Tonsillitis can feel like a bad cold or flu. The tonsils at the back of your throat will be red and swollen.
The main symptoms in children and adults are:
Sometimes the symptoms can be more severe and include:
Symptoms will usually go away after 3 to 4 days.
Tonsillitis is not contagious, but the infections that cause it are (for example, colds and flu).
To stop these infections spreading:
Tonsillitis usually has to run its course.
To help ease the symptoms:
Speak to a pharmacist about tonsillitis.
They can give advice and suggest treatments to ease a sore throat, like:
Your doctor can usually tell its tonsillitis by asking about your symptoms and looking at the back of your throat.
Sometimes they might:
Usually you'll get any test results back within a couple of days.
Treatment will depend on what caused your tonsillitis:
Usually your GP will have to wait for the test results to tell which type you have.
It's very rare that someone needs to have their tonsils taken out.
This is usually only the case if you have severe tonsillitis that keeps coming back.
Complications with tonsillitis are very rare. If they happen, they mostly affect young children aged 2 to 4.
Sometimes you can get a pocket filled with pus (abscess) between your tonsils and the wall of your throat. This is called quinsy.
These are signs of quinsy.
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