What are tonsil stones

What are tonsil stones?

Practicing good dental care can not only prevent cavities but also save you from the hassle and complications presented by tonsil stones. Aside from causing halitosis (extremely bad breath), tonsil stones can also cause severe swelling and inflammation in the throat.

To help you learn more about these troublesome tonsil formations, we’ve prepared a quick guide detailing their general causes.  Aside from this, we’ve also provided resources pertaining to dentists, doctors, nutritionists, oral surgeons, and other related topics.

The Common Causes of Tonsil Stones

The Common Causes of Tonsil Stones

Before we examine why they form, it’s important to know how tonsil stones end up growing in the recesses of your throat.  As their name suggests, tonsil stones grow in the nooks and crannies of your tonsils.

These growths start off as bits of food and debris which find their way into these nooks and crannies.  When they come into contact with bacteria they combine and solidify forming a hard yet malleable mass of white pus.  

While they are not harmful, these stones can grow considerably large with some specimens actually protruding from the tonsils.  Now that we know how these growths form, it’s time to delve more into why they form.

Food

Many tonsil stones can start off as bits of unchewed food that have lodged themselves into tonsillar crypts and crevices.  Foods that are more likely to form tonsil stones include fish, popcorn, sesame seeds, and even greens such as spinach.

Once they lodge in the throat, these bits of food become breeding grounds for bacteria since they form a sealed cavity.  Worse still, the cavity beneath the lodged food will ultimately be filled by pus, which will combine and solidify resulting in a large, irregularly shaped stone.

Mucus

As is the case with small bits of food, mucus can also encourage tonsil stones to grow.  This often occurs when postnasal drip comes into contact with bacteria which causes it to harden and produce an extremely foul odor.

The tonsils stones formed from mucus and postnasal drip are usually discolored and considerably more odorous than their food-borne counterparts.  Aside from this, however, both varieties are a result of either mucus or food morsels lodging in the tonsils and meeting bacteria.

Throat Infections

Infections in the throat can cause severe swelling and a spike in the number of bacteria present near the tonsils.  Much like any severe infection, our body’s initial reaction is to produce white blood cells which attack the bacteria and slowly die off.

These cells accumulate and form puss which is compacted by the walls of the tonsils into the familiar shape of tonsil stones.

Dealing with tonsil stones can be challenging especially if you’re not familiar with how to properly remove them.  To make things easier we’d recommend working with a dental hygienist to manually remove the stones.

If you’re unfortunate enough to have an ongoing infection, your dentist or physician may also prescribe some antibiotics or other prescription medications to make recovery easier.  In severe cases, your doctor may also recommend having your tonsils surgically removed.

Now that we’ve covered the basic causes of tonsil stones, we hope you’ll have a better understanding of the trouble that these growths can present.