What causes tonsillitis?

For most people, tonsillitis appears first when they have a cold, while a small number of people have long-term tonsillitis; this clearly reflects different causes. First, in the case of colds, the external causes include the invasion of bacteria and viruses and their long-term hiding in the respiratory tract, while the internal cause is a decline in the body's resistance, a weakening of the ability to suppress and eliminate viruses and bacteria, which in turn leads to the massive growth and reproduction of viruses and bacteria and thus inflammation.

The same applies to tonsillitis: when the body's resistance is weak, bacteria or viruses will "take advantage of the weakness" to reproduce and multiply, triggering tonsillitis; in fact, external causes are present at all times. Among the causes of tonsillitis, there are also seasonal factors, increased psychological stress, the spread of inflammation from tissues adjacent to the tonsils, other respiratory tract inflammations, and febrile diseases such as scarlet fever and measles, which can also trigger tonsillitis.

Tonsillar suppuration and after treatment

Bacteria and viruses cause tonsillitis, and the most commonly seen are streptococci, staphylococci, and others. Seasonal factors mean climate changes; if a person's resistance is not strong, this will induce tonsillitis or a cold. Inflammation of adjacent tissues such as rhinitis, pharyngitis, and otitis media will cause tonsillitis after continuous development; conditions such as acute and chronic tracheitis, pneumonia, and bronchitis of the respiratory tract also easily cause tonsillitis.

Tonsillitis can be acute or chronic, and is related to a certain extent to the pathogen causing the illness; for example, when people suffer from acute infectious diseases such as scarlet fever, measles, influenza, and diphtheria, it can trigger chronic tonsillitis. In terms of symptoms, chronic tonsillitis causes throat discomfort, dryness, itching, irritating cough, and a frequent sensation of a foreign body. Over time, chronic tonsillitis can cause tonsillar hypertrophy, which then leads to difficulty breathing, and when sleeping, the tongue relaxes and falls backward, causing snoring, leading to chronic hypoxia; in children it can affect growth and development, and in the elderly it can easily cause serious consequences such as suffocation.

Scarlet fever triggering tonsillitis

Acute tonsillitis, however, is completely different from chronic tonsillitis. Acute tonsillitis presents strongly, with obvious systemic symptoms. High fever of 39°C or 40°C, accompanied by chills, general weakness, headache and generalized pain, poor appetite, nausea and vomiting; on examination, suppuration can be seen on the tonsils. Suppuration is an obvious feature of acute tonsillitis, based on which it can be diagnosed as acute tonsillitis and a cold can be ruled out.

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