tonsilloliths

When I was quite a lot younger I used to get tonsilloliths.

I didn’t know I used to get tonsilloliths, because I didn’t know what tonsilloliths were and I didn’t know they were a proper thing.

Basically, tonsilloliths are a sort of lumpy accretion that can build up in your tonsils.  They don’t tend to be that deep and kinda poke out of the duct.  Indeed, they can often ‘grow’ out of the tonsils an be visible in the back of the throat.

But what do I mean by a lumpy accretion?

I don’t know it you’re familiar with how pearls form in oysters, but I think it’s basically the same idea.  A pearl forms when a lump of grit or other irritant gets into the oyster, and it slowly coats it until it becomes a large, roughly spherical lump.  Yes, for those that didn’t know, pearls are basically solidified oyster spit.

In this case, the tonsilloliths form around little bits of food that get into your tonsils (which are like ducts at the back f your mouth / top of your throat - weirdly there doesn’t seem to be a clear explanation for what tonsils really do) and an accretion slowly builds up around them.

They’re not rock hard like pearls, but they are quite hard and they’re also very smelly.  Indeed, they’re one of the causes of halitosis.

So I used to get these things, but never really knew what they were.  They used to manifest for me in that, ever so often I’d get a feeling like they was something hard and course at the back of my mouth.  In particular, I could feel it when I swallowed.

I’d end up basically rubbing my tongue against my pallet area (my tonsils, but I didn’t know it), scrapping the area with my finger like it itched and also trying to sort of blow the irritant away like a cat spitting up a hairball.

And as I say, I’d sort of spit up one of these hardish, very smelly, slightly yellow lumps that I recently discovered are called tonsilloliths.

I’ve not had one for years and, according to Wikipedia, they’re more common for teenagers, which is when I used to mainly get them.  Also, and I’m not sure it's actually of any benefit, but after the disasters I had when I finally started going back to the dentists (after uni, when I hadn’t gone for years) I started doing everything, including using mouthwash, which I’d also gargle with.

As I say, I don’t know that it’s what prevents it, but I don’t really get them any more.

If you’re in the mood for a bit of grossness, you can look them up on you tube and see some really nasty sights of them being removed from he back of people’s mouths.  Some of them on there are enormous, and I never got anything like that, but there the same basic beast.