Lymph Node question/ full body check question

Hi, well it sounds as if it was caught quickly enough.  Though it would be better with zero mitosis, still, under .75 only level 2, that is a pretty good place to be if you have to have Melanoma.  Yes, I have heard that some MDs do use ultrasound to check for enlarged nodes. Especially when your stage is not advanced, they will not usually do CT/ MRI / Pet scans because it's cost prohibitive and they don't want the patient exposed to so much radiation.  Too bad about the WLE, I had 2 cm taken, hardly any bruising and very little pain, no infection.  So yes, your body most likely is having an inflammatory response to the surgery, but it's good to do the ultra sound to follow up. Good Luck!  

Hi, well it sounds as if it was caught quickly enough.  Though it would be better with zero mitosis, still, under .75 only level 2, that is a pretty good place to be if you have to have Melanoma.  Yes, I have heard that some MDs do use ultrasound to check for enlarged nodes. Especially when your stage is not advanced, they will not usually do CT/ MRI / Pet scans because it's cost prohibitive and they don't want the patient exposed to so much radiation.  Too bad about the WLE, I had 2 cm taken, hardly any bruising and very little pain, no infection.  So yes, your body most likely is having an inflammatory response to the surgery, but it's good to do the ultra sound to follow up. Good Luck!  

Hi, well it sounds as if it was caught quickly enough.  Though it would be better with zero mitosis, still, under .75 only level 2, that is a pretty good place to be if you have to have Melanoma.  Yes, I have heard that some MDs do use ultrasound to check for enlarged nodes. Especially when your stage is not advanced, they will not usually do CT/ MRI / Pet scans because it's cost prohibitive and they don't want the patient exposed to so much radiation.  Too bad about the WLE, I had 2 cm taken, hardly any bruising and very little pain, no infection.  So yes, your body most likely is having an inflammatory response to the surgery, but it's good to do the ultra sound to follow up. Good Luck!  

Hi Yvonne,

I've gone with my husband twice when he had full body checks. The first was with his dermatologist, who removed the "cyst" that turned out to be a big primary melanoma – not visible on the skin, so it's hard to fault him for not finding it. He visibly scanned every inch of my husband's body and froze off some precancerous lesions. He has also done shave biopsies a few times, and nothing has turned out to be melanoma except the big messy "cyst." He is not very receptive to suggestions for other ways to deal with questionable spots, and my husband has not pushed him to do anything differently.

The other visit was with a skin cancer specialist at Johns Hopkins, whom we consulted during one of our visits there for a clinical trial. He showed me different spots – told me which ones he was concerned about and which ones not. It was a good education for me, and reassuring, but we haven't gone back to him.

I don't like my husband's dermatologist here in town because he wasn't willing to give me the education that the Hopkins doc was. Also I probably have some residual concerns that he didn't diagnose the original "cyst" properly, but that's probably unreasonable since it wasn't a typical superficial spreading melanoma lesion.

I'm not sure how it is in Canada, but if your primary doc can set you up with a different dermatologist for future checkups, that would probably be better for you. Also it would seem that someone could give you the results from the WLE sooner than Jan. 29 – that's a long time to wait! We had word of pathology reports a little more than a week after the surgery.

In general, though, all that waiting for results is nerve-wracking. I wrote about it a lot on my blog in the early days of Robert's treatment. One thing you'll see there is that we were fortunate to have enough "good" doctors feeding us information to counter-affect the frustration we had because of those who didn't communicate with us as well.

Please keep us posted! Wishing you clear margins and good scans!

Hazel

Hi Yvonne,

I've gone with my husband twice when he had full body checks. The first was with his dermatologist, who removed the "cyst" that turned out to be a big primary melanoma – not visible on the skin, so it's hard to fault him for not finding it. He visibly scanned every inch of my husband's body and froze off some precancerous lesions. He has also done shave biopsies a few times, and nothing has turned out to be melanoma except the big messy "cyst." He is not very receptive to suggestions for other ways to deal with questionable spots, and my husband has not pushed him to do anything differently.

The other visit was with a skin cancer specialist at Johns Hopkins, whom we consulted during one of our visits there for a clinical trial. He showed me different spots – told me which ones he was concerned about and which ones not. It was a good education for me, and reassuring, but we haven't gone back to him.

I don't like my husband's dermatologist here in town because he wasn't willing to give me the education that the Hopkins doc was. Also I probably have some residual concerns that he didn't diagnose the original "cyst" properly, but that's probably unreasonable since it wasn't a typical superficial spreading melanoma lesion.

I'm not sure how it is in Canada, but if your primary doc can set you up with a different dermatologist for future checkups, that would probably be better for you. Also it would seem that someone could give you the results from the WLE sooner than Jan. 29 – that's a long time to wait! We had word of pathology reports a little more than a week after the surgery.

In general, though, all that waiting for results is nerve-wracking. I wrote about it a lot on my blog in the early days of Robert's treatment. One thing you'll see there is that we were fortunate to have enough "good" doctors feeding us information to counter-affect the frustration we had because of those who didn't communicate with us as well.

Please keep us posted! Wishing you clear margins and good scans!

Hazel

Hi Yvonne,

I've gone with my husband twice when he had full body checks. The first was with his dermatologist, who removed the "cyst" that turned out to be a big primary melanoma – not visible on the skin, so it's hard to fault him for not finding it. He visibly scanned every inch of my husband's body and froze off some precancerous lesions. He has also done shave biopsies a few times, and nothing has turned out to be melanoma except the big messy "cyst." He is not very receptive to suggestions for other ways to deal with questionable spots, and my husband has not pushed him to do anything differently.

The other visit was with a skin cancer specialist at Johns Hopkins, whom we consulted during one of our visits there for a clinical trial. He showed me different spots – told me which ones he was concerned about and which ones not. It was a good education for me, and reassuring, but we haven't gone back to him.

I don't like my husband's dermatologist here in town because he wasn't willing to give me the education that the Hopkins doc was. Also I probably have some residual concerns that he didn't diagnose the original "cyst" properly, but that's probably unreasonable since it wasn't a typical superficial spreading melanoma lesion.

I'm not sure how it is in Canada, but if your primary doc can set you up with a different dermatologist for future checkups, that would probably be better for you. Also it would seem that someone could give you the results from the WLE sooner than Jan. 29 – that's a long time to wait! We had word of pathology reports a little more than a week after the surgery.

In general, though, all that waiting for results is nerve-wracking. I wrote about it a lot on my blog in the early days of Robert's treatment. One thing you'll see there is that we were fortunate to have enough "good" doctors feeding us information to counter-affect the frustration we had because of those who didn't communicate with us as well.

Please keep us posted! Wishing you clear margins and good scans!

Hazel

Trauma can definitely cause lymph nodes to enlarge, and I think you can consider a WLE trauma.  Certainly ultrasound is used for monitoring lymph nodes – there have been clinical trials for that very purpose:  Ultrasound vs SNB.  So that is valid although I'd say overly cautious at this point.  You have a very low risk lesion and it just needs to heal! 

As for a body check, it's basically looking for that ugly duckling.  Since most warriors NEVER have more than one melanoma primary, it's just about monitoring your skin for change.  Personally, I prefer photographs that I can use as a baseline as opposed to more eyes.  If something isn't changing, I don't remove it.  But if it changes, it's gone.  Photographs are an easy way to look for change.  I'm not into unnecessary biopsies and the photographs are my baseline.  More eyes kind of muddles the picture – all I want to know is that a lesion is stable (leave alone) or changing (biopsy) and that's it.  I have found my 3 primaries and really don't expect my doctors to find one on me.  I find a suspicious mole, my doc and I confirm it's changing from the photos and then my doc removes it.  That's how I approach living with melanoma.

Trauma can definitely cause lymph nodes to enlarge, and I think you can consider a WLE trauma.  Certainly ultrasound is used for monitoring lymph nodes – there have been clinical trials for that very purpose:  Ultrasound vs SNB.  So that is valid although I'd say overly cautious at this point.  You have a very low risk lesion and it just needs to heal! 

As for a body check, it's basically looking for that ugly duckling.  Since most warriors NEVER have more than one melanoma primary, it's just about monitoring your skin for change.  Personally, I prefer photographs that I can use as a baseline as opposed to more eyes.  If something isn't changing, I don't remove it.  But if it changes, it's gone.  Photographs are an easy way to look for change.  I'm not into unnecessary biopsies and the photographs are my baseline.  More eyes kind of muddles the picture – all I want to know is that a lesion is stable (leave alone) or changing (biopsy) and that's it.  I have found my 3 primaries and really don't expect my doctors to find one on me.  I find a suspicious mole, my doc and I confirm it's changing from the photos and then my doc removes it.  That's how I approach living with melanoma.

Trauma can definitely cause lymph nodes to enlarge, and I think you can consider a WLE trauma.  Certainly ultrasound is used for monitoring lymph nodes – there have been clinical trials for that very purpose:  Ultrasound vs SNB.  So that is valid although I'd say overly cautious at this point.  You have a very low risk lesion and it just needs to heal! 

As for a body check, it's basically looking for that ugly duckling.  Since most warriors NEVER have more than one melanoma primary, it's just about monitoring your skin for change.  Personally, I prefer photographs that I can use as a baseline as opposed to more eyes.  If something isn't changing, I don't remove it.  But if it changes, it's gone.  Photographs are an easy way to look for change.  I'm not into unnecessary biopsies and the photographs are my baseline.  More eyes kind of muddles the picture – all I want to know is that a lesion is stable (leave alone) or changing (biopsy) and that's it.  I have found my 3 primaries and really don't expect my doctors to find one on me.  I find a suspicious mole, my doc and I confirm it's changing from the photos and then my doc removes it.  That's how I approach living with melanoma.