From what I’ve read, tonsils are not useful to the body after about the age of 7. After that they just sit there and become recipients of infections for some of us and sleep apnea for others. My tonsils often get swollen and sore before I come down with the symptoms of a cold. It doesn’t matter whether it’s viral or bacterial. But if the tonsils are not actually doing anything active to fight infection, but just hurt, what’s the point?
My tonsils have now been consistently painful for two weeks. Other than some seasonal allergies, I have no other symptoms and don’t know what’s causing it. I just know I am very tired of living with pain. In the morning it feels like a bad strep infection - like broken glass in my throat.
My husband had his out in February at the age of 30 to cure his snoring.
He had to stay in the hospital overnight (S.O.P. apparently).
He slept a lot and was off work for about a week or so. He didn’t eat a whole lot the first few days, had melted sherbert and cooled-off soup.
I believe the hardest time he had was with the anti-reflux medicine they gave him, he didn’t have a very good reaction to it. He also took a LOT of liquid Tylenol 3 with codeine, and when that ran out, he took normal tylenol.
He says it was all totally worth it - and I am enjoying the fact that we can sleep in the same room again!
(PS There have been at least a few threads on this topic over the past year or so that I can recall, if you feel like searching them out).
Will they remove tonsils if the only thing wrong is a lot of tonsil stones? Cause I could easily fish out three or four a day from each tonsil if I tried. Of course, I usualyl try about every third day, and even then, as a result there are quite sore and prone to bleeding when I do it. But if I don’t, then I start to taste/smell them 24/7 and it is so damn disgusting.
Actually, I had tonsil stones and 3 or 4 major throat illnesses a year and the stones seemed to be getting worse. Might be worth a visit to the EN&T doc if you get throat infections.
-Tcat
I am 61 now and had my tonsils out when I was about 30. The surgery was really pretty easy and it made a huge difference in the number of colds and sore throats I had. It was WELL worth the time and expense. I wouldn’t hesitate it at all if I had the same decision to make again…
I don’t want to hijack this thread for a dumb question, but now with discussion of fishing stones out (and I only know about the stones because of TMI threads here) - where exactly are your tonsils? Can you feel them with your tongue at the back of your mouth somewhere? Where are you “fishing” out of? Am I supposed to feel them when I’m sick? Is there a way I can palpate them? How big are they? I’m looking at Wikipedia, but I’m still not sure I get exactly what we’re talking about here.
Open your mouth really wide. To each side of the uvula are your tonsils. Normal, healthy tonsils should be smooth, pinkish, and should not come too far out toward the uvula. My tonsils are scarred by multiple years of serious infection, redder than the flesh around them (worse when actively infected), and when I open my mouth they touch each side of my uvula. When I’m sick, there’s barely an opening in the back of my throat to breathe through.
The pits in scarred tonsils catch food and bacteria, which result in tonsil stones. By pushing (I use a q-tip soaked in Listerine) to the side of the stone, one can “pop” it out, not unlike a pimple. By the time you can see the “head” they’re actually quite large… I’ve had some scary-big ones.
I’ve wondered the same thing. I get sore throats and cold, but don’t bother going to the doctor with it. I always have those disgusting pus pockets, but don’t know if a doctor will feel like I have enough documented problems to warrant taking my tonsils out.
Had mine out when I was 34-35 for:
-apnea
-nasty stones
-so Mrs Labtrash could sleep without wanting to kill me due to my snoring.
Afterward it felt as if someone was kicking me in the throat every 5 minutes for the next 3 weeks.
Stock up on Freezer Pops (those thin plastic tubes full of sugar water)- they really helped with the pain (as did the liquid Codene(sp?)/Tylenol I consumed in mass quantities).
My goodness, that’s disgusting! (Everybody in the workroom just stared at me, as I evidently looked like I was trying to eat the whole mirror at the sink in one bite. At least now I think I know where my tonsils are!)
I had mine out in February (I was 30 at the time). I had it done because of my snoring.
The operation was okay, the night in the hospital was a nightmare. (I was supposed to be in a “step-down” unit for minor surgery, but they had run out of room in the ICU, so I was surrounded by ICU patients. Oh yeah, one coded beside me. Real freaking relaxing).
The pain was bearable, I had the surgery on a Wednesday and went to work 2 Mondays later.
After about 3 days it hurt about a 5 on a scale of 1 to 10. However I was completely exhausted all the time. I’d feel not too bad, then I would go to the grocery store to get some milk and I’d have to come home and have a 2 hour nap!
I was on liquid Tylenol with codine for the first 5 days then Tylenol after that. I also took these little pills that were in the shape of a pentagon for swelling (those little bastards hurt). And a 3rd pill to prevent acid reflux (I guess so I wouldn’t send stomach acid against where my tonsils were?). These 3rd pills gave me some weird freaking dreams and a bad tummy.
In the end, it was well worth it, I no longer snore!! I might talk my wife into getting one!
MtM
Are most ENTs willing to do this surgery? I have tonsilitis often, but thought doctors had pretty much decided that it was usually not a necessary operation.
It really depends on the doc. My GP, when I first brought it up, was all “Oh, they hate doing that sort of thing on adults, it’s very rare and there are lots of complications.” Then he looked at my tonsils and immediately set me up for an appointment with an ENT. I was with the ENT for literally five minutes; she asked why I was there, I told her, she asked to see my throat, I opened my mouth, she FLINCHED and asked when I would like to schedule the surgery. 
Everything I’d read in preparation for asking the doc about it said it was a fairly rare and complicated operation in adults, but as I mentioned upthread one of my coworkers is out right now having it done, and another had it done a few months ago; both are at least a decade and a half older than I. So I wonder just how rare it really is.
And no, it’s not a “necessary” operation, which is why it’s not done routinely on kids the way it used to be. I had my adnoids out when I was around 5, but because I got caught in the beginning of the “you don’t have to take the tonsils out!” years they left them in. Jerks. But my ENT appears to have a good sense for when it needs to be done, and no problem doing it- when she asked what my schedule looked like, she told me she was very glad I wasn’t one of those “spring break people” as she had operations scheduled back-to-back during spring break and there was no way she’d be able to fit me in.
Da spouse had his tonsils out last year to cure sleep apnea/snoring, at 39. We were both worried about it, since we’d read horror stories about how awful it was as an adult, but he wanted to do it because he was tired of the apnea (and his snoring was getting pretty bad).
He must be a particularly special or lucky case, or else he had a really good doctor (which he did–his doctor was the one at Stanford Med Center who teaches the other doctors how to do the procedure). At any rate, I kid you not, he had the surgery on a Tuesday, and by Thursday night he was joining me for our weekly pizza. Granted, he didn’t each much of it, but he did manage an entire slice. And he didn’t feel too bad afterward. On Friday, he was eating chips and salsa. (The doctor had told him that it was okay for him to eat anything he wanted whenever he wanted–the operative word here being wanted.)
His recovery was textbook. When he went back for his post-op checkup a week later, the doctor told him not to mention it to any other patients he might encounter, since he didn’t want them expecting it would go that smoothly for them too.
Small update regarding my coworker…
Apparently it’s not a good thing to be a smoker and have your tonsils out. There were complications associated with the smoking (which, as we all know, increases risk of bleeding) and he’ll not be in for at least another two weeks, so if you’re a smoker I would recommend quitting well before having the surgery done.
I had mine out when I was 19 and never suffered a bout of strep throat again.
I don’t miss them one bit.
I hate to resurrect this thread after it’s been dormant for a couple of weeks, but I’ve just had my tonsils taken out two days ago. I’m 41 years old and a non-smoker. So far I think I’m doing okay. I’m eating soft foods and drinking a lot of liquids to stave off dehydration. The Tylenol 3 has been a lifesaver for me so far, but the pain isn’t really all that bad.
Unfortunately for me, they didn’t use a laser to remove my tonsils. I assume they just did the standard scalpel and cauterize routine for me. The procedure was done on an outpatient basis. My wife drove me to the surgical center at 10:00 AM and I was back home before 4:00 PM that afternoon.
Anyhoo, I looked into my throat when I first got home and was shocked at all of the redness and blackened tissue in my throat. I knew it would look bad, but not quite that bad. Two days later when I checked again, the tissue in my throat had turned white colored with a few black spots where they cauterized some bleeders. Is this normal? I’m not feeling any unusual amounts of pain and I don’t have a fever at all. I’m thinking that I might have lucked out and that I’m having a textbook recovery. Did any of you guys check the progress of your post-tonsillectomy healing? If so, what do you remember?
Thanks!
I had mine out at 19 after getting tonsilitis just about monthly during the winter for years. I believe I was in the hospital for two days (surgery day and the following day, discharged the next day). I had one hell of a sore throat for a few days, but was given Tylenol w/Codeine for the pain. I ate a lot of popsicles that week.
I had mine out at 17. As you’ve heard, the older you are the more uncomfortable it is. *True story *. It hurts like hell, but it only lasts about a week.
The horrifying thing about mine (and it was only horrifying when I thought about it years later) is that my doctor, good Dr. Owen, good 75 year old Dr. Owen, did a full breast exam on me as part of my pre-op checkout. I thought it was kind of strange, but hey, he was a doctor, who was I to say. Kinda oogie, but I quickly forgot about it. Fast forward five years or so and I somehow mentioned it to my mom. I thought she was gonna give him a colonoscopy with our lawn flamingo :eek: We laughed (well, I laughed, she remained disgusted and outraged) about that for the rest of her days.
Followup from me- surgery was on the 11th, and I’m back at work for the first time today. I became verbal this past Sunday (most of that was a conscious choice- it was darned uncomfy to talk, so I just avoided it). I’m still taking it easy- I get tired quickly, and my throat is still sore (probably a 1 or 2 on the pain scale, but nothing compared to a full-blown bout of tonsillitis).
Surgery took less than half an hour- they took me back a little after 11, and I was wheeled to the car before 1. There were only 2, maybe 3 days where I wanted to smack myself and say “What the HELL were you thinking?!?” Other than that, the Lortab elixer every 3.5 hours took care of the problem. I got tired of applesauce pretty quickly.
A few TMI things that I hadn’t been prepared for:
[spoiler] * Salivating. Horrible, horrible, horrible salivating. Started about 4 days in, and lasted over a week. I have a significant aversion to spitting, and it hurt to swallow, so this set up quite the dilemma. Plus it made it hard to sleep at night.
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The top layer of my tongue sloughing off. It turned white a day after surgery, then just came off. Made drinking anything that had ever even thought of being carbonated impossible.
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Swollen uvula. You know how when you get really, really, really sick, and your uvula swells? Like that, only worse- it was all floopy and gross and kept getting in the way. Another thing to make sleeping tough.
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Sneezing/blowing of the nose is very painful. I was surprised at how much it vibrates the upper palate- these are things you just don’t think about.
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Post-surgery vomit comes out partially through the nose. Thankfully I didn’t have much of a problem with that.[/spoiler]
Overall my recovery wasn’t nearly as horrid as I’d been preparing myself for. I just sacked out on the couch with the remote in one hand and a book in the other, and made sure the drugs were close by. I never noticed the scabs coming off, which surprised my doc- because I’m a redhead, she had been concerned about bleeding, but what I saw was minimal. There’s already been a significant improvement in my snoring, so that alone makes it worth it.
This is normal, as you’ve probably found out by now. It was one of the questions I had for my doc about a week and a half after surgery; she said it was absolutely normal, and gave me the best analogy: know how when you skin your knee, and you get in the shower, and the scab turns white? Same thing. Because there’s so much moisture, the scabs stay white.