Need an ENT expert re taking out tonsils

[piedbeauty]

Dd(19) has one very large tonsil. The older she gets, the more problematic her tonsil gets. She's had 4 episodes of tonsillitis this year. NHS says she has to have over 10 before they will consider taking out her tonsils.

But now she has quinsy 🥲 She went to Urgent Care last night for her throat and the medic she saw was shocked, said tonsil badly affected, said it would be impossible to take out her tonsil. It's too big, too inflamed, too risky for surgery. It would be better to have tonsillitis every year instead., he said. 😱😐

Dh and I want dd to see a private ENT surgeon if possible. But before we do this, has anyone got any experience of huge tonsils and having them out? Is it possible as a young adult? What is recovery like?

Her tonsils are causing so many problems at the moment, we'd really like them to come out. Happy to pay for this to be done privately.

Any advice or experience welcome!

I cannot really comment as I haven't seen the tonsil. However, they are sat right next make blood vessels and if they get too big and inflamed surgery would be too risky for fear of a major bleed. If that is the case no surgeon would want to operate as the risks would outweigh the reward.

Right, ok. That's a bummer. Would a private ENT specialist do an appt to discuss all this?

My DD(19) had her tonsils out in October last year. It was done privately at a hospital in Wimbledon. If you're local I could give you the name of our ENT specialist.

The only advantage of a private consultation would be that you will see them sooner and can have the time with a consultant of your choice. It DD still has a lot of inflammation when she is seen the doc might want her to come back ie allow it to settle as best you can. If the op is considered more than usually risky she should have it done in an nhs hospital where there is extra medical backup.

I had chronically inflamed tonsils, so they were always large. Had them out in my early 20s. I was in agony and pretty much only sucked on ice chips for 2 weeks.

But it got better. For a few years I got chest infections in winter but after stopping antibiotics and just fighting through it for a few more years they lessened in severity and then stopped.

My DC both had massive tonsils and had them removed at age 4. Children do seem to cope better after the op and were fighting for a week afterwards.
Adults take longer to recover and really do suffer terribly with pain especially day 3-6 post op so get plenty of pain relief (oramorph if they can!).

Definitely worth seeing a surgeon asap to get booked in for when the infection has gone

I had similar and had mine out at 19 ...it was pretty grim for a few weeks afterwards but never had another throat infection since..now mid 50's.
I'm also a doctor and never heard of them being too big to remove..but I'm not an ent specialist.
I would pay and see a consultant ent specialist.
I hate to say it but you can get very random and odd advice from urgent care centers...and I even work in one !

Partial tonsillectomy might be an option here. Don't know if that would help overall though.