In 1983, a 5-year-old Katy Golden had her tonsils removed. This is a common procedure that went smoothly. Decades later, Golden is preparing for another tonsillectomy. Why? Because her tonsils re-grew over the years, causing all the same discomfort and inflammation she experienced when she was a child.
At first, she thought she just had a sore throat. The sore throat lingered until she finally visited an ENT. After a routine examination, the ENT discovered that Golden’s tonsils had grown back, to both of their surprise. You see, tonsils generally don’t do that. That goes for the majority of the human body. Most parts of your body that are cut off don’t just come back like a lizard’s tail.
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Woman’s Tonsils Grow Back 4 Decades Later
While tonsil regrowth is uncommon, it’s not impossible. It happens to a very tiny one to six percent of patients that undergo a tonsillectomy. Her ENT, Dr. Cynthia Hayes, suspects that the regrowth might have something to do with the technique used to remove Golden’s tonsils.
There are a few different ways tonsils can be removed. There’s microdebridement, coblation, and the ominous-sounding “cold technique,” which is just another way of describing the tried and true method of slicing out the tonsils with a scalpel. The cold technique isn’t used nearly as much as it used to be for reasons just like this. There’s a chance that the surgeon will only partially remove the problematic tonsil, which, in exceedingly rare cases, can lead to regrowth.
The coblation method mentioned above, for instance, is a high-frequency electrosurgery where the tonsil tissue is destroyed, leaving behind no traces of the troublesome soft tissue. This is the method Doctor Hayes used on Golden to re-remove her tonsils. She’s got some painful days of healing ahead of her. But on the bright side, at least she’s got an excuse to eat as much ice cream as she wants.