Online Medical Clinic

Adenoids Information

August 7, 2007 on 1:44 pm | In Diseases and Conditions |

The tonsils are not organs without functions to perform, yet from their frequent removal one would gather that they are inherently a menace. Adenoids are not ‘unnatural tissues, but are natural tissues gone abnormal through wrong conditions within the body. Yet adenoids and enlarged tonsils have been extirpated by the millions - in many cases because mothers have not been informed how to nourish and care for their children in such a way as to avoid these abnormal conditions.

Prominent additional causes are; failure of parents to see that their children exercise, secure enough outdoor play and enough ventilation indoors, that their elimination is adequate, their skin kept free from accumulations and toned sufficiently for normal responses to the body’s needs, and to obtain adequate sleep and, during the first few year’s of life adequate day-time rest.

The diet in such cases should be much simpler than a child usually receives. The usual breakfast provides starches and proteins and perhaps twice as many calories as are required. When there are adenoids or affected tonsils good breakfast is dry toast with a little butter, or a dry cereal with a little rich milk, some naturally sweet fruit, and a glass of milk. If a cooked cereal is used it should be taken with a sweet fruit so that it must be masticated.

In some cases, considerable benefit will follow gentle massage of the tonsils. The mother’s or nurse’s finger may be covered with sterilized gauze or a clean handkerchief or sterile cotton, and then gentle rotary pressure given upon the tonsil. This should be avoided in case of acute inflammation; but in many cases where there is pus in the tonsil or where the crypts are filled with a white cheesy substance, the finger may be used in the same manner to exert gentle pressure in such a direction as to express the pus or cheesy substance out of the [Onsil onto the finger protection. Hydrogen peroxide and water, equal parts, may be used for a gargle or a swab after expressing either the pus or the cheesy substance from the tonsil.

Adenoids, as stated earlier, are normal tissues: but enlarged for reasons that have been mentioned. They are normal to childhood but generally vanish by the time of puberty. They are located at the roof of the throat just back of the posterior nasal passages. When this adenoid tissue becomes pronouncedly swollen the breathing is affected, the child becomes a mouth-breather, the palate often is pushed upward and the teeth thrown out of line. The whole respiratory apparatus is adversely affected, for the lungs are denied air that normally should be strained, moistened and warmed by passing through the involved nasal cavities. Laryngitis, pharyngitis, bronchitis and asthma often result from mouth-breathing.

Often swollen adenoid tissue does not respond as rapidly or as completely as do enlarged tonsils. But if the mode of living suggested is adapted, with special care taken to see that all eliminative organs function up to normal, there probably will be shrinkage of these tissues. However, the operation for the removal of the adenoid growth is very simple, and usually there is no recurrence after their removal. This is an operation where harm extremely rarely results. If the parents cannot or will not keep the child on such a health program as will permit the adenoids to gradually reduce, then by all means this tissue should be removed. Adenoids are a handicap to physical and mental growth and, naturally or unnaturally, they should be removed.

Adults can be treated for enlarged tonsils much as has been outlined for children. Local treatment usually will help them just as it will help the child, although perhaps more siowly.

Defective adenoids and tonsils would not develop were the body properly treated, whether in childhood or adulthood. If they develop, or are developing, right living will often help to degorge them and allow them to return to a more normal condition.