If you’ve ever experienced them before, you have probably asked yourself “why do I have tonsil stones, tonsillitis, and strep throat” or any other tonsil infections. There are many possible reasons for this but more often than not, the causes of these infections are due to our own daily choices.
The main cause of tonsil infections is poor oral hygiene, which is not to be overlooked, but in this post, we’re going to focus on what diet choices instead. Seeing as most people don’t really know the difference between a good diet and a bad diet, I figured this would help out more people.
1. Eating Foods with Low Nutritional Value
By this, I mean junk food like crisps, chocolate, fizzy drinks, McDonald’s, KFC, Burger Kings – basically anything that’s high in saturated/trans-fat and nothing much else. These foods are responsible for a whole load of damaging health effects – so much so that I don’t think I could mention them all in this blog post – but we’re just going to concern ourselves with how they affect our oral health.
Because of the lack of nutrients, their foods are not able to fuel our immune system properly. This means it will not be able to operate optimally which means it’ll be less likely to kill off infectious organisms that pass through the mouth every day.
Therefore, the harmful bacteria and fungi content that remains in your mouth goes up and so does your chances of a tonsil infection.
2. Not Drinking Enough Water
You may be unaware of this but your saliva does not just lubricate your food for easier consumption. It’s also responsible for controlling and limiting the activity of bacteria in your mouth to prevent infection. And for this to work you need to remain properly hydrated each day.
As I’m sure you’ve noticed, when you don’t drink enough water, your mouth starts to go dry. But what you may not have noticed is that your breath starts to smell as well (most prominent in the morning). This happens because harmful bacteria has been given the freedom to congregate around your mouth and produce sulfur.
But of course not all form of bacteria will produce sulfur, some will cause infection. Therefore if you want to prevent this from happening, you to drink enough water each day. The exact amount differs for each person but with the number of online calculators that are available, I’m sure it won’t be too difficult to find out much you need.
3. Smoking Tobacco & Drinking Alcohol
Because tobacco and alcohol both have dehydrating effects, which reduces your level of salvia in the same way as not drinking enough water.
As I said above, when this happens you become less capable of controlling the activity of bacteria that roams around your mouth and become more likely to experience infection – and bad breath. Therefore if you want to prevent tonsil infection then you need to not only drink enough water, you also need to limit the amount of alcohol and tobacco that you consume.
Final Words on Tonsil Infections
Now that you know the diet choices. note that, antibiotics are prescribed for tonsillitis caused by strep bacteria. In these cases, antibiotic treatment of future infections may not work.