Daily Science Dose

Where to begin on this one? It’s a rather upsetting subject, and something I wasn’t aware of until this past weekend.

Dear friends, have you ever heard of tonsilloliths? Have you ever heard of a tonsil stone?

Right now, as you sit reading this, you may have a whole crop of stinking, putrid, calcified stones protruding from your tonsils. You may never see them. Tonsilloliths form in the tonsillar crypts, grooves that cover the surface of the tonsil. They can remain hidden deep in the crypts, or form behind the tonsil, where you can’t see them. When they are released, they are often swallowed and you are none the wiser. You have no idea that you ever had a tonsil stone.

Other people are not so lucky. Some tonsil stones can be seen, growing on the front of the tonsil, sprouting out like a tiny tooth, or maybe a bit of cauliflower. Even when they remain hidden from sight, they can find their way into your mouth instead of being swallowed. What you’ve got then is a hard little chunk of putrid tonsillolith. In your mouth.

Let’s pretend that has just happened to you. Gosh, what’s this? It feels as if there’s something stuck in the back of your throat. Like how a piece of popcorn shell feels. But you haven’t been eating popcorn. Let’s spit that thing out! Grab a tissue. What in the world? What have you got there, on your kleenex?

It’s a tiny, hard chunk. It might be white, yellow, tan, or yellow-grey, and has the consistency of an aged cheese, or perhaps a piece of cooked pasta gone hard again. It’s roundish but irregularly shaped, and is probably about the size of a sesame seed.

Do you notice anything, as you are looking down at this lovely tonsillolith you’ve grown in your mouth? Probably you do, if you’re not anosmic. Tonsilloliths STINK. They stink bad. Awful. Rancid, sulfurous. Your whole mouth may have tasted wrong all day, all week, forever, your breath stinking no matter how much you brush/floss/swish the mouthwash. Now you know why. You are holding the culprit in your hand. Tonsillolith.

How has this happened? How has this come to pass?

Various substances, including food, your body’s own sloughed off cells (epithelial tissue, white blood cells), mucous, and bacteria become lodged in a tonsillar crypt. Bacteria get to work on the mass, breaking it down. These bacteria are often anaerobes (bacteria who would rather not hang out with oxygen) and tend to produce an awful smell as they feast; the food/material is trapped inside of a pocket of your tonsil, and it is literally rotting. No wonder you had such a yucky taste in your mouth!

As this is all going on, the whole mess picks up deposits of calcium and other minerals and becomes calcified. This calcification is what turns the ooey-gooey mess into a stone, into a stone which is embedded in a tonsillar crypt.

Hooray! What fun!

Wow. This is a lot to take in, no? You may be saying, “What do I do if I think I have tonsilloliths? I don’t want tonsilloliths!” I don’t blame you. Please. Don’t do anything drastic. I’m going to go over anti-tonsillolith tactics in tomorrow’s post: Tonsilloliths, Part II.

Alliteration. Mmm.

Until then, sit tight and don’t go at your throat with a knitting needle or anything crazy like that. There is hope.

ps - Tonsillolith is literally tonsil stone. Lith = stone; just as monolith means one stone (mono = one).

tonsils, tonsilloliths, tonsil stones, tonsillar crypt