Tonsillectomy

[muphin83]

I am curious if anyone has had thier tonsils removed after/before being diagnosed with Sjogrens? I was just informed that I should have mine removed. I know they are important to the immune system. Thoughts??

[Joe S.]

Mine were removed as a child.

[irish]

Just out of curiosty, have you had any biopsies done of your mucosal tissue in the throat??? Tonsillar areas. Sometimes with autoimmune disease the lymph tissue can  have weird reactions in general. I don't know what kind of doctor told you this, but I am wondering if there is a way you can get a second opinion with someone like an immunologist. Immunologist understand the many types of cells and their reaction or lack of reaction to the autoimmune, immune and allergic conditions that develop.

Sometimes the mucosal tissue can be affected by all the white cells and it is hard to sort things out. Just don't want you go have a procedure without having a good investigative background. Sometimes doctors will not be aware of the significance that the autoimmune has on other organs of the body. Do not panic, just investigate and ask questions is my thoughts. It is so darn hard having extracurricular illness show up, isn't it. Good luck and keep us posted. Irish

Also, infections can get involved in these tissue and be hard to discern from inflammatory(autoimmune) reaction within the tonsils and lymphoid tonsil.

[SunshineDaydream]

Still have mine. Never had a problem with them and no doctor has ever made any comment about them to me.

[Kathy57]

Mine were removed as a child, simply because that is what they did in those days.  Not sure they needed to be removed but it was the thing back then.

Kathy

[Nymph]

I had mine removed about 9-10 years before my diagnosis. I know know that the dryness of Sjogren's combined with allergies caused the chronic inflammation leading to that surgery. It did not help, by the way.

[Sweetcheex76]

Had mine removed about 3 years ago a few months before the Sjogrens diagnosis. After constantly complaining about a "swollen tonsil", (in reality it was my saliva gland), having cysts on both tonsils and having colds that would never go away, my ENT said to take them out. Recovery was the most painful thing I've ever experienced and that includes 30 hours of labor in childbirth. Vicodin was only slightly helpful and I got a nasty case of thrush afterwards. But, I haven't gotten one cold since then. It's really helped keep viruses at bay and for me, that's a big thing. My husband or son would infect me and they'd get over their cold in less than a week. Mine would last 6 weeks or more.