How to get rid of bad breath due to tonsil stones? – Dr. Aniruddha KB

Bad breath in medical term is called as halitosis and bad breath due to tonsil stones and tonsil stones are also called as tonsilloliths. There are folds and crypts in our tonsils. When there is chronic infection in the tonsils all the time, these kind of patients tend to suffer from tonsil stones or tonsilloliths. So what is tonsillolith? It is nothing but accumulation of plaque, accumulation of dead cells, mucus and when this entire combination hardens or calcifies, it forms something called as tonsil stones. It is a hard structure. It can be a negligible small stone or it can be a significant large stone. So this stone is going to cause inflammation in the tonsil resulting in bad breath because of accumulated food, accumulated dead cells and accumulated mucus. It can cause discomfort such as sore throat. In severe cases it can cause ear pain because the nerve supply in the region of the tonsil and divided and so it can also cause ear pain in some patients. The most significant problem is bad breath and the feeling of something stuck in your throat is quite normal. The treatment of tonsil stones are varied because in very small negligible size of tonsil stones, we generally don’t recommend a treatment. So a regular salt water rinsing, gargling and maintaining a regular oral hygiene will suffice the problem. When the tonsil stones are large, we need to take medical assistance to remove the tonsil stones using a swab or a probe. But in chronic recurrent cases, when the patient is not able to tolerate the tonsil stones and the kind of complication it causes, in severe cases tonsillectomy or the removal of the tonsils would be the only solution for the tonsil stones.