Itchy head, face, neck, and shoulders

[Husband of]

Fungal cream worked 🙂. And the lump; got an ultrasound and they reckon it's a lipoma. Hard to know whether to trust them though.

thanks again everyone for your help and concern

 

[Booble]

Fungal cream worked 🙂. And the lump; got an ultrasound and they reckon it's a lipoma. Hard to know whether to trust them though.

thanks again everyone for your help and concern

Those both sound like very accurate diagnoses.
Lipomas vs. <the dangerous things> have very clear differences visible via ultrasound. If anything, they err more on the other side if they see even the smallest possibility of <the dangerous things>.

So I'm going to give a good, "Yay!!! "

 

[Husband of]

Those both sound like very accurate diagnoses.
Lipomas vs. <the dangerous things> have very clear differences visible via ultrasound. If anything, they err more on the other side if they see even the smallest possibility of <the dangerous things>.

So I'm going to give a good, "Yay!!! "

How do they know it's not lymphoma from an ultrasound? Can they see lymph nodes and therefore ascertain that the lump is not in a lymph node?

 

[lenora]

Hi @Husband of.....do other members of your wife's family also get lipomas? I would ask the Dr. the exact same question you asked us the next time you see him/her.

As we get older, it's common for all sorts of strange things to show up on our bodies. Amazing, really. I never thought I'd have the collection of dry skin spots, skin cancers (which looked like either flaky skin or a cyst....which one dermatologist confirmed for 20+ years, and yet another one found cancer. Perhaps take your wife to a determatologist and get another diagnosis. I've found that things we aren't necessarily alarmed about tend to be a problem....not obvious things. You can both be examined at the same time....so have an exam yourself. If you ever have to have skin cancer removed, find what is called a Moh's surgeon. I have done it twice and my nose (the nose is a danger spot b/c of sun damage) looks quite normal. Other surgeons leave plenty of damage behind, although more are trained in Moh's surgery today. Yours, Lenora

 

[Booble]

How do they know it's not lymphoma from an ultrasound? Can they see lymph nodes and therefore ascertain that the lump is not in a lymph node?

If they said it's a lipoma, which is a fatty cyst, then it's not in a lymph node. That is something they would know because it would look and act a certain way on an ultrasound.

Dangerous things also have various blood flows that show up on an ultrasound.

If they had even an inkling of the tiniest possibility that this was not a lipoma, they would be doing all kinds of biopsies, etc.

Lipomas are extremely common and completely benign.

 

[Husband of]

If they said it's a lipoma, which is a fatty cyst, then it's not in a lymph node. That is something they would know because it would look and act a certain way on an ultrasound.

Dangerous things also have various blood flows that show up on an ultrasound.

If they had even an inkling of the tiniest possibility that this was not a lipoma, they would be doing all kinds of biopsies, etc.

Lipomas are extremely common and completely benign.

Thanks, this helps with peace of mind. For the record they (via an app) didn't say it was a lipoma, they said it was consistent with a lipoma. And they certainly didn't say it was inconsistent with lymphoma. Hence the confusion. And given the whole rigmarole we've been through with them not even doing the right scan last time, plus other experiences with the doc, I'm not all that confident in them.

 

[Booble]

Thanks, this helps with peace of mind. For the record they (via an app) didn't say it was a lipoma, they said it was consistent with a lipoma. And they certainly didn't say it was inconsistent with lymphoma. Hence the confusion. And given the whole rigmarole we've been through with them not even doing the right scan last time, plus other experiences with the doc, I'm not all that confident in them.

Yes, that's good. The word "consistent with" means the things like the density, the blood flow, etc.
If you are worried --- which you should absolutely NOT be based on that finding you can always ask them to surgically remove it, in which case they will (as a matter of course) biopsy it.

For what it's worth, my dad had a lipoma all his life that used to scare me even as a child. I thought for sure it must be something bad. Nope. It was nothing.

 

[Husband of]

Just an update on this in case someone else has a similar experience and also because it is interesting. My wife crashed this week and the ringworm (if that's what it was) came back with a vengeance. I googled and apparently ringworm can be hard to defeat if you have a compromised immune system. So makes sense that if you haven't fully got rid of it yet (the rash pretty much disappeared after a couple of days but you are supposed to keep applying for two weeks after - which she was doing and was about to stop when...) it comes back when you crash as your immune system will be compromised in that state.

 

[Booble]

Thanks for the update. Fungal things take a long time to get rid of. Hope she is not too uncomfortable.

 

[Violeta]

In the pictures the rash does look like pityriasis, not sure whether it would be the rosea or versicolor. I have had spots of it in the past, more or less cleared up, but came back after my first COVID vaccine. The spots don't seem to go away although they do seem to change in appearance.

I don't remember ever having a large original spot before the smaller ones showed up, but I did have a large pink rash around my neck and shoulder area which did not have any of the flakiness of pityriasis . I'm not sure of the timeline, though, because I never would have thought the two were related.

 

[Husband of]

Another update - rash never went away, but with a few ups and downs became more manageable.

She was tested for fungi and they found nothing, and docs simply weren't interested enough to keep digging. Its possible she has had more than one type of rash.

But she has been taking steroid creams, particularly when it gets bad. And the doc prescribed a stringer one which works better.

Got a COVID vaccine yesterday and it came back with a vengeance.

Not on topic, but she also had a very achey body last night, leg and shoulder particularly. She gets aches and pains every now and then, but this was more intense than usual and more widespread, so was likely vaccine related to vaccine.