A couple of days before I was due to take part in the Stockley Park 10k I started to get a bit of a sore throat. I didn’t really pay much attention to it as I’ve been getting these every few months for a number of years and I normally find a couple of days of shovelling Lemsip down my throat sorts it out.
My dad saw me drinking Lemsip and then saw me struggling to swallow some food later in the day and asked me if I had a sore throat and when I said ‘yes’ he did his normal scare tactic and said it could be something serious like tonsil stones.
My dad says things like that all the time: If you have a sore leg then it is a blood clot that is travelling up to your heart to kill you. If you have a headache it is a brain tumour. I had a lump on my neck under my ear once and he convinced me it was a tumour so I was in a bit of a panic as I sat in the doctor’s surgery. The doc was smiling as she told me it was a normal gland and I would have another one under my other ear!
Well I didn’t have tonsil stones (it was merely a sore throat) and they are not as dangerous as people like my dad would have you believe, a quick check on a tonsil stone site was enough to put my mind at ease.
They are easy to get rid of as well as you can drink warm salty water or even flick them off with your tongue. I should learn to seek advice from a tonsil stones adviser or a doctor on such matters instead of listening to my dad!
Photo by Ashley Kiel from FreeImages
