
Long-term health risks after having adenoids or tonsils removed in childhood - tankerslay
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamaotolaryngology/fullarticle/2683621
======
blackhaz
Thank you so much for posting this. Really, THANK YOU, kind stranger. Here in
the Czech Republic we're always forced by doctors to do AE/TE to our son
despite being mildly affected by strep as we are fighting PANDAS. The latest
research converges on that AE/TE is not effective, and that we're doing the
right thing by not doing the operation. It looks like doctors even in the most
advanced medical institutions are blindly following old books here and still
recommend to take the tonsils out at every occasion and eat bags of
antibiotics "just for any case." The level of medicine here is so abysmal
(except, probably, surgery) that we now have to rely mostly on our own heads
and collect the latest research. Thank you.

~~~
usaphp
We went to a really good Ear nose throat doctor in San Diego hospital because
our son had a long lasting runny nose, and they also told us to remove his
tonsils and adenoids. I did not want to have them removed because of the
involvement of sleep drugs necessary for operation, so we tried multiple ways
to find the issue of the running nose, turned out it was something to do with
the oil vaporizer they used in his preschool class, as soon as they removed it
- his runny nose poeblem went away.

~~~
what-the-grump
Heh, you can do it the Russian way and yank them out while you are awake with
just a topical, until your kid passes out from the pain :). That’s how my
adenoids came out. Do not recommend.

~~~
usaphp
Hmm, my wife had them removed when she was a kid in Russia and says it was not
that bad.

~~~
cm2012
People have wildly varying sensitivity to pain.

------
manmal
My son had adenoids removed last year because his hearing was VERY bad because
of some kind of mucus blockage. Doctors explained to us that he would hear
perfectly without the adenoids, because inner ear measurements were very good.

So during the OP they cut away the adenoids, and made a hole into each
eardrum, so fluids could exit. After the OP his hearing was so good that he
told us not to scream at him when we barely whispered - for 2 weeks. As soon
as the holes in the eardrums healed up, the blockage developed again and his
hearing was exactly the same as before the OP.

We tried alternative treatments for a year, strange juices with
corticosteroids and stuff (which worked well for his hearing, but he couldn't
really sleep while on them), near-infrared radiation through the nose (our
favorite so far, but does not work that well because adenoids are too far
in)... so he's soon have his second OP where they will likely remove adenoids
again (they regrow sometimes) and insert little tubes into his eardrums such
that fluids can regularly exit the ears.

Distant relatives of mine have the same issue, but worse (delayed speech
development due to near-deafness), and for them the OP worked for 1,5 years
and now its positive effects are going away; perhaps requiring another OP.

I'm not thrilled about all this.

BTW here is advice a very expensive doc gave me regarding hearing and speech
development: If your kid understands what you are saying while you whisper
from a distance of ~1 meter, then her speech development should not be
negatively affected, or not that much.

~~~
darkerside
Sorry to hear you're going through this. I can't imagine how frustrating it
must be. Are you concerned about side effects from all these interventions? Do
you have a hypothetical point at which you would simply choose to accept your
child's hearing impairment?

~~~
manmal
I'm trying to be a stoic, and I will deliberately try to accept anything that
I cannot influence in this very moment. Approaching medial issues, I think
that the only thing you have to accept (until your death) is that your
previous attempts at improving have failed; so as long my son's hearing is not
good, I'll keep on looking for things to try out. There are time and cost
constraints of course; sometimes I go for weeks without researching anything
to improve the situation. But the motivation to do something returns naturally
when he's in pain again, or is misbehaving very badly because of this.

~~~
darkerside
My heart breaks for you. Wishing you the best.

------
headmelted
Only barely related but I have a personal story about this!

I had my tonsils removed at eleven years old. I didn't know why then, and I
still don't now.

I suffer quite a bit now from allergies (I'm not sure how related to this it
is, and I guess I've no way of knowing really).

I remember being really scared, and the surgeon playfully telling me that I'd
be fine, I'd be asleep through the whole thing and would wake up back on the
ward (with ice cream!) and barely even know it was over. I was told that I
should count to ten while they issue the anaesthetic. I was unconcious by
seven.

The next thing I remember is waking up _really_ disorientated, in a different
room, and could only see blurred grey shapes. I've never been in such pain
before or since. I shut my eyes and bit down hard into the white hospital
pillow while screaming.

An unfamiliar voice shouted angrily at me that I wasn't supposed to be awake
yet. I opened my eyes as the pillow felt wet only to realise that it had
turned completely red. It felt like someone had cut my throat out.

My mother (having been advised that I'd be asleep for hours) had gone to get a
coffee and was completely unaware that any of this had happened. For reasons
that were never explained, the nurse wouldn't take me out of the room and my
mum wasn't informed until a couple of hours later when I was wheeled back out
onto the ward.

I had to stay in hospital for another two days as a result of what went wrong
(haven't a clue to this day what that was exactly), and was bloody terrified.

Anyway, long story short is that when the bleeding eventually stopped I
finally got some ice cream. It was warm, it tasted bad, and it was entirely
not worth it.

In summary, surgery could well be correct for you and/or your child if a
competent professional has analysed and considered your case and health
outcomes, but I don't recommend that anyone allow themselves or their children
to be mutilated without any explanation at all in exchange for sweet treats.

~~~
gvurrdon
Very unpleasant! I recall spitting up blood afterwards, but it wasn't that bad
at all. Although, I was never supposed to have my tonsils removed. I was in
hospital for another reason but got mixed up with someone else and the wrong
operation was performed.

~~~
headmelted
Yikes! How on earth does this even happen?

I'd _at least_ expect some Cherry Garcia or Chunky Monkey after a quagmire of
this magnitude.

~~~
gvurrdon
I'm not exactly sure (it was rather a long time ago), but IIRC everyone else
in the ward was there for tonsillectomy and someone must have got it wrong
when the surgeon called for "next, please".

No Ben & Jerry's back in those days!

~~~
headmelted
"No Ben & Jerry's back in those days!"

That's the real scandal in all of this! :-)

In seriousness, I'm sorry for your experience.

~~~
gvurrdon
Thanks. I think that your experience sounds worse; I hope it hasn't left any
lasting impression.

------
ponderatul
Let me provide you an alternative perspective worth considering. Depending on
the seriousness of your condition, having adenoids can result in having
problems breathing normally( aka through the nose). Now obviously breathing is
very important for your organism, and it will find ways to adapt, and you will
find yourself breathing through your mouth.

Breathing through the mouth will encourage the development of a long face, cus
tongue is not in its natural position, at the top of the palate. Your posture
will change since having the mouth open is not the default position of the
body for long periods of time. You might find your neck lunging forward. And
these are just second and third order effects for not being to breathe
properly during early childhood.

Jaws might not develop properly, teeth as well. And that is all the effects I
know about.

Yes, I've had both my adenoids and tonsils removed, in the end. Not early
enough though.

~~~
jdcarter
My daughter couldn't breathe easily when she was young--when sleeping you
could literally hear her breathing from a room or two away. Like having Darth
Vader sleeping in the next room. After tonsil/adenoidectomy at about 3 years
old she could finally breathe properly and her sleep become much better. It
made a HUGE difference to her quality of life.

------
gravelc
Is there a causal link between the surgery and the increase in long-term
disease risk, or were patients who were more likely to get the surgery
(because of more severe symptoms or more frequent occurrence of infections) at
greater long-term disease risk (whether they had surgery or not)? Without some
functional mechanism, I'd be very wary of these kinds of data analyses.

~~~
mehrdadn
> Without some functional mechanism, I'd be very wary of these kinds of data
> analyses.

Kind of a tangent, but dumb question: wouldn't the sensible default assumption
be that messing with your body is likely to be harmful unless proven harmless?
Rather than the other way around? So if you're skeptical, shouldn't you be
skeptical that it's _harmless_?

~~~
robbiep
It has not been until recent times that any form of messing around the body
was for any reason other than self preservation or the improvement of quality
of life. I am talking post-enlightenment/age of reason medicine here, not dark
ages blood letting. And we still get it wrong, and still do things without
enough of an evidence base, but when it comes to removal of adenoids, the
reason it is done is because in those it is affecting it is having a harmful
effect on.

Whether that be the formation of peritonsilar abscesses (potentially fatal),
difficulty breathing (watching a 6 yo struggle to get air into their lungs due
to enormous tonsils is not a sight I enjoy seeing) or just missing large
numbers of days of school due to repeated illness, with knock on effects to
child wellbeing and performance, there is a firm reason why we do this
procedure

~~~
nailer
Weird to hear tonsilectomies being spoken of in thw present tense. It stopped
being routine in Australia in the 80s.

~~~
robbiep
There are more than 35,000 tonsillectomies done in Australia every year (and
more than half a million in the US). This is a highly routine procedure. In
fact there is very clear guidelines on when GPS should refer for
tonsillectomy:

Tonsillectomy is indicated When young children have had >7 episodes in one
year or >5 episodes in either of the last 2 years, or quinsys, or obstructive
sleep apnoea.

Tcj_pcx for some reason I can’t reply to your comment, but there’s almost
nothing in it that actually makes sense:

I'll just pass straight over the emotional comments.

Massage doesn’t cure tonsillectomy; and frankly this thing that people say,
that ‘doctors treat the symptoms not the cause’ is actually a vein of deep
ignorance in the general populace.

The treatment cures (in around 97% of cases) tonsilitis. Which may have lead
to (in the above scenarios) a 6-10 year old child missing up to 30-40 days of
school a year. And therefore having a severe impact on that child’s learning
and progression. It is not treating a symptom: giving analgesia or an ice
cream would be an example of that. Is modifying the mechanism by which the
condition unfolds and therefore preventing the condition from occurring again.

[0] [https://www.safetyandquality.gov.au/wp-
content/uploads/2015/...](https://www.safetyandquality.gov.au/wp-
content/uploads/2015/11/SAQ201_04_Chapter3_v6_FILM_tagged_merged_3-6.pdf)

~~~
tcj_phx
> Massage doesn’t cure tonsillectomy

Tonsillectomy is prevented by figuring out why the tonsils are becoming
inflamed in the first place.

I said "bodywork (massage/etc)" because most people aren't familiar with the
different kinds of bodywork that were developed over the course of the 20th
century. I would place the emphasis on "etc". Massage is a general treatment,
while other forms of manual therapy are more specific in their beneficial
effects. You might know some "physical therapists" who can work magic with
their techniques.

> The treatment cures (in around 97% of cases) tonsilitis.

Removing the tonsils will prevent the tonsils from becoming inflamed, on
account of their removal. But certainly you would agree that if the cause of
the inflammation could be determined, it would be better to address that
factor than to just remove the part?

The girlfriend I mentioned in the post was born with her umbilical cord around
her neck, which is how I knew that she'd probably benefit from "bodywork".
When she came back from a class trip to Mexico, a few weeks after we'd met,
the lymph glands on her neck were rather puffed out. I'd already made her an
appointment with the good "physical therapist" (to hopefully deal with the
unresolved somatic problems associated with her tonsil extraction ~15 years
before). The "physical therapist" found that one of her ribs was out of place
(certainly due to carrying a heavy bag over her shoulder while stomping around
the border cities). This displaced rib was pinching on the lymphatic channel
(maybe not the correct terminology). After releasing the rib to its proper
location, the therapist said the lymph glands would probably go down over the
next 1-3 days, and that if they didn't normalize she should seek further
medical care (x-ray/etc, to rule out conditions she could have caught in
Mexico). The swollen lymph glands entirely went away over the following week.

I recently took a new friend to an actual physical therapist with similar
training. This woman sprained her ankle ~6 to 10 years ago. The post-injury
surgery made her ankle problem worse (I understand the surgeon accidentally
cut a nerve that shouldn't have been cut)... This woman was just trying to
hold herself together, but was collapsing. The physical therapist helped this
woman out quite a bit, and she was surprised at being able to make several
trips to unload her car a few days after the appointment.

My point is simply that people's conditions usually have a broader context
than their presenting symptom.

~~~
robbiep
that would not be an obvious bow to draw from your comments, and frankly, and
medical practitioners who are not looking at holistic health when presented
with a patient are missing the point.

However, you are so far off point on the tonsillectomy.

Let's take a slightly different condition. A patient has gallstones, causing
ascending colangitis. The treatment (which you would describe as treating only
the symptoms) is to remove the gallbladder, a cholecystectomy.

The cause in this instance is being a mid 50's woman, slightly overweight,
genetic predisposition, high fat diet.

Your implication is that because the Doctor is treating the symptom, they are
doing a disservice to the patient?

The reason I am defending this so strongly, is because it is only a stone's
throw from the implication you initially started with - _' that doctors treat
symptoms, not causes'_, to 'Doctors/The medical-industrial complex is with-
holding the cure for cancer, because if they fix it they don't make any
money'.

As though no doctor, or scientist in the field, has ever died or watched a
family member suffer through that or some other insidious disease.

Doctors are human, they make mistakes, they act on evidence that is only
partially formed (and have to in order to act in a timely manner), and their
actions are often not fully explained to those who they are treating.

We can and should do better. But slinging mud on my profession I can not sit
idly by and abide.

~~~
tcj_phx
My mother had to have her gallbladder taken out ... maybe 6 months ago. IIRC
she was diagnosed with acute pancreatitis at that time too. If she'd been
taking better care of herself, she might not have deteriorated to the point
that gallbladder removal was necessary. Hindsight being 20/20, the signs of a
developing gallbladder condition were all there... (Adult children generally
have very little ability to influence their parents' habits.)

> 'Doctors/The medical-industrial complex is with-holding the cure for cancer,
> because if they fix it they don't make any money'.

Progressive cancer doctors are coming around to the idea that Otto Warburg
(who theorized that cancer is a metabolic condition, rather than genetic in
origin) might've been on the right track:
[https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/15/magazine/warburg-
effect-a...](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/15/magazine/warburg-effect-an-
old-idea-revived-starve-cancer-to-death.html)

> But slinging mud on my profession I can not sit idly by and abide.

My goal is to help the profession clean up. Sometimes doctors do good work,
but frequently the evidence to support an intervention never actually existed:
[https://www.propublica.org/article/when-evidence-says-no-
but...](https://www.propublica.org/article/when-evidence-says-no-but-doctors-
say-yes)

------
mhandley
I had my adenoids and tonsils removed as a kid in the early 1970s. Had bad
allergies all the way into my thirties, but I have no way of telling if they
were the reason I needed to have my adenoids removed in the first place.
However, I simply grew out of my allergies in my late 30s.

These days I rarely get sick, despite living in London and travelling on
public transport all the time. And when everyone else in my family has a
terrible sore throat, I never have a problem, so that's definitely a plus side
for me right now.

I'd be really interested in whether there's a downside heading into old age,
but I've not seen any data on that.

------
joshgel
Like everything in life and medicine, it is all risk-benefit analysis. I'm
underwhelmed by the absolute risk reduction for most of these findings. Most
people get some sort of upper respiratory infection, is increasing URIs rate
from say 65% to 70% clinically meaningful? Sure its statistically significant
here given the large sample size, but I'm not sure it helps us know what
_will_ happen.

But if a child is suffering now, and we have the chance to help, what should
we do with this data? I'm definitely against unnecessary surgery, especially
in children. I just don't think this pushes my definition of necessary very
much.

------
cheschire
My daughter's adenoids were removed after their size caused her ear canals to
remain closed, which was causing fluid buildup behind her ear and affecting
her ability to hear clearly.

When a child cannot hear, they cannot learn important nuances to speech.
Additionally, prolonged exposure to those fluids, if I understood the ENT
doctor correctly, her hearing could have been permanently damaged had we left
it. We were also taking intercontinental flights at the time and the closed
canal could have caused a rupture, further limiting her hearing.

None of these things were associated with an ear infection. We only identified
the adenoid issue because she was having trouble hearing and the ENT
identified the large adenoids at that point. There was no pain associated with
it, and I suspect many parents may not even realize that their kids have this
issue.

What are the long term speech and hearing risks compared to the long term
health risks?

I strongly caution anyone against a knee-jerk response to a study like this.
It could be another anti-vaccination study all over again.

~~~
headmelted
Reading stories like yours does make me wonder if the bigger issue here is
variance in standards of care.

Clearly you've been advised, based on your specific circumstances, of why it
would be in your daughter's best interests to have this surgery done (there's
no sarcasm here - it's great that so much consideration has gone into it and
clearly it's been the right thing to do in your case).

It does seem like based on my own anecdotal experience, and from other
comments in the thread, as if "tonsils out" is an automatically triggered
decision in much of the world for certain ailments in cases where it may or
may not be appropriate or warranted.

For the record, I hate even being anywhere near the fence on an issue like
this, as I'm very much pro-vaccination (for example) and my position on this
comes across as anti-science which I'm anything but.

------
calewis
You have to pay to have them removed in the UK now, it's no longer free on the
NHS, unless you suffer from 3x serious infections in a one year period.

I suffer from frequent sore throughs, infections and even tonsillitis. My
Auntie, who is a doctor, strongly advised me not having them removed. Which at
the time is not what I wanted to hear but it seems, unsurprisingly, was great
advice.

------
nsxwolf
I seem to recall that a "tonsils out" subplot was commonplace in the American
sitcoms of the 60s and 70s, but completely disappeared soon after that. I was
born in the late 70s and I don't think I know a single peer who had tonsils or
adenoids removed.

~~~
tssva
Having your tonsils out in the 60s and 70s was a much more painful procedure
with a longer recovery time so people were more aware when someone had them
removed.

My daughter had her tonsils and adenoids removed 6 years ago. She had it done
on Friday morning and was running around feeling fine on Saturday. No
significant pain and she was back to school on Monday. Unless she mentioned it
none of her friends knew.

------
jbronn
Since everyone is joining in with anecdotes, I’ll share mine. During second
grade I had strep at least four consecutive times. One of those times I
developed an ear infection with pain so intense my parents took me to the
emergency room. On doctor’s orders, I had my tonsils removed. While the
procedure was not pleasant (I had severe nausea from the anesthesia), the
effects were immediate and permanent. In nearly three decades since I’ve yet
to develop strep again.

------
zbowling
Could there be a correlation between people needing to get their tonsils out
and their higher rate of infection from some other factor and not necessarily
as a result of the tonsils getting removed?

~~~
stareatgoats
> "cases were no less healthy than controls presurgery in the first 9 years of
> life"

Looks like they addressed that (heading: Testing for Biases in General Health
Before Surgery)

------
Angostura
Just to add to the anecdotes in here. I had my tonsils removed at about the
age of three and never suffered any particular consequences.

~~~
keypress
For perspective. I had horrible health that plagued me until I was about 20.
Whether that's got anything to do with the butchering, I have no idea.

------
verulito
Mine were removed when I was 2 because they were huge! Like all surgery, it
comes with risks and tradeoffs. It's great that we have a better idea of what
the risks are now but that's not a reason not to do the surgery. Let's not
forget that it's still a well tolerated procedure that confers some benefit to
the right patients. We're not removing them for fun.

What benefit is that? Large tonsils occlude the airway, causing sleep
breathing disruptions. The impact of those disruptions isn't visible but we
know it is very harmful, particularly to children since they're still
developing. We can avoid those developmental problems by removing the tonsils.
I don't want to go into it here in too much detail but "developmental
problems" is not a small thing, we're talking about structural changes to the
skull, learning difficulties, behavior problems, etc.

An open question is how bad does the occlusion need to be before it justifies
removing the tonsils. I don't know the answer to that question. I'd say bad.
And that happens increasingly often because large tonsils have a strong
correlation with allergies to begin with. Chronic infections are more a
complication of the original problem, not the cause of it. And that's not even
touching the damage these infections can do to the sinus cavities.

------
aladoc99
I have to point out the obvious confounder here. The kids who get their
tonsils and adenoids out are the ones with recurrent respiratory infections to
begin with. Really the only way to control for this is to randomize kids to
surgery or not and then follow for 20 years or more. This in contrast is an
observational study, albeit with a very large number of subjects. They said
they tried to control for confounding factors, but it's hard to see how
effective that can be after the fact.

------
fromMars
I am skeptical of the findings. I imagine that people who get their Tonsils
and Adenoids removed are probably more predisposed to allergies to begin with.

My brother got both removed when he was 10 as he was suffering from ear
infections and other problems, I didn't.

Now as an adult, my allergies are worse and I get sore throats more frequently
with more irritating symptoms.

Allergies are also common in my family.

So my experience is that this surgery can have a very positive effect on one's
quality of life.

~~~
cryptonector
From the abstract:

> Increases in long-term absolute disease risks were considerably larger than
> changes in risk for the disorders these surgeries aim to treat.

Presumably specifics are discussed in the paper. They followed 1.2 million
children. Perhaps they were able to get an apples-to-apples comparison of
children with similar issues and who did and did not get these surgeries.

------
godelmachine
When my father was a child, there was a craze in town (India) that tonsils are
bad and removing them will only do good. My grandma fell for it, among hordes
of other mothers, and got my fathers tonsils removed. My father is a Gen X
cohort, and now whenever the pollen season arrives (he is in USA now), he is
totally helpless.

~~~
madaxe_again
It was the same in the UK in the 80’s - I remember pretty much my entire year
at school going for surgery over the course of a year.

Despite having had repeated tonsillitis as a kid (and bronchitis at the same
time - unheated boarding school with abysmal hygiene and dozens of boys to a
room is quite the disease incubator), my mother, a nurse, dug her heels in,
and said no. She'd had to deal first-hand with the outcomes of botched
tonsillectomies a few times too many.

They did my brother seven years later without their permission - and he
suffers from severe allergies to this day. I have none.

I’ve always been extremely sceptical of “its vestigial” or “that body part is
bad for you”. I mean, surely if either were true, selection would have done
away with it. If having tonsils were a dysgenic trait, nobody would have them.

I can tell you why it remains such persistent practice - it’s a quick and easy
surgery in most cases, and it’s billable at a decent rate in most places. A
surgeon in the UK can do ten or more in a day, at £3k a pop. You have an
endless supply of patients, and parents who’ll consent because after all they
had theirs done when they were kids.

Play your cards right and you’ll make millions a year.

~~~
DanBC
> I can tell you why it remains such persistent practice -

It's strongly recommended against in the UK now. We do less than 1 operation
per 1000 population.

> A surgeon in the UK can do ten or more in a day, at £3k a pop.

That's not how English surgeons are paid, is it?

[https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/tonsillitis/](https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/tonsillitis/)

> It's very rare that someone needs to have their tonsils taken out. This is
> usually only the case if you have severe tonsillitis that keeps coming back.

~~~
arethuza
My son had his tonsils taken our in a private UK hospital 6 years ago (my job
at the time had private health care) and the _total_ bill the insurer paid was
rather less than £3.

So the idea that consultants were getting £3K for individual private
operations in the 1980s seems unlikely - and as far as I know that's
definitely not how they are paid for NHS work.

------
b34r
I’ve begged my doctor to remove my tonsils and they refuse due to studies like
this.

I get tonsil stones every single month and at least one severe case of
tonsilitis per year (usually closer to 3-4.)

Anyone have strategies that worked to convince their GP to allow them to be
removed? At this point I’m considering just paying out of pocket to get it
done.

~~~
eip
It's pretty simple to remove tonsil stones. Just get a lighted tongue
depressor and a tonsil stone tool.

Think of it as another maintenance task. Like brushing your teeth.

~~~
NegativeLatency
Can you use a water pik?

~~~
eip
Not sure. Never tried. It would probably work less than 50% of the time at
best.

------
bariswheel
I've had my tonsils removed at age 6, no allergies at all. My appetite
increased quite a bit they tell me, but my parents were in their twenties back
then, who knows. Anyway, wanted to throw in my data point in here.

------
vanderZwan
I had my tonsils removed last year (so at age 33) due to having a
peritonsillar abscess multiple times in a couple of years - which implies that
the first time I was infected it likely became a "chronic" risk. So far no
allergies, so I hope my immune system is already "properly trained" from
before or something.

Anyway, if anyone ever needs to have their tonsils removed for health reasons:
only drink isotonic water[0] when you're thirsty. For some reason my surgeon
forgot to tell me that, but I discovered this on my own by accident. After the
surgery I felt very dehydrated, so made some ORS at home. To my surprise,
drinking it did not hurt at all, even though drinking plain water earlier had
felt like getting thousands of paper-cuts in an open wound.

I was eating regular food within a week (it took a bit longer to fully heal up
of course), and didn't even need to use the heavy duty painkillers that I was
prescribed (only over-the-counter painkillers for sleeping, really). I suspect
that instead of being a pain-killer, drinking isowater avoided the irritation
that caused the pain in the first place, which means I also avoided
inflammation and healed up faster than expected due to that.

[0] Take this recipe for home-made rehydration solution and tweak to your
liking
[http://rehydrate.org/solutions/homemade.htm](http://rehydrate.org/solutions/homemade.htm)

------
yani
Tonsils can cause miserable life to suferrers and while they might have
negative long term effect, the research does not include the mental issues
that recurring tonsils cause.

------
azinman2
I wonder if it’s really the other way around — people who tend to get
infections often have this surgery because, well, they often get infections?

------
n4kana
I had my tonsils out at around age 8 due to chronic ear infections. I don't
know how bad it was before the operation, but my respiratory health has been
abysmal since the operation. I've recently begun to wonder if oral probiotics
could be a missing part of the equation. Tonsils literally have "crypts" \-
the quality of your oral bacteria must play a huge role in how they function.
[http://www.blisk12.com/what-is-blis-k12/](http://www.blisk12.com/what-is-
blis-k12/)

------
pmoriarty
I can't find it now, but two or three months ago I read a story in the news
about a teenage girl who bled to death after her surgeon accidentally cut in
to her aorta during her tonsilectomy. The saddest thing was that it was a
slow, completely preventable death, and that the doctors did not take her
symptoms at all seriously, despite her coughing up copious amounts of blood,
telling her and her mother that it was all perfectly normal. Very sad story.

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barking
This does not tie in with my experience as someone who had those removed at
age 6. This winter for example, everyone in our household had nasty chest
infections except me.

~~~
zaarn
Anecdotal data is not a good source of medical advice.

~~~
tomohawk
When treating a patient, using the results of a study is a good starting
point, but it may really have nothing to do with treating the specific
patient. The patient may fall outside of the distribution of normal
occurrences, as indicated by the study. They may be an outlier.

This is one reason why medicine is challenging - you're not treating a
population, you're treating a patient.

If you are the patient, you want the doctor who is guided by science, but also
not blinded by "well, the studies say to do X, but that's not working. I guess
there's nothing I can do for you".

In my case, I had my tonsils removed as an adult and it is one of the best
medical decisions I've ever made. Prior, I had all kinds of health problems.
They are now gone, and while I used to get sick a few times a year to the
extent of missing work, that no longer happens.

~~~
zaarn
While I generally agree, treating a patient is also not as simple. For
example, I never had my tonsils removed and in the past 5 years I have not
been sick a single time. Plus, this doesn't invalidate the study itself, as
the results merely lay out a chance, the probability that you will suffer long
term effects.

People can smoke cigarettes their entire life and never get lung cancer or
they smoke once and get a diagnosis for lung cancer next year.

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JTbane
Interesting that however advanced medical science is, we still don't know
about everything the lymphatic system does.

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gormz
I used to get a lot of throat infections when I was a kid and had the
discussion with my doctor to whether I should get my tonsils removed. My
doctor was heavily opposed.

recently, I've been having allergies and more throat issues and wished I would
have got them taken out. Pretty glad I didn't now.

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Dolores12
What if enlarged tonsils/adenoids is a allergic response of immune system?
These people are prone to allergic reactions in first place. Correct way of
testing this hypothesis would be to cancel OP to 50% of control group and
compare long-term health risks after 30 years.

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giljabeab
I had frequent tonsil infections as a kid and was given the option to have
them out but declined.

Now I have two very small and pitted tonsils due to frequent infections which
asides from the odd tonsil stone don’t bother me at all.

I don’t get hay fever or any allergies.

Think I made the right decision

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vsizov
If you have your tonsils removed you most probably have not a very strong
immune system, originally. So it's OK to expect that you're less healthy
during the life. I don't think that tonsils removal is causing this, the root
of the problem is deeper I think. I have my tonsils removed a year ago when I
was 32 because of problems with my joints. They are better now actually. So I
would say, you need to remove your tonsils when it's absolutely necessary.

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ToFab123
It was amazing to have the tonsils removed as a kid. For a couple of days we
were only allowed to eat ice-cream :)

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xpto123
Too late, my 3 kids had the adenoids removed. Anything that i should look out
for?

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amazert
Thanks for this post. I have tonsil problem from years but i am always afraid
to get that removed from my body. The general treatment which i do when feel
problem is hot water gargle.

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axilmar
In my generation, 100% of us had our tonslis/adenoids removed as children, but
we have no significant differences in health issues whatsoever.

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forthispurpose
this practice (along with getting appendix removed when not necessary) seems
like some distant relative of bloodletting.

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aviv
In 20 years HN will have a front page top post about the long term health
risks of male circumcision. Sometimes it take time for common sense to
become.. common.

~~~
roesel
And those are?

~~~
workaccount34
Mutilated genitals

~~~
roesel
I dont know if that qualifies for a “long term health risk”.

~~~
workaccount34
We aren't lizards. We can't magically grow back lost portions of out body.

~~~
tom_
Right, but if you survive the procedure, are the side-effects going to kill
you, or leave you more likely to contract diseases, and so on? That's more the
question. And the answer appears to be no. Plenty of reasons why it's a bad
idea, just not this one...

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ousta
Would love similar study on circumcision...

