Learn what a typical Tonsillitis prognosis is at Consumer Reports Health.

Tonsillitis

What will happen to me?

Tonsillitis usually clears up on its own. But if your symptoms are very bad, your doctor may prescribe antibiotics.

There hasn't been much research on what happens to people who get repeated bouts of tonsillitis (recurrent tonsillitis). If you are an adult who gets repeated attacks of tonsillitis, we don't know how likely this is to get better by itself. Some studies have found that children who get repeated bouts of tonsillitis go on to get fewer infections over time, even if they don't have surgery.

Source:
Paradise JL, Bluestone CD, Bachman RZ, et al.
Efficacy of tonsillectomy for recurrent throat infection in severely affected children: results of parallel randomized and nonrandomized clinical trials.
New England Journal of Medicine. 1984; 310: 674-683.

Source:
Paradise JL, Bluestone CD, Rogers KD, et al.
Comparative efficacy of tonsillectomy for recurrent throat infection in more versus less severely affected children.
Pediatric Research. 1992; 31: 126A.

There are some more serious problems that you can get after having tonsillitis, although we don't know exactly how often these happen. They are probably very rare.

Sometimes an abscess forms behind your tonsil, which pushes the tonsil further out into your throat. Another name for this is quinsy. It can cause a bad sore throat, usually on one side of the throat. And you may have difficulty opening your mouth. If you get these symptoms, you should see your doctor.
If your tonsillitis is caused by infection with a particular type of Streptococcus bacteria, you can get rheumatic fever. This causes pain and swelling in your joints, fever and pain in your abdomen. This disease used to be quite common about 50 years ago. But it doesn't happen much now.

Source:
Olivier C.
Rheumatic fever: is it still a problem?
Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy. 2000; 45: 13-24.

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Having lots of attacks of severe tonsillitis can make your life difficult. You may need time off work, or your child could lose time at school. You may wish to consider surgery to remove your tonsils. To read more, see What treatments work for tonsillitis?

Sources for the information on this page:

Paradise JL, Bluestone CD, Bachman RZ, et al.Efficacy of tonsillectomy for recurrent throat infection in severely affected children: results of parallel randomized and nonrandomized clinical trials.New England Journal of Medicine. 1984; 310: 674-683.

Paradise JL, Bluestone CD, Rogers KD, et al.Comparative efficacy of tonsillectomy for recurrent throat infection in more versus less severely affected children.Pediatric Research. 1992; 31: 126A.

Olivier C.Rheumatic fever: is it still a problem?Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy. 2000; 45: 13-24.

This information was last updated on Jul 01, 2008

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