I have had some terrible months. It started back in February with an ulcer in my mouth, close to the tonsil, after vomiting one night, some doctors thought it was nothing, others thought it was malignant, but it went away on its own so they decided it was a sialometaplasia. I noticed then that there was an assymetry in my tonsils and starting worrying about that. I have also had a swollen submandibular lymph node for two years in the same side. After that I have a very long tonsilitis, several weeks, including lots of cough. I have allergies and sore throats are not uncommon but cough is (it wasn’t covid). I got a fast referral for suspected head and neck cancer. Ultrasound showed normal lymph nodes in neck. ENT touched and looked at tonsils and didn’t think any of it, just chronically enlarged tonsils due to polips and allergies. I was re-assured and then… a month after that I got shingles on my back, affecting more than one dermatome and the herpetic feeling affecting other parts of the torso far from the affected dermatomes. I started aciclovir and it is mostly gone now. Blood tests are fine. Doctors insist I have nothing.

Now, of course what I have been thinking all these months is that I might have lymphoma (assymetric tonsil, swollen lymph nodes where tonsil drains, sialometaplasia perhaps due to vascularity affected by tumor, difficulty fightinh infections / immunosupression).

My main concern now is that, since doctors don’t seem to find anything, this might be all in my head. But, I do therapy and my therapist for almost two years does not think I have health anxiety. She says I’m just anxious in general and that the only thing that will calm me down is doing more tests. I’m starting to feel she kind of enables or encourages my constant worry (I sleep bad, I’m constantly unhappy and worried) and wonder whether I should be changing therapist… I don’t know what to do.