Tonsil Infections

Symptoms, Causes and Treatments

If you or your child has a persistent sore throat, this is a sign that some sort of virus or bacteria is present in your system, and is bugging you constantly. But, having a sore throat does not mean that your tonsils are infected too. Sometimes the tonsils get inflamed because of the viral or bacterial invasion, this condition is called tonsillitis. Tonsillitis is accompanied by tonsil infections and swollen tonsils.

Most tonsil infections have same symptoms. Although it is not necessary that all patients show all the symptoms or sometimes, due to the severity of the infection some might experience more pain than others. However, the first and off course the most familiar symptom is a sore throat. The soreness is due to the inflammation of the tonsils. These tonsils get swelled and red. They have a yellowish coating on them which can be seen, if the patient opens their mouth wide. Most of the patients get fever. They have difficulty in breathing and swallowing. They have halitosis, or bad breath. It is important to watch out for these signs as delaying the treatment can cause a lot of damage. Bacterial infections have the tendency to affect your bones and joints and may turn into rheumatic fever.

Tonsil and throat infections can be caused by catching the germs from an infected person. As they are contagious everyday actions such as sneezing, coughing shaking hands with an infected person may cause a person to catch these infections. School going children often get viral infections as they catch the virus, which causes common cold and flu from their friends. However, adults usually get the infections by bacteria such as streptococcus, or pneumococci. When you see any of the signs mentioned above it is important to visit your doctor as he is better able to diagnose the root cause behind your infection. The treatment options for viral and bacterial infections differ greatly.

The doctor takes a sample from your throat with a swab to check for the presence of bacteria. If the test results are positive, the doctor prescribes antibiotics. The antibiotics provide much relief in symptoms and the person starts to feel better within 2-3 days after taking the medicine. But it is important to remember not all tonsil infections are to be treated with antibiotics. In case of a viral infection antibiotic medicines are of no use. At such no specific medicine is required. Your body has the ability to fight the disease off on its own. Doctors may prescribe simple pain relieving medicines to control the fever and get rid of the pain. Another very effective treatment apart from medicine is gargling regularly with salt water. The salt water provides much relief to the inflamed tonsils. It also helps in washing away the accumulated pus and thus; helps with the bad breath as well. Another effective home remedy used to treat tonsil infection is squeezing juice of a lime in lukewarm water and mixing little honey in it. This should be sipped slowly to soothe the tonsils.

Tonsil Infection

Some Facts about Tonsil Infection

Most of the tonsil patients are aged between the ages of 3 and 7, therefore tonsil infection is often thought of as a child’s disease. That is because young children have large tonsils compared to older children and adults. Therefore they are more prone to this infection. People generally believe that getting your tonsils removed is the best solution to enlarged tonsils. Every year almost 10,000 people below the age of 18 get their tonsils removed in the United States alone. However, the number of people has significantly gone down. With more people realizing the part tonsils play and better treatment options available, tonsillectomy (tonsil removing surgery) is now considered one of the last options.  Tonsils are the soft tissues located behind and above our tongues and in the back of our throats. The tonsil tissues have antibodies in them; which help fight infections that try to enter our bodies through our nose and mouth. When these microorganisms attack the tonsil tissues, they become inflamed and swollen you get an infection in your tonsils, called the tonsillitis.

Tonsillitis is caused by bacteria, viruses, respiratory problems and sometimes even allergies. The tonsils become red and swollen and often get covered by white and yellow spots which are clusters of white blood cells or in some severe cases pus. Most of the time tonsil infection can go away on its own, and no treatment is required to cure the condition. However, this may not be necessary and certainly does not mean that tonsillitis should be taken lightly. Most of the people may have symptoms similar to a sore throat or common cold. In this case simple home remedies and non prescriptive drugs are enough to relief the person of the symptoms. Some people may however, have much severe symptoms and may have reoccurring episodes of the infection. In such cases the doctors may prescribe antibiotics.

Symptoms of a tonsil infection may vary in patients due to its varying severity. However, the infection starts with a sore throat often accompanied by fever. As the tonsils swell patient has difficulty in swallowing and breathing as the swelling keeps the air from passing through the respiratory system. Some other common symptoms are colored coating on the tonsils, redder and enlarged tonsils, glands in the neck get swollen, hoarseness of voice and pain in neck.

Tonsil infections can be caused by bacterial invasion into your system. Your doctor may do a test, and if it results positive for streptococcus bacteria, he may prescribe antibiotics to you. But if the irritation has been caused due to viral invasions, antibiotics would be of little help. Younger children tend to catch this infection more because tonsillitis is contagious. As the children spent a lot of their time in closed, crowded spaces i.e. schools, they may get ill more often. But it is important to remember that such infections are not just restricted to children, even adults can get infected as tonsillitis is a contagious disease.

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