Medical Questions » Ears Questions » Question No. 288
| Question: | My daughter has recurrent ear infections, and the specialist wants to take out her tonsils and adenoids. I cannot see what connection there is between the tonsils and the ears. Is the specialist right? Should my daughter have the operation? |
| Answer: | Strange as it may seem, removing these lymph nodes, particularly the adenoids, may greatly help prevent middle ear infections.
The middle ear connects with the back of the nose with a fine tube (the Eustachian tube), which allows air to enter the middle ear and secretions to leave. It is the sudden movement of air through this tube that causes your ears to pop when you go up a mountain or in an aircraft.
The adenoids are lymph nodes that surround the opening of this tube into the nose. If the adenoids are swollen, the tube is blocked, the flow of air and secretions is interrupted, and infection can develop easily in the stagnant middle ear. Pressure can build up in the ear very rapidly, leading to the excruciating pain associated with many ear infections.
Because the pain is due to pressure, pain-killers have little effect, and only releasing the pressure gives relief. The adenoids and tonsils can both act as a source of middle ear disease if they are chronically infected.
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