I'm hoping someone will have some thoughts on this ... I have recently developed walnut size and larger lumps throughout my breasts, stomachwall and groin - also one upper arm. I've had swollen lymph nodes in my groin and arm pit from 4 months or more. Numerous ultrasounds, mammograms, CTs have shown them. This week I had biopsies of my breast and stomach wall....the surgeon prepared me that he thought it was lymphoma. When he opened up the first site he had a very troubled look on his face and told the nurses he wanted to have pathology run cultures of any kind - bacterial, fungal, viral - as well as the frozen and fresh sections to look for lymphoma. After he closed that site he went and spoke with the pathologist directly...who told him there were no malignant cells, but they didn't know what they had. So, they took a second area and opened it up and it was exactly the same...not lymph nodes.

The cultures have not come back yet. However the pathologist has said that there are definitely no malignant cells to be found - thankfully.

On the other hand, these areas are continuing to multiply and noone seems to know what they are. The surgeon said there are too many to take out.

Has anyone heard of anything about necrotic fatty tissue - something that would, as the pathologist said, cause trauma to the fatty layer of skin?

I've searched Mayo, Medline, Merck, JAMA, numerous dermatology sites...they generally say necrotic tissue must be opened up, taken out or gangrene and death can be caused....but I don't see anything about necrosis in the fatty tissue...

HELP!

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Since from your other post, I already suspect exposure to 2-butoxyethanol for health ailments you are experiencing (more than anything else) ... and since it defats the skin and causes hormonal ups/downs ... you might also look into Glucocorticoid hormones.  They are involved in how the body utilizes and stores carbohydrates, protein, fat and blood sugar."

I think it causes an autoimmune immune system and metabolic problems predominately

Could you go over this questionnaire & share the results with your doctor ... at least the first couple of pages to see if the fatigue signs and CNS signs are prevalent?

I'd be interested to know what your grandparents did during WWII and what kind of work your mom did through her life ... and what kind of work you do.  Do you remember having 'flu-like' symtoms ... but it wasn't the flu?

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Mother Margaret - I will go over the questionnaire - Thanks!!

My mom's family were and still are farmers in upstate New York. Her parents and grandparents have been on the same land for at least 3 generations, I believe. My great-grandparents and grandparents all worked the land. (It was a dairy farm). My mom had severe allergies even from her birth - she evidently cried non-stop her whole first 2 years until they learned she was allergic to milk. Later, when it came time for her to work outside, she had such outdoor allergies, that she could not. Her job became cleaning the house and cooking. After HS, she was a secretary, then went to business school, became a dental hygenist and for the last 20+ years of her life (she died at 56) she ran a dental office as the office manager. She developed Rheumatoid Arthritis at 30, FYI.

I went to college in Boston and worked in numerous medical settings throughout college as receptionist, etc ... then got a teaching degree. This was in 1993. There were no teaching jobs ironically. I did substitute for 2 years before leaving teaching for sales. I was mainly in inside sales (on phone/computer) related to high tech until I moved to Wisconsin about 6 years ago. It took awhile to get established, but I had a similar job here - though Customer Service, not sales - with Blue Cross Blue Shield until about 2 1/2 years ago when I went out on disability.

Incidentally, it was at BCBS that I met 7 people who'd had the gastric bypass that I had, at the same place that I had it, that all did so very well....and mine was a wreck from the start.

I have many symptoms of ;upus - and this Weber-Christian has a related form that relates to SLE Lupus - I have had one positive ANA and two negative - so they still don't consider me Lupus positive...but I really feel that autoimmune is very related. My mom had at least 2 and I just feel in my gut that it's intertwined in my issues. I know that I have PCOS - the polycystic ovaries - and I think that is classified by some as autoimmune.

Anyway, I continue to be very thankful for your time and any thoughts and questionnaires you have! I'll do them all!!!

Warmly yours, Katherine FlowerDogsMom  10-14-05

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Margaret:  I suspect allergies as being one way a 'body complains' about too much of some kind of chemical.  What chemicals did your gandparents use on their farm 60 years ago?  Or what farm were they downwind from and what did they use?

PCOS?  I wonder if it isn't autoimmune.

This other condition that you are concerned about ... they try to rule out autoimmune issues, interesting?  http://www.emedicine.com/ped/topic2429.htm

Some of the things the doctors/researchers comment on in this info are things that could be part of 2-butoxyethanol harm.

I still suspect that even during your mother's life there were exposures to this chemical for her to die of ALS at age 56.  It could be something seemingly obscure.  What cleaning products did she use?  That could almost 'do it' all by itself

And then there are second hand exposures which can occur and no one would ever know ... except that the victim would say things like ... that's the day by CFS started