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…
They told me it was space air. I began to protest that there was no air in space, and before the count of 10 the nurses began spinning around me as I fell into my first psychedelic trip. Didn't have an experience like that again until I tried salvia. I was 6-8. Weird.
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.
> "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)
You're right to be cautious and fact check everything you're told. I apologise if my response becomes overly ranty. This isn't to scare you, just to encourage you that you're doing the right thing by taking such an active role in your child's care. I have views on this that would seem to most people to be seriously conflicted. I'm militantly pro-science, and I argue constantly in the face of anti-science and pseudo-s…
I believe you find this article interesting: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/11/upshot/labels-like-altern... "My friends who believe in homeopathy don’t really care. Those who favor conventional medicine, though, can be just as blinded. Too often, when confronted with evidence that advanced technology might not be providing benefits, the medical community refuses to change its behavior." He goes on to argue that the…
"Alternative" means "unproven or disproven", doesn't it?
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 bli…
Can confirm that. Recently visited an otorhinolaryngologist with my 3 y.o. daughter having a blocked nose for too long after being sick, and the conversation started with typical "Why you even bothered to come here with such insignificant issue" and ended with "She have an enlarged adenoids, you need to remove them". And all of that been said only after short visual check of a crying child's nose. What you even able see there, with such tools and conditions? Of course I didn't trust the doctor at all, after that quick check-up and bold statements. And this is not a single doctor, after a many encounters with other doctors I can say that the whole health care system here, in the Czech Republic, is screwed up. Doctors are too ignorant and unprofessional to have so big self-confidence (often replaced by just being rude) as they have here.
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…
My sympathies.
Had adenoids removed at the age 6 or 7 with only local anaesthesia. It was fucking terrifying.
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.
Had adenoids removed, and suffer from runny nose and (fortunately relatively mild) allergies all my life. Never occurred to me before it could be related.
I believe you find this article interesting: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/11/upshot/labels-like-altern... "My friends who believe in homeopathy don’t really care. Those who favor conventional medicine, though, can be just as blinded. Too often, when confronted with evidence that advanced technology might not be providing benefits, the medical community refuses to change its behavior." He goes on to argue that the…
"Alternative" means "unproven or disproven", doesn't it?
I don't know, it's a matter of definition. What I know is that the article makes a good point.
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 bli…
You're right to be cautious and fact check everything you're told. I apologise if my response becomes overly ranty. This isn't to scare you, just to encourage you that you're doing the right thing by taking such an active role in your child's care. I have views on this that would seem to most people to be seriously conflicted. I'm militantly pro-science, and I argue constantly in the face of anti-science and pseudo-s…
> I sincerely hope the circumstances in the Czech Republic are better and that the doctors are much less overworked and much more capable of helping you
I'm not an author of the parent comment, but i also live in the Czech Republic and can say that no, It's not any better. And based on a stories which my friends living in other countries telling me, I starting to suspect that the whole world health care system "made a wrong turn" some time ago. Looks like it's screwed everywhere, or at least for majority of the population.
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.
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 outcom…
>They did my brother seven years later without their permission
In the UK, in the late 80s or 90s? I'm not saying it didn't happen, but HOW?! Did your family attempt to complain or sue?
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 bli…
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.