I frequently get ‘tonsoliths’, tiny little fossilized bits of food that reside in my tonsils.
Lately, I’ve been getting them more and more. They all come from the same location- I have a hole in my tonsils, about the diameter of a pencil lead and a few milimeters deep. This cavity is large enough to get food caught in it. The Tonsoliths really make my breath smell bad, and are irritating (think of a tiny pebble/grain of sand caught in the back of your throat) but having my whole tonsils removed seems a bit severe for such a problem.
I was wondering if there was anything I could do to cut down on these from forming. Lately I’ve been rinsing my mouth with water a lot more to hopefully dislodge any food back there. Would listerine help? Its supposedly good at killing backteria though to get the stuff far enough back so its hitting my tonsils is hard (I don’t want something as nasty as listerine going down the wrong pipe!)
This pretty much jibes with my experience with the nasty stuff. I usually am able to remove most of it. I actually have one crypt that forms a little tunnel. It’s a bitch to get stuff out of.
If you come up with a non-surgical remedy (and believe me, I’ve googled my little fingers off looking for one), lemme know.
This subject is making me wretch. Just get your tonsils removed. I wouldn’t be able to function knowing a fucking science project was growing in a hole in my tonsil. It’s disgusting.
Yeah, sounds interesting, but I’m kind of squeamish about shooting jets of water in such close proximity to my airways. Its only accessible when I open my mouth wide, with my throat wide open. I worry an errant jet of water could get shot down my trachea or something. Thats why I’m squeamish about trying to dissolve it/kill it with listerine. The only way it would really be able to flow through those crypts is if I DRINK the swill, which I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to do…
And about getting my tonsils removed…I’m not too crazy about the idea right now. I wouldn’t ampuate my arm because I have ingrown hairs on it.
This has only been happening in the last year, which makes me curious if its attributed to something I’ve been doing differently (health, diet, etc).
Incubus, my quality of life improved immensely after getting my tonsils removed. It hurts for a week or so but that’s it, and I felt MUCH better afterwards. Swallowing the medicine they give to you for pain was the worst part, but it went down very easily after I diluted it in water.
Never missed the tonsils at all… The difference between tonsil amputation and arm amputation is that you actually use your arm. So if your insurance will pay for it, grit your teeth and bear it.
As someone else said, if you have a freaking science project growing in your tonsils… then just get them removed. EWWWWW.
Drinking Listerine isn’t going to harm you. You can get sloshed if you drink enough of it. As for getting sick as a result of swallowing the "tonsoliths" I doubt that would happen.
I had one of those, it freaked me out when I finally got it out. I didn’t know what it was until you posted this. I chucked it up to a fluke incident. If this happens again and more frequently I’d think about having them removed. You should too, I don’t think you really want to spend the time removing stuff from your mouth consistently do you?
Ditto. I cannot belive how much healthier, how much more cold/virus free I have been since my tonsils were removed.
As I understand it, tonsils are supposed to fight infection. But if they go wrong, they actually create and perpetuate ill health. Having permanently pussy tonsils just means that noxious stuff is drip drip dripping down your throat 24/7.
IIRC I didn’t have medicine, but pills. Your throat is very stiff for a while after the op, but it’s not agony. Also, in France (went there for Xmas right after the op) we got some throat gargle from the pharmacist that was mildly anaesthetic, and quite wonderful.
The only agony comes from anything acidic, like fruit juice. It is like the raw red rape of hell to your throat. This is because they cauterise the removed tonsil area, so you start off with a nice thick armour of dead skin. As that peels away at the edge, raw flesh is beneath. The agony of acid on that raw flesh is beyond words. So just avoid all fruit etc for a couple of weeks after the op (take vitamin pills or something). Maybe bananas are bearable, I can’t remember.
I just have to tell you this, as we’re in repulsive mode. I can’t find a cite, but I think was in Fortean Times in the early 1990s. There was allegedly a case of a woman, a suffererer from chronic tonsilitis, who excised her own tonsils, a bit at a time over a period of weeks, using analgesic gel and nail clippers. Apparently made a good tidy job of it.
So if your insurance will pay for it, grit your teeth and bear it.