[godelmachine]

When my father was a child, there was a craze in town (India) that tonsils are bad and removing them will only do good. My grandma fell for it, among hordes of other mothers, and got my fathers tonsils removed. My father is a Gen X cohort, and now whenever the pollen season arrives (he is in USA now), he is totally helpless.

[creep]

I had my tonsils and adenoids removed due to recurring severe infection. Well, actually, the tonsils were removed due to infection, and my adenoids were an "afterthought" because my dad has a history of sleep apnea. I don't have any allergies, and I definitely don't get sick as often as when I was younger-- during which time I was getting all sorts of infections (ear, kidney, eyes, etc.) recurrently.

Anyways. Just another anecdote on the pile.

[sparrish]

My daughter was 3 when they removed her tonsils. Recurring infections and swelling were making it difficult for her to breath. She still has the occasional cold but nothing like before they were removed. They were huge for a tiny 3 year old.

[wil421]

I have bad allergies and still have my tonsils. The pollen season in the US can be very different than other places especially in the South. For me it also came with age and my allergies started in my 20s.

I’d bet your father is not used to the pollen in his region. Doubt it because of his tonsils.

[madaxe_again]

It was the same in the UK in the 80’s - I remember pretty much my entire year at school going for surgery over the course of a year.

Despite having had repeated tonsillitis as a kid (and bronchitis at the same time - unheated boarding school with abysmal hygiene and dozens of boys to a room is quite the disease incubator), my mother, a nurse, dug her heels in, and said no. She'd had to deal first-hand with the outcomes of botched tonsillectomies a few times too many.

They did my brother seven years later without their permission - and he suffers from severe allergies to this day. I have none.

I’ve always been extremely sceptical of “its vestigial” or “that body part is bad for you”. I mean, surely if either were true, selection would have done away with it. If having tonsils were a dysgenic trait, nobody would have them.

I can tell you why it remains such persistent practice - it’s a quick and easy surgery in most cases, and it’s billable at a decent rate in most places. A surgeon in the UK can do ten or more in a day, at £3k a pop. You have an endless supply of patients, and parents who’ll consent because after all they had theirs done when they were kids.

Play your cards right and you’ll make millions a year.

[DanBC]

> I can tell you why it remains such persistent practice -

It's strongly recommended against in the UK now. We do less than 1 operation per 1000 population.

> A surgeon in the UK can do ten or more in a day, at £3k a pop.

That's not how English surgeons are paid, is it?

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/tonsillitis/

> It's very rare that someone needs to have their tonsils taken out. This is usually only the case if you have severe tonsillitis that keeps coming back.

[arethuza]

My son had his tonsils taken our in a private UK hospital 6 years ago (my job at the time had private health care) and the total bill the insurer paid was rather less than £3.

So the idea that consultants were getting £3K for individual private operations in the 1980s seems unlikely - and as far as I know that's definitely not how they are paid for NHS work.

[maaark]

>They did my brother seven years later without their permission

In the UK, in the late 80s or 90s? I'm not saying it didn't happen, but HOW?! Did your family attempt to complain or sue?

[madaxe_again]

Boarding school, loco parentis. Without an explicit intervention from a parent they can do as they please, and they’re under no obligation to inform the parents of anything. I wrote letters home, telling my parents of the day-to-day, my brother did not.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_loco_parentis

[eivarv]

> I’ve always been extremely sceptical of “its vestigial” or “that body part is bad for you”. I mean, surely if either were true, selection would have done away with it.

That's not necessarily true - if something is vestigial it is no longer affected by positive selection pressures; it won't be selected against until it is harmful. [0]

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vestigiality

[astura]

They probably aren't related; I have my tonsils and also have bad pollen allergies.