My son who was born in 1996 had his tonsils out and his adenoids cauterized twice. He had so many ear infections, hs ENT recommended the tonsil removal. His GP however was dead set against it. After bumping him full of antibiotics, numerous sets of tubes, we went with the ENT recommendation. Never had another ear infection after that.
I grew up getting a lot of colds and sore throats. Sometimes my tonsils were so swollen I could barely swallow, felt like I had golf balls in my throat. My tonsils got full of holes with a white/yellow substance, that sometimes I would cough up and it smelled awful. But our GP told my parents I didn’t need my tonsils out. it just wasn’t done so much anymore and would give me anti-biotics and codeine for the pain.
A few days after graduating HS, I got really, really sick and my parents took me to an ENT. He was shocked, saying he was concerned I might go septic; the infection was that bad.
I was admitted to the hospital the next day and had a tonsillectomy. Best thing as I stopped getting sick all the time and wished they had been taken out years earlier.