I have had “tonsil stones” for years but lately I have had chronic stones and a painful soar throat. My throat is so sore that I can barely swallow in the morning, and I have actually lived with a sore throat for a long time. I have had a raspy voice with a cough for about two weeks now, so I finally made an appointment with a PCP.
The PCP tells me that its allergies b/c I have cats and a dog and/or maybe the new house dust and that I need to see an allergist. If that doesn’t work he said then he would send me to an ENT. I told him about the stones and that I thought my tonsils were infected. He said the stones could be from allergies and that my tonsils were not red or swollen nor did I suffer from a fever. But I told him it was NOT allergies and to make me an appointment with the throat doctor, he wasn’t happy about it but he did give me the referral.
When I saw the ENT doctor he told me that he thought it was acid reflux and wanted to give me an expensive prescription for two months and if that didn’t help to then he would do the surgery. I then told him about the yellow stones coming out when I coughed. He explained them to me! He asked if they smelled bad and were small puss pockets. I said yes and he said that’s tonsillitis and it was up to me if I wanted to get my tonsils out or try the acid reflux medication. I chose the surgery. After reading the few blogs out there about this I feel about 4 out of 5 doctors have no idea what they are – only a ENT.
When I’m talking to people about getting them out, I of course don’t tell them it’s b/c I have rocks in the back of my throat (only on the right side) I tell them it’s b/c of a constant sore throat. Almost everyone is trying to talk me out of the surgery saying if I don’t get strep throat constantly that there is no reason for the surgery. I feel like these stones are more than a sufficient reason b/c of the bad breath and taste in my mouth. Has anyone recently had their tonsils out? I am 30 years old and will have the surgery next month and would appreciate any feedback. Is it as painful for adults as I am hearing? I can’t believe I haven’t googled this problem before now, seeing how other’s suffer as I do! Thank you for reading my entry and I hope it was of some help.
January 19th, 2008
I’m 33 and pretty much a neat freak expecially when it comes to my mouth. I use teeth whitner, brush regularly and one of the first things I notice in people is dental hygeine… so i am always making sure I have fresh breathe and clean teeth. Years ago, I recall coughing up (what I now know was a tonsil stone) but at the time i thought it just was a small piece of plaque since it was tiny and only happened once a year or 2 so I didn’t pay any attention.
About 4 months ago I got a normal cough, sore throat, fever with white dots on my tonsils (still didn’t know white dots were tonsil stones). I was prescribed antibiotics… the dots went away but the cough stayed. I went to the dr. again about 2 months later they ran mono and strep tests which both came back negative… again they gave me antibiotis and I was on my way. Still the cough and sore throat did not go away.
Last night I got a flash light to look at my tonsils cause I figured the docs must have been missing something. Sure enough, I could see a little white thing poking out from a flap on my tonsils. My first thought was to go back to the dr. for more anti-biotis but something made me poke at the white dot. An hour later, I had extracted what must have been 20 balls of tonsil stones from my crypt or (tonisil flap). I have now been reading everything I can about this online.
My throat is still very sore and I have begun gargling with vinegar and salt water. my question is… is it possible that this will not occur again and i will be fine now that I have removed the stone? Or is this always chronic… from what I have read on here… it sounds like with most people it keeps happening? If it can be just a one time thing… how long should I expect my throat to be sore for after having removed the stone?
Any help would be appreciated… i am getting obsessed with this problem!!
January 14th, 2008
I got this today from a concerned mother:
My daughter started getting these tonsil stones last year and she was only 4 years old. She had this unexplainable bad breath that we could not get rid of even by brushing her tongue. I finally decided to look down her throat. I could not believe my eyes when I saw these white egg-like balls on her tonsils. There were at least 3 or 4 on both sides. My husband was so disgusted. We both decided to take her to the PCP the next day. I did research on the web and diagnosed the problem before we went, thanks to all the web postings. The PCP was kind of rude the next day questioning why I would be looking down her throat. He told me what they were and why they formed on her tonsils. He basically made me feel as I was over- reacting and to stop looking down her throat. He said she would out grow them and her breath might stink until then but it was harmless. I did not like the answers the PCP gave me and I worried a lot about the tonsil stone posting I’ve read so far. Every one seems to be so much older than my daughter. Also it seems like this is a daily problem that sufferers have to deal with and the best advice given is to have the tonsils removed. My daughter had one more episode of the tonsil stones last winter.
This winter she has them again. This current episode has lasted about three weeks now. She had one big one on each side sticking out so, I did actually knock them out with a Q-tip this past week. She cried a little and said it hurt so I do not plan on doing that again. She still has a bunch of small ones on the right side. She is so young she really can’t gargle or use some of the other suggested remedies. I admit that I obsessively look down her throat once in the morning and night to monitor the stones. I just wish they would go away. I do not want my daughter to have these the rest of her life. She is so young, is there a possibility she might grow out of these or should I push to see an ENT? I am frustrated and need some advice. I should also mention that my daughter has never had a confirmed case of strep or tonsillitis.
January 13th, 2008
I first noticed my tonsil stones at age nineteen. The night before my discovery, I was craving a cigarette, but did not have any. I was looking through my drawers and found an old cigarette pack with a couple left in it. They were extremely stale and tasted awful, but I smoked them anyway. The next morning I felt something “funky” in the back of my throat. I spent several hours of the day trying to “hack” it out of my throat to no avail. I sounded like a cat coughing up a fur ball and got several weird looks from my family and friends. Finally, I decided to take a look with the mirror. When I saw the white thing sticking to my tonsil, I honestly thought it was mold from smoking the old cigarettes (not the most intellectual conclusion, but at any rate…). I was freaked out. I instantly grabbed a Q-Tip and attempted to swab it off of my throat. It took such a long time, but I finally got it off. I began examining it. That’s the first time I caught a whiff of that intoxicating “death aroma”.
The next day, I found I had the same feeling again. I looked in the mirror right away and saw five or six of those white things in the back of my throat on both tonsils. I told my mother about it and she told me that I probably had an infection. She told me to stop messing with it because I was making it spread. Anyone who has these knows that it is impossible to “stop messing with them”. No one wanted to hear about them. My sister became so grossed out by my explanation of what they are that she screamed at me and a new rule was made that I wasn’t allowed to talk about them at all. The rule was fine and I stopped talking about them, but my final word on the subject was “I’m sorry that MY tonsil condition is so uncomfortable for YOU!”. I suffered in silence for years. After seeing my sister’s reaction, I was not too keen on the idea of speaking about them with friends. I didn’t want to lose friends because I was so gross.
When I was 23 and working and living at a College dorm, I was downstairs eating breakfast with one of my friends, Renee. She had overheard me hacking in the bathroom and wanted to make sure I was okay. I told her I was fine and it was no big deal. She pressed me further and I finally broke down and told her all about my tonsil woes. Renee then told me the greatest words I had heard in a while “my sister has that…I don’t remember what the name of it is, but I’ll ask her”. Just then, Julie, another girl walked up and asked what we were talking about. Renee explained to her what she was telling me. Julie said “they’re called cryptic tonsils, I have them”. I was in shock. Not only did I find out that there is a name for what I had, but that two other people had it as well. I was no longer the freak that my family had made me feel like! Julie had been to the doctor to have her tonsils looked at and was having a tonsillectomy soon. (I know this sounds crazy, but I had been so embarrassed by these things that I had never dreamed of seeing a doctor about them). I scheduled an appointment right away for an ENT.
Before my appointment, I put a few of my tonsil stones in a zip lock baggy with some moistened tissue paper to keep them from drying out. Even though I knew a couple people with them, I was afraid the ENT would have no idea what they are so I wanted to show him examples. The ENT had no desire to look at them and knew exactly what they were. The ENT told me that the best way to get rid of them was to buy a water pick. I mentioned that my friend was having her tonsils removed and he told me that I was too old for that and he wouldn’t feel comfortable removing mine. He, again, told me to buy a water pick.
I went to Walgreens and bought a water pick. I brought it home and opened it up like a kid on Christmas. I filled the base with water and turned it on. The water sprayed so fast and hard that it got everywhere. This is where my true genius is revealed…I decided to aim it directly at my tonsil figuring it wouldn’t make a mess that way. It hit my tonsil with such force that I began gagging…dropping it on the floor. It felt like someone had shoved a knife into my tonsil. My tonsils began bleeding. Meanwhile, my floor was soaked from the water pick and I slipped and fell. That was the last time I tried that device. Other things I have tried: q-tips, toothpicks, Kelly clips, tweezers, eye droppers, hair pins, safety pins, and a shop-vac (I rigged the hose with duct tape and a straw to try and suck them out…it didn’t work). I once went to my dentist’s office and asked if I could come in every now and again and have tem use their little “sucking device” to vacuum them out…they suggested I see a doctor. (They probably meant a pscyh doctor). In the end, I found that a combination of my (now, extremely strong) throat muscles and my fingers were the best way to get them out. I am one of the few people I know who has no gag reflex from years of sticking my fingers to the back of my throat.
A couple of months ago, I was at a club when I realized I had one poking out. I went to the ladies room to try and get it out. I was standing in front of the mirror with my finger down my throat when I realized another girl was in there and watching me in horror and disgust. That was the final straw for me. I made an appointment with my PCP and insisted she find me an ENT willing to do the surgery. Before looking at my tonsils, she explained that ENT’s won’t remove tonsils from someone my age (again with the age…this is the first time I’ve heard of 26 being considered old!) just because they have cryptic tonsils. She then took a look for herself. She remarked “wow, your tonsils are huge!” She did a couple of tests and and decided that I have a chronic infection of the tonsils and her recommendation was to have them removed. She referred me to an ENT who agreed with her assessment (thank God for chronic infections I didn’t even know I had). I am scheduled for surgery in 3 weeks and hopeful that this will be the end of this long, embarrassing saga! I know this may all seem a little over-dramatic, but I trust that someone who has had these or has experienced the sleepless nights “fishing” smelly globs out of their throat will at the very least appreciate that someone else has been there too.
Thanks for reading my story!
December 13th, 2007
If any one wants their stories of when they discovered tonsil stones, how they got rid of them, or how they got rid of their tonsils altogether placed on the front page of Tonsil Stones.org as an entry, email it to tonsilstone@gmail.com and I’ll look over it and post it (I’ll credit you with the story as long as you’ll let me, otherwise I can always post it anonymously.)
November 4th, 2007
I swear the people who post comments on this site are awesome. I’m going to have to find a way to get some of these comments up to the forefront more, rather than buried deep in the depths of the blog’s comment system.
Anyway, I’ve been looking through the comments regarding Laser Tonsillectomy and I’ve found these gems:
A video of a Laser Tonsillectomy care of Snoring Center. (technically it is mentioned as a cure for snoring in this story.)
Radiofrequency tonsillectomy information care of iTonsil.
September 21st, 2007
Hey guys. I’ve been neglecting this website lately, and hopefully soon that will change. My wife and I have just had our first daughter so my mind has been elsewhere. But people continue to have tonsil stones, so we must prevail!
Has anyone ever had (or even heard of) a laser tonsillotomy? Wikipedia mentions it briefly in their tonsillolith article. I had heard of it awhile ago, but didn’t know the procedure had a name. This is what the article has to say on the subject:
A longer term cure is possible by using laser resurfacing. The procedure is called laser tonsillotomy, or laser tonsillectomy. This technique can be performed under local anaesthetic, using the scanned carbon dioxide laser, which vapourises and removes the surface of the tonsils. In this way, the edges of the crypts and crevices which collect the debris, are flattened out, so that they can no longer trap material. Therefore stones, which are almost like pearls forming from a grain of sand, cannot form.
I’m definitely not a doctor, but that sounds more pleasant than cutting tonsils out. If anyone has had that done, comment and tell us!
July 27th, 2007
Well I had to do it. I locked down the message board. You can still post on it, of course, only now you HAVE to sign in first. This had to be done, as I was tired of removing spam messages from the forum every day.
Sorry for the inconvenience!
March 13th, 2007
Has anyone seen the newest Wikipedia article on Tonsil Stones? It has been updated since I last looked at it, with pictures! Check out that magnified one! Anyone ever have one that look like that?
February 23rd, 2007
I encourage everyone who may come across this site to visit the message board. There you can post your comments and discuss amongst yourselves and get feedback on whatever treatments etc you have tried, or wish to try!
July 7th, 2006
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