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Long-term health risks after having adenoids or tonsils removed in childhood

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201–209 of 209 posts

Re: Long-term health risks after having adenoids or tonsils removed in childhood

#201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does any of this have to do with forcing an oil vaporizer on everyone? Are you arguing that teachers need essential oils in the air to get through the day; or is this just about the fact, that parents always have different ideas? In that case you should still err on the side of not putting random substances in the air everyone at the school has to breathe.

I think they're providing contrast against the hilarious suggestion that "a school is supposed to instruct kids in the truthful ways of life".

Ah, I see. I probably misinterpreted the intention behind that comment.

Re: Long-term health risks after having adenoids or tonsils removed in childhood

#202
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.

Re: Long-term health risks after having adenoids or tonsils removed in childhood

#203
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/

Re: Long-term health risks after having adenoids or tonsils removed in childhood

#204
post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

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 w…

My heart breaks for you. Wishing you the best.

Re: Long-term health risks after having adenoids or tonsils removed in childhood

#205
post #181
post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So are his eustachian tubes chronically obstructed? My younger brother had chronic ear infections as a kid, and as best I know he basically had tubes in his eardrums for a while, and then when he was older his eustachian tubes started draining more reliabily. He's been fine since.

Docs did not tell me what exactly is obstructed - yes they said he might soon be fine without an operation because his head will grow.

In that case, it sounds possibly similar. Tubes are pretty non-invasive, although they can come out which is annoying and you have to wear earplugs when you swim.

Re: Long-term health risks after having adenoids or tonsils removed in childhood

#206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be better if most scent diffusers used essential oils, but unfortunately, most are made with VOCs and synthetic fragrance compounds that are known or suspected to cause many health problems, like Glade plugins. Febreze and Lysol are the same but with more VOCs. I have severe sensitivity to fragrance and cannot tolerate synthetic fragrances, incense, or essential oils. Simply being near people who use artific…

Same—I can’t tolerate most artificial fragrances, as they make my sinuses block up and irritate my eyes & skin. Sadly they’re everywhere —between perfumes, deodorants, lotions, laundry detergents, fabric softeners, air fresheners, odour removers, shampoos, body washes, hand soaps, household cleaners, &c., a lot of people and their homes are just covered in them. I’ve been trying to figure out the specific compounds t…

Great! It's very rare to meet other people with this issue.

Manufacturers are allowed, as I'm sure you know, to list all scent component ingredients glommed together as 'fragrance'. This is supposedly because they're proprietary - they wouldn't someone to make an exact knock-off of a new perfume too easily, right? It also has the effect of making the health aspects of the formulations very difficult to analyze. It's a lot like a properietary black box in computing... EWG judges 'fragrance' as its own separate ingredient, giving it a (bad) rating of 8/10.

I have noticed 5-6 different main scent 'flavors' on all the disgusting consumer products out there, which probably correspond to specific chemicals. There's the one like fake grapes, the one that's spicy and powdery, the one I call old lady underwear, the fake fruit, the 'manly' scents, and more.

Johnson Wax (SC Johnson?) actually lists the full fragrance ingredients to products like Windex in their site - I was amazed.

I agree that these products highly likely cause widespread harm of different types, including to people who do not perceive a problem.

Re: Long-term health risks after having adenoids or tonsils removed in childhood

#207
post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your own experience is anecdotal.

Your own experience cannot be anecdotal

Anecdotal evidence is evidence from anecdotes, i.e., evidence collected in a casual or informal manner and relying heavily or entirely on personal testimony. When compared to other types of evidence, anecdotal evidence is generally regarded as limited in value due to a number of potential weaknesses, but may be considered within the scope of scientific method as some anecdotal evidence can be both empirical and verifiable, e.g. in the use of case studies in medicine. Other anecdotal evidence, however, does not qualify as scientific evidence, because its nature prevents it from being investigated by the scientific method.

[Wikipedia/Anecdotal Evidence]

Re: Long-term health risks after having adenoids or tonsils removed in childhood

#208
post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your own experience cannot be anecdotal

Anecdotal evidence is evidence from anecdotes, i.e., evidence collected in a casual or informal manner and relying heavily or entirely on personal testimony. When compared to other types of evidence, anecdotal evidence is generally regarded as limited in value due to a number of potential weaknesses, but may be considered within the scope of scientific method as some anecdotal evidence can be both empirical and verif…

This does not contradict the point I made in my post previous to this one.

Re: Long-term health risks after having adenoids or tonsils removed in childhood

#209
post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had tubes put in my ears when I was little for drainage. Eventually they were removed and I don't have the problems.

Did they only put in the tubes, or also take out the adenoids?

Just tubes in.
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