I've read all of the "Medical Mystery" threads with fascination. I'd be very grateful if the SMP docs could chime in with some thoughts on my real-life medical mystery.

I'm worried that I may be having a serious medical issue. Of course, I've been to countless doctors over the past year before posting this. But I'm living in a country where the doctors just don't have a very high level of training and they have not been helpful. I'm pretty much on my own, it seems, to do the work of troubleshooting the root cause of my symptoms.

For more than a year, I've been experiencing the following symptoms:

* localized headache on the right side. it's not excruciating...just always present, in the back of my head, about 4-6" above the ear. it feels like there is a pressure in my head that is pushing my brain into my skull at that point. anything that increases the pressure in my head (straining to lift something, bodily functions, etc) causes the sensation to noticeably increase.

* ears popping. the whole pressurization of my head just seems out of whack. opening my jaws causes my ears to pop.

* extremely tense muscles going from the bone behind my right ear down the right side of my neck. massaging the right side of my neck, the entire region is very tender. recently this has been expanding lower and almost into the area of the lymph node in the front of my neck parallel with my adam's apple.

* recurring inflammation of the cervical lymph node (i think) in the back of my neck on the right side, as well as the bone behind my right ear. when this happens, the lymph node will be about the size of a large marble, firm, and tender to pressure. the bone behind my right ear will also be tender. this will typically last about 5-10 days, and then the pain and inflammation will recede to the point where the lymph node is barely palpable. that usually lasts about 2-3 weeks, and then the inflammation comes back.

* terrible skin infections on my forehead and the right side of my scalp. pockets of pus form several layers below the skin surface push outward, decimating the skin tissue and taking 2-4 weeks to fully heal. all of the skin on my face is normal...i just have 2-5 of these infections on my forehead and scalp at any given time.

i'm 34 and overweight. I smoked 2-3 packs/day for 13 years until september when i quit. i am extremely sedentary...i've been working 16+ hours/day for about 8 years now with pretty much no breaks, and my work is on the computer... my work is extremely intense and stressful, and i've been hugely stressed out by my financial situation as well that entire time.

not sure if it could be related, but about 2 months before these symptoms started, i tested positive for chlamydia after unprotected sex and took antibiotics...

I've had full bloodwork several times, several throat cultures, a chest x-ray, and an MRI of my head. All have been normal (moderately high cholesterol and blood sugar, and chest x-ray was normal for a smoker).

I understand that my symptoms could be the expected result of years of stress and poor fitness, and that I will just have to live with them. But I'm also obviously a bit concerned about cancer, and I don't want to just sit here with ongoing headache, pressure in my head, and neck pain and do nothing. I'd like to make sure that I've done what I should to rule out anything life-threatening, hopefully identify a clear root cause, and it would be great if i could find a way to alleviate the symptoms despite the fact that my stress and poor fitness is going to be continuing for the foreseeable future...

brain tumor

heh. i mean, i'm trying not to be paranoid...

i had the MRI in may. i'm still having headache, head pressure, neck pain, and swollen lymph nodes every day (among other symptoms) 8 months later. should i be going back for another MRI? a certain variation of MRI? something else (CT scan)?

anytime i google these symptoms, i find tons of anecdotal chatter about brain cancer, neck cancer, etc etc. i don't want to be paranoid, but i don't want to be lazy about ruling it out either.

and I have to figure this out pretty much on my own, because I just don't have access to highly qualified doctors.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lymphogranuloma_venereum

IANAD

http://symptoms.webmd.com/#./introView

You arent going to find a diagnosis online, sorry.

Is it even possible for a person to have large scale cancer and the doctors unable to detect it using typical tests? What does a person with cancer show typically when tested? Are there any tests to detect you have early stages of cancer before you have any symptoms anywhere?

Please add what you know to these;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancer_symptoms

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancer_screening

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_imaging

Are you referring to stuff like PSA, pap smear, mammogram,etc? Or you mean like one test that can detect if you have any type of malignancy?

I suggest working out and eating healthier while you search for a diagnosis, you will feel much better and who knows your bad habits could be causing your problems

Also try cutting back on your hours, no idea how you can work a super stressful, sedentary job for 16 hrs a day, day after day for that long

This cant be good for your body or mind

What are you doing for a living and where??

Are you an air traffic controller in Myanmar?

Yes i am suggesting any recent detection developments along the lines of these topics;

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immunohistochemistry

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tumor_marker

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tumor_antigen

I was wondering if there are certain easy global markers that without being very conclusive at all they instantly suggest a doctor where to look next and the possibility of being somewhat alarmed at an early stage when the situation is not necessarily yet as gloomy. And of course if someone has other symptoms such as those described here if the situation is seen as advanced enough that such markers would have been evident and not seeing then might indicate this here is not cancer.

I could go on further to ask eg;

Are there recently any biochemical detection developments such as the above or other that in the absence of a well localized tumor visible in the typical diagnostic methods (lumps, scans etc) could hint to a doctor something is going on both for an early stage and a relatively advanced one?

How close are we to basically be able to detect cancer very early or at the very least detect elevated probabilities for such developments even if most of them prove not to materialize?

Are we in a position today or in the near future that regular annual (blood tests and more but not heavily invasive approaches) or other more frequent far less invasive approaches than blood tests can protect a heavily monitored person? Such approach could be financially inefficient for the general population though in the sense that the opportunity cost they present is prohibitive, you could use your funds to address other more demanding healthcare concerns at the present era of our civilization. So i do not want this detail to be a factor is offering me an answer although of course its a determining factor in large scale developments across all society.

How close are we for example to a world where your own home computer (in combination with your own genome study) can monitor your health probing eg your urine, saliva, sperm or even your occasional rare blood discharge when you wash your teeth. This last concept is futuristic and remote still (even completely unreasonable) but i was wondering if the cost was not an issue how plausible conceptually it would be for your own smart home in the future to constantly monitor you in non invasive manner using such simple approaches that can lead to a constant daily intelligent, statistically interesting almost continuous manner to probe someone without ever requiring any extensive conscious efforts such as those of regular invasive testing.


So how unreasonable does the above futuristic vision look today and how plausible on the other hand it is for someone who is extensively monitored today (eg a very wealthy test project individual) to detect cancer and other diseases (circulatory system related or liver, kidneys etc) very early eliminating any late stage surprises? If we did seriously care for a person and expenses were not a concern could we claim any substantial edge by carefully monitoring such individual ?

I dont know much about it, but I remember some professors in our biomedical engineering department during undergrad were working on these microfluids contraptions where you could put a blood sample through and it could detect even if there was a single cancerous cell in there. Granted I have no idea if that would be at all useful for the type of screening your talking about.

It is entirely possible for you have have some cancer and it to be undetectable to modern medicine. It just depends on what you mean by "large scale." A depressingly high number of cancer cases are only diagnosed once they have reached an advanced stage, and would be considered "large scale" by any metric. Of these, a good portion probably could have been detected at an earlier stage, with ideal screening and testing.

But a lot of them couldnt. A lot of them are just plain bad actors. Our methods for detecting cancer are quite crude. We basically look for big giant tumors of cancer cells. For a few types, there are tumor markers we can test, but these are imperfect to say the least. It is entirely possible for you to have widely disseminated lung cancer, for example, that would basically be undetectable on any test.