What are the most common problems that affect tonsils and adenoids, and do I need to have them treated by a doctor?
The most common problem that affects tonsils is a bacterial infection. You do need to see a physician to be treated with antibiotics for bacterial infection. Less commonly, viral infections will involve the tonsils, and while typically the bacteria are not involved in those cases, they may occur as a super infection on top of the viral infection. So, typically you'll need antibiotics whether it's a viral or bacterial tonsillitis. Removing the tonsils in a tonsillectomy helps prevent further sore throats by removing the tissue that becomes inflamed, and is sampling all these things that are coming into you body. Does that decrease you body's ability to fight infection? No, but it decreases the inflammation in the throat when you do get an infection so that you don't have the sore throat and the chronic pain. The tonsils are just a local collection of lymph nodes. You have lymph nodes throughout your entire body. It's just in this one area that they're formed into this big massive ball. So, just like in the neck when you feel some swelling; when you have a cold and you're like "My glands are swollen," as people say; it's really lymph nodes. The tonsils are just in the middle of your throat. When you do have a cold or you do have an infection, they swell and they just cause a lot of pain. So, you remove that massive swelling of lymph tissues and it relieves the symptoms but your body is still able to sample bacteria and viruses and still able to fight them without any problem.
