Gland Problems

[Trycer6]

This is going to sound strange, and I haven't read any other case on the internet of someone having what I have. If any doctor can provide some insight, that would be great.

When I was fifteen, I had a physical exam and my doctor noticed that I had an enlarged lymph node in the center of my neck, underneath my chin. The doctor had no explanation for why this occurred, but agreed that it was abnormally large and referred me to a neck doctor or some such thing (I can't remember what type of doctor it actually was). The doctor did an ultrasound of the node and felt it a little bit and said that it was quite firm and might be cancerous and that I should get it removed.

About a week before my surgery, I noticed that all of the other lymph nodes in my neck were swelling up - like the first node was transmitting some sort of infection or something. This made me nervous and I told my doctor about it, but he had no explanation. I had the surgery and the doctor said that he did not know why the node swelled up but I didn't have cancer and I seemed to be fine. After the first gland was removed, the other glands in my neck stopped growing but did not return to normal size - they are still hard to this day.

This leads me to my gynecomastia. I have pretty severe glandular gynecomastia, and I have noticed that I don't have one big gland - instead, I have TONS of tiny glands that have swelled up all over both of my breasts. Is this normal? Do most people just have one "big" gland? If not, is there any connection to the lymph nodes in my neck?

[Dr. Elliot Jacobs]

Can't comment on the lymph node problem in your neck.  But definitely, there is no connection between the "glands" of breast tissue and your lymph nodes.

Gynecomastia is, by definition, excessive tissue on a male chest.  It is usually breast tissue interspersed with fat tissue.  Sometimes one can feel firmer tissue on the chest.  Sometimes this is indeed breast tissue, but other times it is only fat.  Only a surgeon can tell -- and sometimes even a surgeon cannot be definitive until the time of surgery.

Dr Jacobs