Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Tonsillectomy
When you start to get old - right now, I'm "young middle aged" - you think about all of rites of passages or facts of everyday living that have disappeared in your lifetime. One of those is the tonsillectomy.
I assume that its frequency is disappearing - I have no children, but even among the adults I know who have children, you never hear that "so-and-so is getting a tonsillectomy". From what I understand, the reason is that inflamed tonsils are treated medically now rather that surgically. Furthermore, in the past tonsillectomies were sort of a prophylactic procedure, and these days physicians won't do the surgery unless there's a medical need for it.
This is from a lost link on the internet:
In recent years, there has been an increase in ADD and related difficulties among school age children. Years ago, tonsillectomies were routinely performed. Some pediatricians suggest that the decrease of tonsillectomy procedure is related to the increase in childrens' behavior problems, mood problems, and attention problems and is illustrated by the recent spate of sleep apnea related tonsillectomy.
My wife read in Vogue today that some physicians believe that ADHD and behavior problems in young children might be related to sleep apnea.
So why am I even writing about tonsillectomies? Because I was almost the beneficiary of one when I was about eight years old or so. I had frequent tonsillitis when I was a child and my parents and the MD finally decided to have my tonsils removed. I ended up showing up at the hospital, staying overnight, they draw my blood, it's the morning of surgery, and....
...nothing. Apparently, my blood clotting factor wasn't high enough to satisfy the doctor. No surgery. I'd just have to deal with it medically. According to my parents, I've always snored even when I was a thin little child.
I'll bet a lot of my depression problems and lack of an attention span might have had something to do with persistent sleep apnea. After I finally treated the apnea with a CPAP machine, my energy level and mood changed significantly. Maybe they should have done the surgery.
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