Oral Cancer and HIV fears....please help calm me down!

[Sanque]

All,

If you know me, you know I'm always lurking these forums and have been for a while now. One of my big issues is oral cancer. Over the passed week and a half I've had what FEELS like a small, slightly raised, superficial bump on the back right section of my hard palate (i think this is called something like retromolar pad, I think). Apparantly, it's quite common to get mucocele's and retention cysts here that continually pop-up, drain their saliva contents, and then go away only to appear again at some point in the future. It seems like mine has come and gone several times, popped several times. The area is not even red at all anymore, but I can still see the white pin-point dot where this bump sits. Had a dentist look at it who said she could still feel it, but that she isn't worried and it was probably from trauma or some sort of ulcer/cold-sore type thing.

Problem is. I'm a hypochondriac and I'm pretty sure this is oral cancer.

And to top it all off, the one thing I do that allows me some measure of relaxing is getting a massage. Not one of THOSE massages, but a proper deep tissue massage. I'm now worried that at some point I caught HIV or an STD from the massage table. After all, you only have on (at most) your underwear, and depending on the place and if they are going to massage your glutes--you may have nothing on. I know the chances are slim, but I'm FREAKING out about this too.

Doctor's appointment tonight, unrelated to these items, I will probably bring up the oral cancer, but not HIV fear--I'm not too far down that rabbit hole yet, any ideas on how to stop from getting there? I've done the HIV thing before--it's NO fun.

[Allochka]

Well, I can't comment in a knowledgeable way about your bump in the mouth, because I don't know what should be in our mouths and what should not 
All I know that I recently discovered that my tonsils are unequal and now am scared of tonsil cancer, despite the fact that ENT looked at them and thinks everything is fine. All this scare is caused by accidental checking of my throat and lack of proper medical knowledge. I do not plan to look into my mouth anymore at all, until anything hurts  Because I have no idea what is normal and what is not. Maybe you could do the same? Just don't look?  BTW, the ENT who checked me said many-many people come to her, after reading smth on Internet and then looking into their mouhts, all convinced they have cancer...

As for HIV - you CAN'T get HIV on massage table. It is transmitted either during unprotected sex or through fresh blood. HIV virus can't survive outside the host, it dies pretty fast in open air. So you should put this fear aside, this one is absolutely irrational. Good luck!

[Sanque]

If it helps, I have HUGE tonsils (you probably wouldn't believe) which scared me enough; then I took a flashlight in there years back and noticed my right one is bigger, but my uvula hangs a bit to the left. Don't google this. It's always cancer.

And yes, I try not to EVER look in my mouth--I happened to just FEEL this the day before I went to a dentist. True story.

[Allochka]

Thanks for tonsil story, it really helps that there are people out there with big asymmetric tonsils and no cancer. Google doesn't know about them, he knows only cancer stories, so it REALLY cheers me up 

I'm sure you bump is Ok, cancer doesn't pop up out of nowhere all of a sudden, it develops gradually. This was told to me by a real doc, not Google, so I guess that's right.
And for HIV - please put this worry aside, this contamination way is imossible. And enjoy your massage!

[MrSamsa]

I can't tell you how happy I was to read your post. I have the exact same thing. A poppable, reoccurring cyst. Mine's sort of where the hard palette and the soft palette meet. But yeah, the jerk won't go away. I went with oral cancer, too. My doctor wasn't worried about it. So, meh. I'm trying not to sweat it. You try not to worry, too.