The modern medical science believes that acute tonsillitis is a bacterial infection caused by the upper respiratory tract disease, if not treated in time or treatment is not complete, will easily turn into chronic tonsillitis and repeated acute attacks. So, once mothers find their children’s tonsils inflamed, they turn to Western medicine and actively use antibiotics to treat them, lest they use less antibiotics and leave the bacteria unkilled to become chronic tonsillitis.
However, many of these mothers will find that their children have chronic tonsillitis despite aggressive treatment each time, and once they catch a cold, their tonsils become septic and they start to run a high fever for many days, and the fluids don’t seem to work very well. Eventually the doctor will say that it is related to the low immunity of the child, and that if it doesn’t work, it should be removed surgically. Can you do it? That is the guard of the throat, without the gatekeeper, our lungs will be directly invaded. So as a last resort, do not operate. In the clinic, we often see children who have had their tonsils cut, and when they get a cold, they get bronchitis or even pneumonia. Therefore, as a last resort, do not operate.
In my opinion, this kind of recurrent purulent tonsillitis in children is mostly the result of excessive use of antibiotics. I often compare the human body to a house, where garbage is produced every day, which can normally be excreted by way of stool, urine, and sweating. When this garbage is not excreted, viral bacteria will infect us, and our organism will excrete the garbage by way of cold. Just ask, if the garbage in our house has bugs, do we spray disinfectant to kill the bugs or clean up the garbage.
Antibiotics are disinfectants, and our body’s ability to heal itself is the ability to remove the garbage from our bodies. Our body’s ability to remove the waste from our body through sweating and defecation is the essence of healing. This is how herbal medicine treats infectious diseases by removing waste from the body, so herbal medicine does not sterilize, but treats bacterial infections.
This overuse of antibiotics, coupled with the extensive use of herbs to clear heat and detoxify the body, makes the body’s Yang Qi closed and depressed, the elevation and lowering of the body is out of order, and garbage accumulates. Children look more yellow and lack luster. Many children have swollen tonsils, but they do not feel pain. These are all signs of “yin-cold” in Chinese medicine. In the treatment, TCM doctors must work with warming Yang medicines to support the child’s Yang energy to eliminate the waste in the body. At this time, the warming medicine will not aggravate the fever, and once the yang energy of the body is circulated, the fever will be removed by sweating, and the effect is often even faster than the infusion.
In terms of the timing of treatment, I think the best effect is to take herbal medicine when you have a cold and fever, because the body’s immune system is mobilized at this time, and herbal medicine can make use of the strength; you can also treat the usual treatment, although the effect is slower at this time, but it can strengthen the child’s immunity and significantly reduce the number of children’s colds. Many of my little ones, after proper TCM treatment, have gone from coming to the doctor every month to not being sick once a year.
Finally, I would like to remind mothers that recurrent tonsillitis in children with little urine and puffy eyes may be combined with nephritis; if there is fever, joint pain, panic and increased pulse, it may be combined with rheumatic fever. This is explained in Chinese medicine as the result of the evil of Yin and Cold entering the Foot Shao Yin Kidney meridian (nephritis) or the Hand Shao Yin Heart meridian (rheumatic fever). Therefore, choosing the right TCM treatment to support the child’s yang energy, improve the immunity and thus the child’s constitution is the fundamental solution to the problem.