Warning for those with annoying tonsil stones.

twizliz

I was wondering if you could clarify what exactly tonsil stones were?

2catfans

According to my ENT, "tonsil stones are particles of food that get caught in the crevices of large tonsils. The particles of food causes bacteria to grow and the particle gets larger. Because the 'stones' cause bacteria to grow, your immune system starts to fight the infection, then the stones are dislodged, usually naturally by the body, however your immune system is still fighting the infection. Just about the time your immune system if finished, another food particle, from your next meat, gets lodged in the crevices of the tonsil again and the whole procedure starts again. Manually dislodging or removing these particle is not recommended as you can cause severe injury to your tonsils", as stated by the person using the water pic.

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tonsilfamily

The night before my tonsillectomy, what would be my very last tonsil stone came rolling out of my mouth!
I literally almost said "HA!" right out loud in the store, as in "Ha! No more of you nasty little tonsil stones after the tonsils go!"

Grunt117

The best method for removing tonsil stones is an "irrigator." That's all I know to call it. For anyone whose ever had their wisdom teeth removed, you should know what I'm talking about . . . it's a small plastic tube that you fill with water and then squirt the water out the narrow tip. This irrigator is given to wisdom teeth patients so that they can remove food and stuff that gets stuck in the holes where their wisdom teeth once were . . . and it works great for cleaning out deep tonsil crypts.

I have never used a waterpik, but from what I understand waterpiks are reckless and you can't "aim" with them like you can with an irrigator from wisdom tooth surgery.

I have found that Q-tips, toothpicks, and any other "poking and prodding" objects will ONLY remove tonsil stones on the surface of your tonsils. Believe me, I've put more pressure on my tonsils than I thought humanly possible, but the tonsil stones I can see deep in my crypts do not dislodge upon palpitation with a Q-tip.

The dental irrigator works the best because you can shoot water at fairly high pressure DIRECTLY into the crypt and send the tonsil stones flying. Unfortunately my irrigator broke after a year, and you can't buy them in stores (at least I can't find them anywhere). So now I only have Q-tips and an oral thermometer at my disposal, which don't work very well at dislodging stones.

Bleeding is a risk we take when picking at our tonsils to remove stones. Mine have bled on many occassions, but unlike a tonsillectomy, my bleeding usually stops instantaneously or simply oozes for a while . . . nothing to worry about.

Tonsils suck.

wiltingflower

Oh man I had to call my ENT once because I was advised to use the waterpik and it made me bleed only seconds into using it. NEVER will I use one of those again. I find the stones just come out on their own. If I don't bother them it seems they won't bother me. Funny enough I was just gargling with salt water because I noticed white spots accumulating on my tonsils last week (thought I was getting an infection) and when the gargling process was done 3 stones appeared out of one of deeper hidden crypts. Ick. Makes me wonder how long they were in there.

twizliz

I'm not sure if I have them or not. I can't really see anything on them (although they're red right now). But causing the body to think it's an infection..that would cause low grade temps and not feeling well, right?

tonsilfamily

I always poked mine out with two q-tips: one to push the flap of the crypt back, and one to poke the stone out with. My tonsils usually bled a little after a couple times.

Debutante

If you'll straighten out a large paper clip but leave a little hook on the end (pour some alcohol on it to be safe), it'll reach nicely into the crypts and remove the tonsil stones. I read about this on another site and it's worked really well for me. I keep an elongated paper clip and a short flash light by my bathroom mirror, just in case.