Sometimes it happens that a person has a lump under the chin. But you should not immediately associate this seal with any tumor or other serious illness. Often, a lump can disappear without medical attention. But sometimes there are situations when you need to urgently consult a specialist.
Bump under the jaw. What is it?
Most often, the bump under the chin is felt with inflammation of the lymph nodes. They are located just under the jaw and on the back of the head. Lymph nodes increase if an inflammatory process occurs in the body and microbes enter the lymph. However, this does not mean that a person can independently make a diagnosis. Moreover, there are a huge number of diseases: from the most harmless to severe, which cause an increase in lymph nodes.
A bump under the chin in the middle may also appear due to a developing tumor or cyst. Most often, when a seal is detected, a lipoma is diagnosed. This is a benign inflammation of adipose tissue. To the touch, this formation is soft and elastic. When pressed on it, a person does not feel pain and can easily move the resulting ball. However, doctors in any case, upon detection of a lump, do not advise touching, pulling it, warming the inflamed area.
Lump and compaction as a symptom
It is rare, but still happens, that a doctor diagnoses a disease such as atheroma. Its symptom is just the bump under the chin in the middle. The photos presented in the article show where it is most often localized. Atheroma is a cyst of the sebaceous glands. It can form on absolutely any part of the body, including on the face of a person. In advanced stages, the seal can be large. When feeling, the bump is soft and mobile.
It is much more dangerous when the bump under the chin feels firm, motionless and painless. Most often, such a symptom appears with a developing tumor and is not always benign. A solid seal appears in terrible diseases such as lymphoma or Hodgkin's disease. If a person has found a similar symptom in himself, he urgently needs to consult a doctor and demand referral for tests and other studies.
Which doctor should I contact?
If a bump appears under the chin, first of all you need to contact a therapist or surgeon. The doctor will direct the patient to a full examination. Blood tests will be taken. If a person has been diagnosed with inflammation of the lymph nodes, and the main cause of the disease has already been eliminated, then the doctor will most likely refer the patient to physiotherapy and prescribe all the necessary medications. As a rule, after such treatment, the lymph nodes return to normal, and the lump disappears completely.
Lipoma and cyst of the sebaceous glands are removed only surgically. However, in modern medicine, such an operation is no longer considered serious. It is carried out with minimal trauma. Often, clinics offer the patient to remove the seal on the chin with a laser. If tests and other examinations showed a malignant tumor, then an oncologist should be consulted. He will direct the patient to surgery. Chemotherapy courses are available.
The first signs of cancer and benign tumors
In photographs, ultrasound and other examinations, it is almost impossible to distinguish a benign tumor from a malignant tumor with full confidence. Therefore, one cannot say for sure why a bump appeared under the chin in the middle. What could it be? Do not torment yourself with the thought of cancer, although the rapid growth of the tumor more often indicates a malignant course of the disease. If, nevertheless, the doctor suggests that the patient has lymphoma, sarcoma or Hodgkin's disease, then a referral to radiography is necessary. The specialist must take several pictures in different projections.
In any case, the patient may be suspected of having cancer only if he has a fixed seal under his jaw that does not hurt. Malignant tumors very often grow together with neighboring tissues, and therefore are fixed clearly in one place. With any suspicion of cancer, a person should seek medical help as soon as possible, because it is much easier to cure a malignant pathology in the initial stages.