. He did a culture on the sinuses, and we'll wait on the results on that to see if I need any meds for that.
His opinion is that, at this point, the cause is autoimmune. But he was quite adamant that we watch this closely....I am to follow up in three months, sooner if I develop swelling in lymph nodes in other parts of the body or one of the swollen areas suddenly gets much worse. There is about a 10 percent chance this could develop into lymphoma because of the Sjogren's.
One of the frustrating features of Sjogren's is that the symptoms can be identical to those of non-Hodgkins lymphoma. That's why it's so important to get a doc's opinion. I know two ladies with Sjogren's who had the very same type of swelling become cancerous, but both had good docs who caught it early, and both were able to treat it successfully.
He told me that if I do experience any dramatic worsening, he'll order a cat scan of the neck, and, if necessary, do a biopsy of one of the problem nodes. So I won't really worry about it for now.
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