How to treat recurrent tonsillitis?

Doctor's Answer

Suffering from such severe tonsillitis in a short period of time must be really tough on you!

Your options are pretty clear actually: Either continue to have each attach treated with antibiotics or consider having surgery to remove your tonsils as the source of infection.

The drawbacks of having repeat courses of antibiotics are 1) antibiotic resistance to whatever bug causing the infections, 2) side effects of antibiotics such as tummy upset and diarrhea (loose frequent stools) and 3) that in more than half of tonsil infections, the cause may be viral rather than bacterial, so antibiotics may not really help at all!

In theory, I suppose if you’re willing to wait long enough, (for a totally unknown length of time) then some tonsillitis episodes will eventually settle down. But of course you won’t know for how long, it could take months or even years.

Surgical removal of your tonsils will get rid of the tonsils as the source of the recurrent infections and should make your sore throat episodes better. In theory, Long after you have your tonsils out, you can still potentially suffer a sore throat but this won’t be due to tonsillitis and instead an irritation of some other part of the throat.

There is an approximately 1-2% risk of postop bleeding after having your tonsils surgically removed, which may occur in the first 2 weeks after surgery. You will also suffer a bad sore throat for the first week or so as the tonsillectomy site heals. Most people tend to recover well though, and are quite Glad they had their surgery done rather than continue to suffer away with so many episodes of tonsil infections which keep them away from their work or studies!

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