Infected Tonsils - A Barrier To Recovery
“Tonsils are the great curse of the body. They can appear normal. But on laboratory examination they are all found to be grossly infected in all cancer patients.” Dr Josef Issels (1907 - 1998).
Dr Josef Issels was a German physician and oncologist who started a hospital in Germany for ‘incurable’ cancer patients. It became the most successful cancer hospital in Germany. In a survey of adult cancer patients at his clinic, Dr Issels found that 98% of them had between two and ten dead teeth. The pathogens and toxins from dead (root canal-treated) teeth drain directly into the tonsils. Dr Issels routinely advocated tonsillectomy for his cancer patients. Prior to incorporating tonsillectomy in his cancer protocols, 44% of patients who did not survive, died of a heart attack. After tonsillectomy became routine, this number dropped to 5%. Read on to find out why the tonsils play such a pivotal role in disease and recovery.
The Waldeyer’s Ring
What are the tonsils and where are they in the body? The tonsils comprise a group of lymphatic tissues known as Waldeyer’s Ring at the back of the throat. They include the adenoids (pharyngeal tonsils), the tubal tonsils posterior to the Eustachian tubes, the two Palatine tonsils (two dense bodies of lymphoid on each side of throat visible by looking in the back of the throat) and the lingual tonsils located near the vocal cords in the larynx. This area is like a great big cave.
The Role Of The Tonsils
The primary job of the tonsils is to protect the body against toxins and pathogens entering via the oral route. The lymphatic system is a superhighway of vessels, nodes and organs that collect and drain a substance known as lymph containing waste products like damaged cells, cancer cells, viruses and other unwanted substances. All waste products that drain from the tissues above the neck (brain, sinuses, teeth, eyes, skull, bones) pass through the Waldeyer’s Ring.
Tonsils - The ‘Toilet of the Body’
The tonsils have been called the ‘toilet of the body’ by toxicologists like Dr Dietrich Klinghardt and other scientists. This is because of the relationship of the tonsils to the brain’s waste disposal system known as the glymphatic system. By pumping cerebrospinal fluid through the brain’s tissues, the glymphatic system flushes the waste products from the brain back into the circulatory system for disposal. This system ramps up ten-fold at night during deep sleep, allowing the brain to get rid of toxins, infections and harmful proteins like amyloid beta, whose build-up is linked to Alzheimer’s disease. That is why poor sleep is linked to a host of diseases, including cancer and Alzheimer’s.
The Problem with Infected Tonsils
The tonsil surface area contains deep and narrow folds in tissues called crypts. This greatly increases the contact between environmental invaders and lymphoid tissue and help the tonsils to process an increased amount of invaders. However, when tonsils become chronically overwhelmed by a constant drip of toxins from infected teeth, gums and cavitations (unhealed chronically infected holes in the jawbone), they lose their defence ability and the crypts become repositories for pathogens and their toxic waste products. Pockets of pus (abscesses) and stones (accumulated debris) can form within the crypts and on the surface of the tonsils. Tonsils clogged with infection stop the brain from detoxifying
adequately. Instead, toxins reverse their flow back up into brain tissues, keeping the brain inflamed and infected. Tonsil issues should always be looked for in conditions like Pans/Pandas and autism.
Silent Foci of Infection
Two of the biggest barriers to recovery from any chronic disease conditions are infected teeth and tonsils. This is because infected teeth and tonsils can exert an effect on body tissues and organs distant to the primary infection site. This is known as ‘focal infection.’ There are some doctors and dentists who will tell patients that focal infection theory, as it was known last century by the medical profession, is now discredited. Nothing is further from the truth. Dental and tonsillar focal infections are a constant burden on the immune system and the main reason I see in clinical practice why people don’t recover if doing all the right things. That is why Dr Issels had such success with advanced cancer patients by removing infected tonsils.
Why Tonsils Become a Focus of Infection
Any root filled tooth or any tooth with CAP (chronic apical periodontitis) exerts an enormous drainage of pathogens and toxins on the tonsil. These factors typically do not cause any symptoms. The overworked tonsils then have to filter a constant stream of pathogens as long as the dead or infected tooth remains in the mouth. Permut et al. demonstrated that when Indian ink is injected into the pulp of a tooth, it appears within 20 minutes on tonsil tissue. Similarly, when Indian ink is rubbed into the gums, it soon appears on the tonsils.
Additionally, there is no food or drink that does not pass through the Waldeyer’s Ring. When tonsils are continuously saturated by an unrelenting toxic drip from infected teeth and gums, they lose their ability to excrete wastes and become a toxic focus themselves. They have become overwhelmed. When the draining tonsil becomes more inflamed and chronically infected, lymph flow through the tonsil begins to stagnate. When the mouth to tonsil lymph flow clogs up, this pushes excess lymph drainage from mouth through alternative lymphatic and venous pathways. This overloads the draining neck and chest lymphatic pathways and sets the stage for malignancies to trigger in neck and breast tissues.
Three Types of Tonsils
It is possible to distinguish between three groups of chronic tonsillitis:
1. Healthy tonsils - Still capable of a reactive inflammatory response following frequent attacks of acute tonsillitis or angina. However, with each new attack, the tonsils gradually lose their capacity to react and start to shrink. At this point they have become overwhelmed.
2. Enlarged (hyperplastic) tonsils. Unfortunately, it is common to only partially remove such tonsils, creating narrowed or scarred crypts with lack of drainage which then fosters the formation of decomposing toxins. It is recommended that these partially lopped tonsils should be completely removed to eradicate the toxic focus. Painfully enlarged tonsils were found in less than a third of Dr Issel’s cancer patients.
3. Seemingly healthy but small underdeveloped and functionally deficient tonsils. These tonsils are firmly fused to their base and difficult to dislodge surgically. This group occurred most often in Dr Issel’s cancer patients. Paradoxically, Dr Issels found more serious pathology in healthy-looking tonsils than obviously diseased tonsils. In these severely atrophied tonsils, he found abscesses, cysts, and condensed putrid- smelling pussy tissue.
All three groups of tonsils are prone to toxic focal effects that progress with age and chronic dental exposures. The final phase of progressive tonsillar degeneration is called degenerative atrophic tonsillitis. The tonsils have become a dangerous focus but are themselves completely asymptomatic.
Effects of Tonsillar Foci on the Body
Dr Issels outlined four ways how tonsillar foci can adversely affect the body:
1. The neural effect on the central nervous system.
2. The toxic effect as the thio-ethers produced by toxic teeth are chemically similar to deadly mustard gas used in World War 1.
3. The allergic effect. Proteins released from dead/dying teeth sensitise the immune system. This can create cross-reactions with regular food proteins, potentially triggering issues like mast cell activation and multiple food and chemical sensitivities.
4. The infectious effect. Infectious agents leach into the blood stream leading to the micro clots and embolisms in heart attacks and strokes as published in the medical journal JAMA in recent years.
Symptoms of Diseased Tonsils
Decreased blood flow to the brain (brain fog, memory loss, anxiety)
Disturbed production of melatonin (chronic insomnia)
Decreased activity of lymphatic system (less sleep)
Constant outflow of potent biotoxins (chronic fatigue/aches/pains)
Chronic persisting infections (unchanged on lab results despite good anti-infection protocols)
Angina and other cardiovascular problems. Toxins constantly circulating in the blood in degenerative tonsillitis cause a permanent spasm of the blood capillaries. Pale skin can be an outward sign of this.
Pans/Pandas. In this condition, attacks from the immune system towards pathogens present in the lymphatic tissues of the throat (tonsils, adenoids, eustachian tonsils) are misdirected towards brain tissues that look similar to the immune system. A cleanly done tonsillectomy can be of marked benefit in many Pans/Pandas cases.
Increased foods and chemical sensitivities. The tissues of the lymphatic system are present in the gut as well as Waldeyer’s Ring. The tonsils are the first encounter the immune cells have with food. This primes the immune system when these substances enter the digestive tract. Over-priming results in increased food and chemical sensitivities.
Bad breath despite attention to dental hygiene.
Vertigo
Cardiologist Dr Thomas Levy in his book Hidden Epidemic, calls tonsils a Trojan Horse for harbouring pathogens while appearing completely normal in routine oral examinations. He makes the important point that tonsils that are chronically overwhelmed with infection can never be expected to heal even after infected teeth have been removed and gum infections cleared up. They can undermine good health for decades after teeth have been resolved. Removal of diseased tonsils is often the only hope of getting better from the misery of chronic disease.
Challenges of Tonsil Clean-up
It has now become very difficult to find an ENT surgeon to remove chronically infected tonsils. Only a small minority of physicians consider infected tonsils to be an example of focal infection causing systemic disease distant from the throat. The fact that the majority of UK ENT surgeons do not even consider that chronically infected tonsils can play a causative or supporting role in chronic illness is reflected in the number of children and young adults left to suffer with frequent tonsillitis, sore throats, and difficulties with breathing at night due to enlarged tonsils.
As Dr Levy states in his book, “they are generally not even considered as being important factors in a patient’s arthritis, asthma, nephritis, heart disease, or other chronic degenerative disease. Much of the time, however, such infected tonsils are the primary causes for such disease.”
Diagnosing tonsillar foci of infection is difficult for three main reasons: most doctors do not consider focal infection, most doctors do not consider the underlying causes of illness and tonsils that harbour focal infections can look normal on examination.
It is possible, however, to find physicians who are willing to examine and remove tonsils which have become a focus of infection. I have met a very small group in the UK and an excellent professor in Germany. I had a partial tonsillectomy in the 1980s which triggered continuing focus of infection for the next thirty years. After extensive dental revision, and thermogram, I found a surgeon willing to perform a second tonsillectomy and remove the residual infected tissues when I was in my fifties. It went smoothly and I have absolutely no regrets.
Prior to seeing an ENT surgeon, there are some useful steps that can be taken:
Thermogram of the head and neck - this can often show up an inflammatory hot spot indicative of potential focal infection in the tonsils.
Clean up the diet, particularly from cows’ dairy products, which are mucus forming.
Testing and treat Epstein Barr Virus - can lead to tonsillar swelling and inflammation, and pus on the surface of the tonsils.
Conclusion
The science on focal infection is just as relevant today as it was a hundred years ago. Vested interests have tried to discredit it.
There are some physicians who are aware of and pay attention to focal infection.
If you have had dental revision to remove infections and metals, but are still not as well as you expected, consider the possibility of tonsillar focal infection.
Like dead teeth or jawbone cavitations, tonsillar foci of infection may not produce symptoms.
Tonsil infection persists even after the dental infection has been removed.
The possibility of focal infection should always be considered in chronic conditions which do not respond to standard treatments.
Tonsillar focal infections should always be a consideration in conditions like Pans/Pandas (autoimmune brain inflammation triggered by strep and other infections).
If you have a history of dental or throat issues and would like to get to the bottom of your condition, please get in touch with the Good Health Clinic on goodhealthclinic@outlook.com to request a free 30 minute Enquiry Call or book an appointment.
Please note that an Enquiry call is not a consultation but an exploratory call to see if this is a clinical approach you wish to pursue.
To your very good health,
Suzanne Jeffery (Nutritional Medicine Consultant)
M.A.(Oxon), BSc.(NMed), PGCE, MNNA, CNHC
The Good Health Clinic at The Business Centre, 2, Cattedown Road, Plymouth PL4 0EG
Tel no: 07836 552936/ Answer phone: 01752 774755
Disclaimer:
All advice given out by Suzanne Jeffery and the Good Health Clinic is for general guidance and informational purposes only. All advice relating to other health professionals’ advice is for general guidance and information purposes only. Readers are encouraged to confirm the information provided with other sources. Patients and consumers should review the information carefully with their professional health care provider. The information is not intended to replace medical advice offered by other practitioners and physicians. Suzanne Jeffery and the Good Health Clinic will not be liable for any direct, indirect, consequential, special, exemplary or other damages arising therefrom.