Tonsilloliths, My Experience

Written in Chinese by Tony

Translated by Joe Hing Kwok Chu

I remember one day during November, 2006, that suddenly I felt weak and dizzy, had a headache, and gradually my throat became painfully swollen. I went to a large hospital to see an ENT doctor. Upon examination, the white blood cell index was high. I thought I had caught a flu. I went home immediately and took the prescribed antibiotic. I rested for approximately a week. The other symptoms gradually lessened, but the sore throat had not improved.

Taking antihistamines made my throat  drier and very uncomfortable. For
more than half a month, I still thought the cold had not been healed. So I went to see the ENT again.  After careful inspection,  he doctor simply said: "Your throat is inflamed. Drinks water, and do not eat spicy food.” Then he prescribed an anti-inflammatory drug.  It did not work.

Then I went to a famous ENT hospital in Taipei. There were more than 300 patients registered ahead of me. It must be a very famous hospital. After having nose endoscopy, X-ray, this examination, that examination, all the needed exams were performed. The doctor said: "Chronic pharyngolaryngitis."  He prescribed an anti-inflammatory drug.

I went to many other large hospitals. All prescribed anti-inflammatory medicine. After taking them my throat became more uncomfortable and drier.  Now I have enough of them to open a wholesale drug store.
 

Western medicine failed me, so I then looked for traditional Chinese medicine.

Sometimes I asked some ENT doctors, they all said I was thinking too much. It was obvious that it was pharynx and larynx inflammation.  They said that I obviously had  a mood problem. They wanted to prescribe mood medication.

Finally my father introduced me to a traditional Chinese doctor in Taipei for an examination. He had many patients every day. He is quite careful and kind. After the examination he gave me a traditional Chinese medicine diagnostic result, like lacking in vital energy, blood stasis and so on. Every week besides taking the traditional Chinese medicine on time, I also had acupuncture, moxibustion and infrared and electrical treatments.

Months passed by, and although the throat dryness and pain was still not eliminated,  my body became healthier, and had more energy.

My family members also wanted me to go outside to do some outdoor work and to relax. I even started to change my attitude on life, to read many books on Buddhist studies, but that feeling of pain still was waiting for the opportunity to act up. Regardless of paying no attention to it, of forgetting it, I had that kind of feeling of a ghost spirit that I could not see but was in hiding, and I knew it also existed.

More than seven months had passed by, treatment or tonsillectomy?

I was thinking that this is just life.  After all, all the answers from the ENTs were chronic pharyngolaryngitis.  Some people told me simply just remove the tonsils and it would solve it all. I actually considered that.

After having this tonsillectomy idea, again through a relative's introduction, I went to the city of Gaoxiong and went to the Righteousness Big Hospital to have a complete physical examination. This relative's family member was also a doctor and his colleague is a Great Righteousness Hospital ENT doctor. He is very famous in that hospital.  At first he did a lot of examination, especially doing a CT scan above the neck. While inspecting, he expressed his opinion that there was no abnormal condition. Other inspections were normal. All lab data were normal.

I also told him that I had visited almost all the large hospitals in Taipei and all the famous ENT clinics, and all of them had said the same thing: chronic tonsillitis. I also emphasized that I did not have a mood problem. This doctor pondered a little and used a mirror to check once more, then he suddenly used a tissue paper pressed down on my tongue and asked me to open my mouth further. Then he used his other hand to reach inside and squeeze on my tonsil. That kind of feeling was very uncomfortable.  It caused all my tears to gush out.

 A foreign thing with strange foul smell was squeezed out. Tonsil stone?

Suddenly my mouth filled with a strange, foul taste and then I felt that an object fell on my tongue. As the doctor took it out with the clip and looked at it, I saw a creamy white object the size of a shelled peanut.

I was in shock and asked: "What is that?"

"That is a tonsil stone,"  the doctor said.

Then he squeezed on the other side and out came another piece of stone. It was the same size as the first one, but it was soft and very stinky; when I rubbed it between my fingers, it smelled almost like the scraping of the coating of the dirty tongue. Suddenly my throat became relaxed as if a rotten tooth had been extracted. The doctor applied some iodine tincture on the tonsils. He did not prescribe any anti-inflammatory drug.

"Rinse your mouth and pay attention to oral cleanliness." He said.

He said many people have tonsil stones which fall out by themselves. Large ones like these have to be extracted. Large ones that are stuck in the crevices can contribute to the continuous inflammation.

Most doctors have seen so many simple throat inflammations that they forget to inspect the tonsils, especially the hidden recess areas.   No wonder that all that anti-inflammatory medicine prescribed did not help.

At first, I thought after removing the stones, every thing would be fine. After half a month, my throat started to feel weird. The familiar odor started to come out again. I used a small flash light to look at my tonsils and used another hand to open the hidden crevice, and I saw there a small piece of milky white thing hidden inside the crevice.
I used a long cotton swab to pry at it gently.  Instead of coming it out, it went deeper. A small piece broke off accidentally and the familiar foul smell of the tonsil stone appeared.

Early the next morning, my father recommended to me a well-known otolaryngologist (ENT) in Da'an area.  I explained to this Doctor Liao that I had tonsil stones and wanted them to be removed.

I used my hand to spread open the cover of the tonsil recess. The cover of the crypt area was like a web.  The doctor used vacuum suction equipment and sucked it out. The size of the stone was like the previous ones but not as brown.

Dr. Liao told me that people who usually get tonsil stones generally have the following characteristics:

1.  chronic inflammation of the tonsils or repeated influenza and sore throat

2.  unclean oral cavities, especially because of not rinsing the mouth after meals

3.  eating stimulating, deep fat fried food

4.  irregular working schedule and always work deep into the night

 The first item is of special importance: because of chronic inflammation, the hidden crevices become deeper and increase the chances of building up stones. Many people think it is the food residues that cause the stones. Not really true. It is the metabolites of the inflammation of the tonsils that form the stones. Because the crevices are too deep, normal rinsing cannot get rid of them.

Can tonsilloliths be cured?

A few months after that, stones kept forming continually. On average,  I had to go to see Doctor Liao to remove the stones every one or two weeks.. Sometimes he extracted 2 or 3 stones of different sizes and they all had the same foul smell.

I gradually became accustomed to self examination of the tonsils to see if there were any stones. I was tired of going to the clinic. I wanted to have vacuum suction equipment at home. I surfed the internet to investigate  vacuum equipment. To my dismay, almost 90% them are sexual equipment. I gave up.

Doctor Liao also told me that there are many indentations in the tonsils. Inflammations can cause them to become deeper.  Only by maintaining the health can they gradually become normal and less likely to form stones, and it would take time.

I did some research and investigated a large amount of information. I discovered that most people with tonsil stones ended up with removal of the tonsils. In fact many physicians suggest that removal of the tonsil glands will be the best method, especially for those with chronic inflammation of the tonsils and with tonsilloliths. But, I believe that human bodies have the ability to repair themselves. There must be methods to solve the tonsil stones problem.

I think beside the four factors mentioned by Dr. Liao, there must be other causes. It is because my stones can form once every 2 weeks or twice every week. The rate of stone forming is not stable.  I suddenly thought that chronic inflammation could be related to food allergy.

Finds out about food anaphylactogen!

I thought of the fact that when I was studying in U.S. I had sinus inflammation. I did not know at that time that milk is my anaphylactogen and I used to drink milk like drinking water. This resulted in continuous inflammation of my nasal sinus, and it could not be cured. It lingered for about a year, then I discovered that I should not drink milk.

Now, I thought that my tonsil stones can be related to anaphylactogens. I went to Taipei  to the Harvard Health Examination Center to check what my food anaphylactogens were, to see what else am I allergic to beside cow's milk.

When I saw the report, I was a little nervous. I hoped that my anaphylactogens were not the foods that I usually like to eat (usually they are). The result was that the first anapylactogens were milk products and egg products. The index of these is maxed out, meaning it could not be underestimated how serious they are. The rest of the foods listed were OK.  Only the milk and egg products were extra serious. Actually I do not drink milk, but I usually used milk products and eggs. I usually ate cheese with eggs.

I started to try not to touch milk and egg type of food. Strangely, my tonsils used to have stones every one or two weeks but now only once in more than one month. I jokingly said to Dr. Liao that eating fewer milk products would lessen the chance of stone forming. (at that time in mainland China there were toxic milk incidences).

At present, the previous stone formation was more than 2 months ago. As of this writing I have not found any new tonsil stones, so the body is gradually repairing itself if I do not eat foods that can promote inflammation. Tonsils are organs that contain many lymph nodes. Besides having antibiotic and antiviral effect, they are the first to react to substances that are harmful to the body. It looks like forming stones is the warning of the tonsils. If without finding the causes, I had just directly removed the tonsils, maybe I would have continued to eat food that promotes inflammation for the body and it may have induced other strange sicknesses.

Thank the old grand dad of heaven^[1] that I had the opportunity to find the source of my problem.

Epilogue; days to avoid tonsil stones

Every body, because of different body types, can have different anaphylactogens. Actually I asked the physicians in the Health Examination Center about this. They found in many cases, the anaphylactogens are the food that the patients like most. But in the list of foods, the most often cited are milk products and eggs.

If we eat less of the food that may cause allergy and inflammation, we can have more energy and life force and will not have any strange illnesses. When our bodies put out warning signals, we must find out the causes. Just treating the symptoms will not solve the problems. To speak the truth, the patients should not put all their expectations on the physicians. They must understand and investigate about their own bodies. Then we can  live healthy lives and also can help the people around us to avoid miseries.

It is right if we have a cold or influenza  to see our physicians to treat us and to rest properly. Do not let the sicknesses linger too long and allow the tonsil crevices get deeper and cause stones to form. The above is my real life stone-forming experiences. I am sharing with everybody.

Translator's Notes:

Otolaryngologist: an ear, nose, throat specialist (ENT).

Pharyngolaryngitis: inflammation of the pharynx and the larynx.

Pharynx:   the section of the alimentary canal that extends from the mouth and nasal cavities to the larynx, where it becomes continuous with the esophagus. (American Heritage Dictionary)

Larynx:  the part of the respiratory tract between the pharynx and the trachea, having walls of cartilage and muscle and containing the vocal cords enveloped in folds of mucous membrane. (American Heritage Dictionary)

Removing tonsils from adults can be complicated and the risk is much higher than for children.

[1] Thank Old grand dad of heaven is like western expression of "Thank God". Old used in addressing some one means "honorable".