Hi - has anyone found that their lumps (mine are in neck and chest) become painful and swell during chemo? One of them swelled and hurt and had a rash appear on the skin over it, before (very suddenly) disappearing completely.
However my other lumps have now been swollen and super painful for a while, and don’t seem to be showing any signs of shrinkage yet, I am afraid they’re growing instead. I’m confused that they’re all behaving differently. I have one right in the centre of my chest that is agony, I’m on heavy duty painkillers. The pain seems to go right down my arm, maybe it’s pressing on a nerve or something.
My onc says it’s possible that they swell before shrinking, but I’m wondering how common this is?
Hi Scaryfox did your lump disappear after swelling and rash appearing - or just the rash? I have found that lump under my arm got much more tender during chemo and it reduced from 3cm to 2.5 - after first chemo. I’m not sure if it swoll quite honestly as I had stopping measuring them because it was driving me nuts!!! The lumps on my neck are tender and feel more swollen at the moment so I hope your onc’s right and that means they will be responding to chemo and may shrink!! I really can’t see why one would and the other’s would not.
I have got 3 or 4 painful, ichy lumps that have come up on the back of my neck!! What is that all about?
Here’s to shrinking lumps, I hope you are not in too much pain.
The big lump was going up and down slightly for the whole time I was on capecitabine (4 cycles), and round about the third cycle I think developed the rash, which then flaked off pretty quickly. It was sore intermittently, during all this time. Then when I switched to carboplatin, about a week after the first dose it shrank suddenly, over the course of a couple of weeks to almost nothing. It started as a visible lump like a plum sticking out of my neck and now all I can feel is a tiny apple-pip sized thing which I think maybe is just scar tissue from my biopsy.
The lumps on the other side are sore some days more than others, but just don’t seem to want to shrink! The one in my chest is causing me excruciating pain some days, but not others, it’s as if some days it hits a nerve or something, and sends pain right down my arm, to my hand! Onc doesn’t seem to know, says we can do a scan after next 2 cycles carboplatin. Been delayed though cos my blood counts too low!
I guess the back of the neck lumps could be lymph nodes, they always check me there at visits. Yes my rash itched a bit too, maybe that’s also a side effect of chemo doing it’s thing! Keep me posted and wishing you shrinkage too.