Tonsillitis

In My Humble Opinion
1

This is not a plea for medical advice, but more of a quest for shared experiences.

I had a lingering, mild cold for much of December. On January 1st, I woke up with severe tonsillitis and a low fever. The only other times I’ve had tonsil pain this bad, they found strep and antibiotics cleared it up quickly. Went to urgent care and they took a culture and gave me erythromycin. Three days later, the culture came back negative and the tonsil pain was still there. So back I went to urgent care and saw another doctor who recommended stopping the antibiotics. He said my throat looked normal and it was probably a virus.

It is now ten days after the pain began and it is unabated on one side. Don’t really have any symptoms other than severe pain in one tonsil. I’m going about my business, running 5 miles in the mornings, but my friggin’ tonsil hurts like crazy.

I am a 50 (!) year old adult and get tonsillitis (usually accompanying respiratory infections and not usually this bad) a few times every year. From my research, tonsillectomies are not done often nowadays, and are more complicated/painful for adults than children.

Any other middle aged people out there dealing (or having dealt) with the same thing? Any of you had tonsillectomies in adulthood?

2

Well, I was nineteen when I had to have mine taken out. I never had to deal with strep throat after that. The “last straw” came a year before that, when I got mononucleosis hepatitis and tonsillitis for Christmas. Yippee! That’s when the ENT doc said those bad boys had to go.

3

Can’t really offer advice (I’ve only had tonsillitis once, as a teenager) but wanted to offer you my sympathies Jill. This was the single most unpleasant malady I’ve ever suffered … and I’ve suffered a few.

Hope you feel better soon :slight_smile:

4

I don’t know the frequency with which they perform tonsillectomies on adults, but my ten year old son had his tonsils taken out the week before Christmas. The decision was made to do the tonsillectomy after a solid 60 days of constant, repeating infections, step throat, and pain. Also, a six year old girl in my class had her tonsils removed just last week.

There didn’t seem to be any shortage of children and young teens in the otolaryngology surgery center at the time we were there, so I imagine tonsillectomies are still done fairly regularly if needed? :confused:

FB

5

<<<sympathy>>>
Tonsillitis sucks. I’m 26 now, and I would get tonsillitis/ upper respiratory infections about 3-4 times/ year, since I was 10 or so - swollen glands, it hurt to swallow, fever, very lethargic. I have seasonal allergies and asthma, and apparently when I was a baby, it was thought that tonsils shouldn’t be taken out so readily, and that my asthma and allergies would worsen if I didn’t have my tonsils.

For the first couple of years, I would go through this exact routine with my doctors:
Me: I’m sick with tonsillitis.
Doc: Are you sure it’s not strep? Let’s do a strep test.
Me: Yes, I’m sure. I’ve had this a bazillion times before.
Doc: No, you might have strep. Let’s do a test.
Me: OWWW!! (Strep tests do not feel good when one’s throat is so swollen it looks like the mumps.)
Doc: OK, no strep, here’s your antibiotics and expectorant.
Me: <grumbles>

When I was about 22, they started to get worse…the swelling stuck around longer, the pain was chronic, like before, but stronger (if that makes sense - it hurt more acutely - swallowing anything would make me grimace), and the congestion was worse. The doctors had stopped giving me antibiotics, so I started relying on lotsa Advil and Sudafed, but it never really fixed the problem, just made the pain less intolerable. The swelling and pain lasted longer and longer. I went to the emergency room several times, and they started prescribing steroids to bring the swelling down. I was absolutely miserable, and there didn’t seem to be any relief.

The epiphany came when I was again in the ER, slouching on a gurney in a hallway, waiting for help. A resident came by to talk to me. When she looked at my throat, she literally grimaced and said, ‘Ugh.’ My tonsils were very swollen, and covered in scars from all the previous infections. Oh yeah, that’s making me feel better. I went to an ENT to talk about getting them removed. Getting your tonsils removed as an adult is serious surgery - I’m not sure why, but it’s much less involved taking out a child’s tonsils. According to my doctor (and IANAD), most adults are laid up for 2-3 weeks.

<entering serious TMI territory here>
I decided to get the surgery done, in May '02. It was the single most painful experience of my life. (Apparently the surgery is made more difficult/ painful when you’ve had multiple past infections, like I had.) I was really out of it the first day, zonked out from the pain and the narcotics.
It took me a full month to recover. I couldn’t eat anything that tasted like anything - nothing even slightly acidic (no fruit juices, except apple), nothing crunchy, spicy or salty. I survived on water, apple juice, applesauce, mashed potatoes (plain) for the first three weeks. Oh, and no dairy, either, because that exacerbates mucous production, so no ice cream for me! I did find these fabulous soy energy drinks with protein that I could drink and gave me some much-needed nutrition. Still, I was far too weak and in too much pain to do anything but watch television. I couldn’t even read - it was too difficult to focus, and I was out of it from all the drugs. I was on antibiotics, steroids and liquid pain medication (which never did more than take some of the edge of the pain - it was still quite bad.) Every swallow I took was seriously painful, and I had to force myself to drink as much water as possible. I became terribly constipated, then the other extreme. I could only breathe through my mouth, and drooled for the first two and a half weeks. It was disgusting - I always had this washcloth with me to put under my mouth. I had to put cold compresses on my throat, to try and bring the swelling down. I couldn’t sleep through the night. Despite doing nothing - I didn’t even step foot outside my apartment until three weeks had gone by, I lost about 15 pounds.

But after that horrible month, I was okay. I’ve been sick once since then - a cold I got last month - the infections are gone. It’s wonderful. My allergies are not any worse, and it’s better that I don’t have the allergies triggering the tonsils, and vice versa.
Everyone has a different experience - it sounds like you’re really in shape, and that would make the recovery faster. If you have people around you to take care of you, and can take a few weeks off without worry, you may want to think about a tonsillectomy. I hope you feel better!!

6

DON’T PANIC.

Everyone does have a different experience. I had some pretty determined tonsils. Had them (and my adenoids) removed when I was four. I had my tonsils removed again when I was seven. Yes, you read that right. Apparently tonsil-tissue is really geographically close to something a surgeon has to be really careful not to cut into, and so they cut close, but not out, particularly in young children. My leftover tonsil tissue got infected badly, and back under the knife I went.

Having had my tonsils removed twice, you can imagine my surprise when I stumbled into the ENT doc’s office, sick as a dog and too sore to swallow, and she peered into my throat and said, “Oh my gawd.” I had an abcessed tonsil, which she had to do a needle aspiration on - not fun. Then she said, “Your tonsils are just horrible. They are going to have to come out.” I was 38 years old. So… I had another tonsillectomy, and while she was in there, she also took out some extra tissue from inside my nose and sinuses (apnea had been an issue, too). None of it was particularly painful, but I did spend the first night after the surgery miserable because of the packing in my nose. Couldn’t swallow, because I couldn’t get any air, so I sat up most of the night spitting into the sink. The next morning the packing was removed from my nose and I literally saw stars (gel packing, not gauze) and screamed, but that was over in less than two seconds,

Recovery was pretty easy (and I am NOT in shape) and fairly quick, although for the first three days or so I wouldn’t move without my trusty bottle of Vicodin firmly in hand.

Good luck!

7

I had my tonsils out two summers ago. Best decision I ever made regarding them. Previously, I got sick enough to miss work three or four times a year. If I had a cold or allergies for longer than a few days, it was a given that I’d get an ear infection, all because of my damn tonsils.

Yes, having them out hurts. I got wonderful pain meds and stayed with my parents while I recuperated. I was completely down for about a week, got better, then the scabs started coming off and I got worse, then I got better again. All in all, it was about four weeks before I was completely healed up, but I was up and about within two weeks.

If you’re getting sick as often as you say you are, then it’s time to talk to an ENT about getting your tonsils removed.

8

From an earlier post: [[The doctors had stopped giving me antibiotics, so I started relying on lotsa Advil and Sudafed, but it never really fixed the problem, just made the pain less intolerable.]]

Of course, antibiotics do no good against viral infections. In fact, if strep is ruled out, it’s usually a bad idea to take antibiotics. Too many doctors prescribe them, which leads to the development of drug-resistant bugs. Pain relief is about all you can do for infections caused by viruses. But if the infections are recurring, eventually they consider removing the tonsils. In my recent research, I found out that the tonsils provide no important role in the immune system after the age of three. It’s not an operation for an adult to take lightly obviously, from the one description given here.