Lumps
A lump is any patch that feels denser or more raised than the tissue around it: a little ball under the skin, a bump, a swelling, a nodule.
Prescription review online
A doctor will review your case and issue a prescription if medically appropriate.
Talk to a doctor online
Discuss your symptoms and possible next steps with a doctor online.
On this page
- What is actually being felt under the skin
- Signs that mean a lump is examined, not watched
- When to be seen the same day, or call an ambulance
- An enlarged lymph node: when it is a response to infection and when it is not
- Lipoma, cyst and other common findings
- A lump in the breast and in the testicle are separate subjects
- How a doctor works a lump out
- What not to do with a lump
- Online consultation
A lump is any patch that feels denser or more raised than the tissue around it: a little ball under the skin, a bump, a swelling, a nodule. Most are found by accident — in the shower, drying off with a towel, doing up a belt. The overwhelming majority of these finds are harmless, but fingers alone cannot tell harmless from dangerous, not even a doctor's fingers, and that is where the rule of this subject comes from: a lump is not decoded at home, it is shown to someone. This page sets out which signs mean it should not be left, and what happens at the appointment.
What is actually being felt under the skin
Lumps can sit in the skin itself, under it, in fat, in a muscle, in a lymph node, in a gland, or in the wall of the abdomen. Hence the variety: one rolls under the fingers, another is anchored in place, one hurts and another gives no sign of itself at all.
It is worth knowing what a doctor will note, because those are the same things worth writing down so you can describe it accurately:
- when you noticed it and whether it has changed since;
- how big it is — comparing it to a pea, a bean, a cherry or a walnut works well;
- whether it is soft or hard, smooth or knobbly;
- whether it shifts under your fingers or stays put;
- whether it hurts, and whether it hurts only when pressed;
- whether the skin over it has changed — redness, dimpling, an orange-peel look, an ulcer, bleeding;
- whether there is anything else: fever, night sweats, weight loss, tiredness, a recent infection or injury.
None of these makes a diagnosis on its own. The doctor needs them as a set, and you need them so you are not trying to remember everything in the consulting room.
Signs that mean a lump is examined, not watched
There is a list where watching no longer does and an examination is needed. One item is enough.
- It is growing — noticeably bigger over weeks or months.
- It is hard, dense, like a pebble or a piece of bone.
- It is fixed — it does not shift against the surrounding tissue, as though anchored deep down.
- It is tethered to the skin: the skin over it dimples, will not pinch up, has changed colour or has ulcerated.
- It is more than two centimetres across — roughly grape-sized or bigger.
- It is painless. This needs understanding properly: the absence of pain is not reassuring, it is a warning. Many people reason the other way — "it doesn't hurt, so it's nothing" — and that is exactly why they come late. Pain is mostly what inflammation and pus announce themselves with; what grows painlessly and quietly is precisely what needs sorting out.
- It appeared with no injury and no preceding infection.
- It lies deep, beneath the muscle rather than just under the skin.
- It has grown back in a place where something similar was already removed.
- It comes with general symptoms: weight loss you cannot explain; drenching night sweats that mean changing the bedding; fever with no obvious cause; constant tiredness; pain at night.
Separately: any lump that simply has not gone after two weeks is shown to a doctor too, even if none of the points above applies to it.
This list has no reverse side. There is no set of sensations that lets you decide a doctor is unnecessary: a soft, mobile lump can be a lipoma and it can be a tumour, and the difference is only seen on examination and imaging.
When to be seen the same day, or call an ambulance
Some situations with lumps are urgent, and they are recognisable.
Get seen the same day if:
- the lump is hot, red, sharply painful and getting bigger by the hour — that is how a collection of pus behaves;
- red streaks run away from it across the skin, or there is spreading redness, with fever and shivering;
- you are having chemotherapy, taking medicines that suppress the immune system, or have poorly controlled diabetes, and a painful reddened lump has appeared;
- a lump in the neck is growing fast and swallowing has become harder or the voice has changed.
Call an ambulance on the single European number 112 if:
- a lump in the groin or beside the navel has become sharply painful and hard and will no longer push back in, together with vomiting, a swollen abdomen and no bowel movements or wind — that is a strangulated hernia, and it goes to theatre without delay;
- swelling and a lump in the neck or mouth are increasing and making breathing or swallowing difficult;
- alongside a reddened lump you feel seriously unwell: confusion, breathlessness, hard shivering, sudden weakness.
An enlarged lymph node: when it is a response to infection and when it is not
Lymph nodes can be felt in the neck, under the jaw, behind the ears, in the armpits and in the groin, and they enlarge most often because they are doing their job — responding to an infection nearby.
It looks like a reaction when the node came up soon after a sore throat, a cold, an ear or dental infection or a cut on the hand; it is soft or rubbery, slightly tender to press, mobile, and up to about a centimetre and a half; and, above all, when over two to four weeks it steadily gets smaller. Small firm nodes in a child's neck can be felt almost always and mean nothing in themselves. In some people a small harmless node stays put for years after an infection long forgotten.
It does not look like an ordinary reaction when the node is hard and will not move; it has not shrunk in a month or keeps growing; it is more than two centimetres; nodes are enlarged in several areas of the body at once; they come with weight loss, night sweats, prolonged fever or itchy skin; the node has appeared above the collarbone, a site that always warrants attention; or an armpit node is enlarged with no cut or infection anywhere on that arm.
You will also be asked about contact with a cat, travel abroad, contact with anyone with tuberculosis, and recent vaccinations, which also enlarge nodes for a few weeks.
Lipoma, cyst and other common findings
These are what is most often found under the skin. Knowing them helps you follow what a doctor says; it is not a way of diagnosing yourself.
- Lipoma — an overgrowth of fatty tissue. Soft, doughy, rolls easily under the fingers, grows over years, usually painless. Most often on the back, shoulders, neck and thighs. Removed if it is a nuisance or if the person prefers it gone.
- Skin cyst — a cavity with contents, most often on the back, behind an ear or on the scalp. Smooth, round, often with a tiny central pore. It can become inflamed, painful and red, and then it needs a doctor.
- Ganglion cyst — a smooth lump on the hand, wrist or finger, connected to a joint or tendon. It can change in size.
- Hernia — a bulge in the groin, beside the navel or over a scar, which appears on standing and straining and goes down when you lie flat. It needs a surgeon, and if the pain becomes sudden and it will not reduce, an ambulance.
- Abscess and infected hair follicle — a painful, hot, red lump, sometimes with a head of pus.
- Goitre and thyroid nodules — a lump on the front of the neck that moves up when you swallow.
- Skin tags — small soft outgrowths of skin on a narrow stalk, usually in folds: the neck, armpits and under the breasts.
Once more: this is a list of what is common, not a way to reassure yourself. A soft mobile lump is called a lipoma after an examination and, at the slightest doubt, after an ultrasound scan.
A lump in the breast and in the testicle are separate subjects
These two areas are not dealt with alongside the rest, not because they are more frightening but because the order of action, the tests and the timescales there are different. Condensing them into two lines here would do harm.
A lump in the breast, in women and in men alike, is always a reason to be seen, even if it is painless and seems to have been there a long while. The same goes for dimpling of the skin or nipple, discharge from the nipple, a change in the shape of the breast, and a lump in the armpit. This site has a separate page on breast lumps — read that one.
Any lump or change in the shape of a testicle is checked by a doctor. Separately and urgently: sudden severe pain in a testicle, swelling and redness of the scrotum, abdominal pain and vomiting mean testicular torsion, where help is needed within hours, so there you call an ambulance rather than wait for an appointment. Ordinary lumps and swellings in the scrotum have their own page on this site.
How a doctor works a lump out
The appointment starts with questions: when it appeared, how it has changed, whether it hurts, whether there was an injury or infection, whether anything similar runs in the family, whether you smoke, what medicines you take, and whether there has been weight loss or night sweats.
Then comes the examination: the doctor assesses size, consistency, edges, how freely it moves against the skin and the deeper layers, and the state of the skin over it, feels the neighbouring groups of lymph nodes and, if relevant, the abdomen and the thyroid. Some lumps end there, because they are recognised straight away.
If it is not clear, tests follow. An ultrasound scan usually comes first: it is painless, widely available, and shows what the lump is made of, whether there is fluid inside and how it is supplied with blood. After that, depending on the case, blood tests, an X-ray, a CT or an MRI scan. The final word belongs to a biopsy — taking a fragment of tissue or cells with a needle to study under a microscope. Being sent for a biopsy does not mean the doctor has found something bad: it is how guessing is avoided. Sometimes the doctor suggests coming back in a few weeks to see how it evolves; that is a legitimate plan, but it is made by the doctor after examining you, not by you at home.
What not to do with a lump
- Do not squeeze it, pierce it or open it yourself. That drives pus deeper and infects something that was harmless.
- Do not warm it, rub it or massage it. Heat increases inflammation and speeds the spread of infection.
- Do not prod it ten times a day. Constant pressure irritates the tissue, and fingers cannot tell whether it has grown anyway: photograph it once a week next to a ruler or a coin instead.
- Do not try to get rid of it with ointments, plasters, poultices or remedies found online. Some of these cause burns and scarring, and above all they steal time.
- Do not put off the appointment because the lump does not hurt. That is worth saying to yourself twice.
- Do not take antibiotics without a prescription: without an examination there is no way to know whether there is an infection at all, and a blurred picture makes it harder to sort out later.
And the other way round: it helps to note the date you found it, photograph it with something for scale, and mark the calendar if it changes. That takes a minute and tells a doctor more than a long account from memory.
Online consultation
A lump has to be felt, and that cannot be done fully through a screen. But an online consultation solves half the problem, and quickly. An Oladoctor doctor will question you, look at your photographs, work out which group of causes it most resembles and, above all, tell you what to do next: call an ambulance, be seen today, book an appointment this week, or start with an ultrasound scan — and which one. They will explain what any images and reports you already have actually mean, help you prepare for a surgical opinion, and point you to the right specialist for a find in the neck, the groin or the hand. And if what you describe sounds like a strangulated hernia or a spreading pus-forming infection, you will be told straight away.
This material is for information only and does not replace medical advice.
Consult with a doctor about Lumps
Discuss your symptoms and possible next steps with a doctor online.
Online doctors for Lumps
Discuss your symptoms and possible next steps for Lumps with a doctor online.
