When my son Tommy was two-and-a-half-years-old, I was told by doctors that he had enormous tonsils.
Despite having his fair share of colds, it wasn’t until just before his ninth birthday when our family slept together in a single motel room on a peninsula holiday that we realised he snuffled and snored during the night.
Tommy has always been a ‘good’ sleeper, but after that sleepless night (for the rest of the family) we took him to his GP to seek advice.
We were referred to Melbourne’s Royal Children’s Hospital and prepared ourselves for a six to eight month wait to be seen by an ear, nose and throat (ENT) specialist.
Seven months later, we received an appointment letter. Shortly afterwards, we were contacted by the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (MCRI), Australia’s biggest research centre for child health.
MCRI asked if we would like Tommy to be involved in a trial looking at reducing the need for surgery in children with snoring or sleep-time breathing issues. I’d had contact with the institute before for an allergy research program, and so was more than happy to support this important work.
Mamamia Confessions: We confess to moments of parenting horror.
Top Comments
Jenni, I hope you check in on the comments. I'm in my late thirties, and I've spent my entire life with enlarged tonsils like your son. I've never had extreme sleeping issues, but I've spent the majority of my life slightly stuffy, to the point where it was just easier to breath through my mouth most of the time. Like your son, I snored and sniffled every night. And every year, once spring or fall rolled around and the weather changed, I would catch a cold like clockwork. I never thought it was an issue, just a normal part of life. Two years ago, I don't know the cause, I just started having a random pain in one of my tonsils. It eventually got to the point where it was something I constantly noticed, more than a minor distraction. The ENT doctors couldn't find anything wrong, but after a number of different antibiotics, I bit the bullet and had my tonsils removed.
It's been a year and a half since I've had my tonsils removed. Outside of pollen season, I haven't been stuffy at all. After all these years, I can finally breathe through my nose without any congestion at all. It might be sheer luck, but this has been the first fall and spring where I haven't caught a cold. I can finally sleep on my back without any breathing issues, and I no longer snore. I've basically spent my entire life snoring and being congested because of my over-sized tonsils, and I feel more than a little silly that I didn't do anything about it sooner.
Don't get me wrong... getting my tonsils removed was probably the worst two weeks of my life. The pain is non-stop and immense, and you're basically laid out drinking and eating mush to get by. But that was it. Two weeks. I wish I would have had them removed sooner.
Given two weeks of pain or a lifetime of medication, I would choose that two weeks of pain any day of the week.
My daughter endured multiple surgeries, had tonsils and adenoids removed, grommets that didn’t work. We finally gave up on the ENT and went to a chiro, on the recommendation of a friend whose daughter had the same issues. After a few months of treatment, my daughter no longer gets ear infections or has ear, nose and throat issues. If only we’d known sooner that the ENT was a waste of time and also that tonsils are valuable to the immune system. Doctors should be a last resort only after less invasive treatments are tried first.