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

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

#61

Post by dandare »

blackhaz wrote: post #27

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…

From a personal experience, the public health care in Czech Republic is way much better than NHS or what you can afford as a middle-income family in US. The equation changes when you can afford private care.

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

#62

Post by madaxe_again »

maaark wrote: post #59
madaxe_again wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Boarding school, loco parentis. Without an explicit intervention from a parent they can do as they please, and they’re under no obligation to inform the parents of anything. I wrote letters home, telling my parents of the day-to-day, my brother did not.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_loco_parentis

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

#63

Post by DanBC »

madaxe_again wrote: post #41
godelmachine wrote: post #2

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…

> 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/

> 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.

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

#64

Post by tcj_phx »

robbiep wrote: post #26
nailer wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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 rea…

> 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.

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

#65

Post by tomohawk »

zaarn wrote: post #32
barking wrote: post #20

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.

Anecdotal data is not a good source of medical advice.

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.

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

#66

Post by tcj_phx »

panda888888 wrote: post #37
tcj_phx wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a girlfriend who'd had her tonsils out as a child. She was an emotional wreck. I got her some bodywork (massage/etc), which she could have had as a child to prevent the surgery, and she's doing much better these days. She's still a firecracker; I'm glad she's living in the next state over.... > tonsillectomies [are] a highly routine procedure. Hopefully someday the medical profession will figure out how to trea…

Any relation between tonsils and your ex's gender/personality ("She was an emotional wreck") is nonsense. Don't post sexist stuff like that here.

There's nothing sexist about it. She was a mess, I helped her deal with her problems, she greatly appreciates the help.

My point was that people's presentations have a context. She was an emotional wreck because of all the different kinds of "stress" that she was dealing with -- unresolved "birth trauma" (umbilical cord wrapped around her neck), "adverse childhood experiences", etc.

Her tonsils were extracted because her doctors didn't know what else to do. If they'd known to look deeper than the presenting symptom, she might still have her tonsils.

I responded to robbiep's comment edit above, please look for that too.

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

#68

Post by bigbluedots »

panda888888 wrote: post #37
tcj_phx wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a girlfriend who'd had her tonsils out as a child. She was an emotional wreck. I got her some bodywork (massage/etc), which she could have had as a child to prevent the surgery, and she's doing much better these days. She's still a firecracker; I'm glad she's living in the next state over.... > tonsillectomies [are] a highly routine procedure. Hopefully someday the medical profession will figure out how to trea…

Any relation between tonsils and your ex's gender/personality ("She was an emotional wreck") is nonsense. Don't post sexist stuff like that here.

The commenter is saying that a particular person, who happens to be female, is / was an emotional wreck. How is that sexist?

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

#69

Post by robbiep »

tcj_phx wrote: post #64
robbiep wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 rea…

> 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 specif…

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.

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

#70

Post by tomohawk »

b34r wrote: post #10

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.

I had my tonsils out as an adult and it's been great. I'm much healthier now. YMMV.

Are you in the US? Get an opinion from a different ENT.

Not in the US? Try these guys:

https://surgerycenterok.com/specialists/

A lot of people fly in from other countries where they lack medical choice.

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