Zhang Ping has been worried about her child’s health for the last two years. Her 5-year-old child keeps having fever, and she has to take off work all day long to take her child to the hospital, and each attack lasts for several days, almost every quarter. The doctor diagnosed the cause of her child’s fever as acute suppurative tonsillitis and suggested that she go to the ENT department to have her child’s tonsils removed after the acute attack had cleared. However, she had heard that removing the tonsils would make her child’s health worse and he would catch colds easily, and some scientific articles also said that removal of the tonsils should be done carefully. To cut or not to cut? Zhang Ping was quite hesitant. The problem Zhang Ping encountered is a very common problem, not only in children, but also in adults who often encounter this dilemma. The tonsils are a lymphatic tissue at the junction of our pharynx and mouth, and when we open our mouths, we can see that they are located on both sides of the tongue. The tonsil is primarily an immune organ where, due to its special tubular structure, many immune cells are activated, thus giving the body the ability to produce immunity. Studies have shown that before the age of 5, the tonsils play an important immune role. However, after the age of 5, these immune functions are gradually handed over to other organs, such as the spleen. At this time, the tonsils also begin to shrink, so if the frequently inflamed tonsils are removed after the age of 5, there is little impact on the humoral and cellular immune mechanisms. The doctor told Zhang Ping that usually if the tonsils are not inflamed, even if they are larger, surgery is not always necessary. However, if the child’s tonsils are repeatedly inflamed, surgery is needed. This is because repeated inflammation of the tonsils is not only detrimental to the child’s health, but more importantly, repeated inflammation of the tonsils will become a lesion that can cause arthritis, nephritis and even myocarditis. Recently, researchers have found that tonsillitis is also associated with diseases such as psoriasis. Doctors say that surgery should not be considered when tonsillitis flares up. Surgery can be considered in one of the following situations – 1) if tonsillitis occurs more than three times a year for three years; 2) if tonsillitis occurs more than five times a year for two years; 3) if tonsillitis prevents you from going to school or work for more than two weeks in a year. There are other cases that require surgical removal of the tonsils, such as enlarged tonsils causing sleep disordered breathing or preventing the child from swallowing food; patients with a history of peri-tonsillar abscesses; patients with recurrent attacks of tonsillitis complicated by rheumatic heart disease and rheumatoid arthritis or nephritis; and patients with unexplained fever caused by the tonsils. When Zhang Ping made up her mind to operate on her child, another problem troubled her. The doctor said that the child was small and that the operation should still be done under general anesthesia. Zhang Ping then muttered to herself, “How can a child so small withstand it?” The doctor explained that the biggest problem with using local anesthesia to remove the pediatric tonsils is that once the post-operative bleeding happens, it is very troublesome. Because at this time, the child is completely unable to cooperate, to complete the later work of hemostasis, only then general anesthesia, but this time because of the large amount of blood gushing out, so that the difficulties of general anesthesia intubation increased a lot, and the amount of blood in children is limited, once out of more, will cause shock, very dangerous. So with the progress of medicine, anesthesia technology and new anesthetic drugs, the majority of hospitals have the conditions to choose general anesthesia tonsillectomy surgery, the operation is comfortable and thorough, complete hemostasis. Zhang Ping was finally relieved of her worries, and the doctor successfully performed the tonsillectomy on her child, who has had very few fevers since then.