Bad Breath Halitosis Forum

my worst fears have happened today as i am sure i got my first tonsil stone

i have known about my bad breath for about 2 and a half years but since i got my wisdom teeth out a small part of me has felt that getting them out solved my BB problem. but this today has really killed that hope

i was just looking in my mouth in a mirror like i do alot and i saw this white thing on my tonsils. i got a cotton ear bud and got it out. it was only very little and it had a bit of a smell to it. i have had a really bad cold in the last few days where my nose would not stop running and had a sore throat so that probably never helped, though that has improved in the last couple of days and my nose stopped running. though this evening i feel like i have another cold coming on

i know most of you think that tonsil stones are just another symptom of something bigger, but because i have never noticed one before i had always had a slight hope that my BB was not that bad anymore

i dont know where to turn next. this will just make me even more(if that is possible) reluctant to talk to people close up

i really cant go on with this much longer

also, i dont know if this is just a coincidence, but yesterday morning i had to go and see a doctor/specialist about something unrelated to BB. i had my blood pressure taken and it was high so i was sent for a blood test. if there are any problems with the blood test they will get in touch. this is probably nothing but it is just a bit odd how i find my first tonsil stone on the same day this happened

also, my tonsil stone was probably in when i was at the hospital and i was talking relatively close to people but never noticed any major reactions.

i think i am close to a nervous breakdown

Danger, tonsil stones dont just smell a bit, they smell REALLY strongly when crushed between your fingers. Its an unmistakable smell. If it only smelled a bit, then its not a tonsil stone, its probably a bit of food debris. When I used to have my tonsils still and before I realised where these stones were coming from, I'd cough them up regularly. The fact that you have never coughed any up makes it highly unlikely you've ever had any stones.

You need to try to meet up with a fellow sufferer or confide in someone, or have your BB analyzed by a halimeter or oral chroma test, cos the chances are good that your breath doesnt smell any worse than normal breath. You will go completely nuts otherwise.

halitosisux wrote:Danger, tonsil stones dont just smell a bit, they smell REALLY strongly when crushed between your fingers. Its an unmistakable smell. If it only smelled a bit, then its not a tonsil stone, its probably a bit of food debris. When I used to have my tonsils still and before I realised where these stones were coming from, I'd cough them up regularly. The fact that you have never coughed any up makes it highly unlikely you've ever had any stones.

You need to try to meet up with a fellow sufferer or confide in someone, or have your BB analyzed by a halimeter or oral chroma test, cos the chances are good that your breath doesnt smell any worse than normal breath. You will go completely nuts otherwise.

sux, maybe i am just going nuts but i honestly believe this was a tonsil stone.

it was a little white thing in my tonsils? which i needed to use a cotton bud to get out. if it was food debris it is a bit of a coincidence that it is small and white. like a stone

i have seen that they can smell a bit cheesy? this smell was a bit like that. it had a similar smell on my other tonsil when i pushed my finger against it but i saw no sign of any stones

i cant bring myself to ask someone i know about my breath. i would meet a fellow sufferer from here though. sux, i know you are not up for meeting which i respect. i PMd haligone months ago and i dont think he has even been on since, because he wanted to meet up with someone

if there is anybody on here who wants to meet up let me know. i am from northants area(england). i wont mind travelling a bit

Danger, when I still had my tonsils, and I used to clean them out and kept them relatively clean compared to when I first discovered that my tonsils were packed full of stones and absolutely STANK, I'd often pluck out fragments of debris which looked like stones but which hardly smelt of anything. Its not that much of a coincidence for food debris to get trapped in the crypts.

But time will tell. Believe me, the smell of a true tonsil stone is unmistakable. Its like a concentrated mothball that's been pulled out of a pile of cow's shit kind of smell.

halitosisux wrote:Danger, when I still had my tonsils, and I used to clean them out and kept them relatively clean compared to when I first discovered that my tonsils were packed full of stones and absolutely STANK, I'd often pluck out fragments of debris which looked like stones but which hardly smelt of anything. Its not that much of a coincidence for food debris to get trapped in the crypts.

But time will tell. Believe me, the smell of a true tonsil stone is unmistakable. Its like a concentrated mothball that's been pulled out of a pile of cow's shit kind of smell.

so are you saying that every tonsil stone smells that bad? i just read a post on another thread where someone said that tonsil stones can not have an odour

so are you saying that every tonsil stone smells that bad? i just read a post on another thread where someone said that tonsil stones can not have an odour

I dont know about anyone else, but my tonsil stones had a certain sort of grainy crunchy consistency, they were very distinct from ordinary debris, even the colour and the shape they grew into. I could tell a piece of debris from a stone, and it was only ever stones which smelled, never debris. Yes, every single stone I ever produced had a very distinctive and very pungent odour.

I have read somewhere that tonsil stones form from the various BB gases which condense within the tonsil crypts, that's why they smell so gross. My guess if this is actually true, is that when a person produces a certain level of BB gases, if they have tonsils with the right sized crypts, then stones form as a direct result of having BB and having the level of gases that causes them to form. I dont know if BB free people ever have tonsil stones, does anyone know?

halitosisux wrote: I have read somewhere that tonsil stones form from the various BB gases which condense within the tonsil crypts, that's why they smell so gross. My guess if this is actually true, is that when a person produces a certain level of BB gases, if they have tonsils with the right sized crypts, then stones form as a direct result of having BB and having the level of gases that causes them to form. I dont know if BB free people ever have tonsil stones, does anyone know?

My understanding is that many people without bad breath get tonsil stones. This is based upon what doctors have told me, and what the Wikipedia article on tonsilolliths says.

I can remember during the time I had my tonsils out, I asked around about tonsil stones, and not a single person I spoke to had a clue what I was talking about. I've read that people with tonsillitis produce crap from their tonsils, and this might possibly include stones. I dont trust what ENTs say anyway. Lets not forget that most people with BB are oblivious to the fact, so they may be producing stones but not realising that they have BB, so they dont correlate the two.

sux, what does a normal tonsil stone feel like? does it feel like a normal stone? because i dont see how you can crush one of them. also, how many tonsil stones did you used to get? on a daily/weekly basis

i am constantly looking into my mouth now just waiting for the next one to appear

danger wrote:sux, what does a normal tonsil stone feel like? does it feel like a normal stone? because i dont see how you can crush one of them. also, how many tonsil stones did you used to get? on a daily/weekly basis

i am constantly looking into my mouth now just waiting for the next one to appear

Get familiar with the crevices in your tonsils. Tonsil stones aren't really stone like.. they're easily crushed, but watch out, because the inside of them is the most rancid putrid part. Go ahead, crush one and smell it. Disguuuusssting.


Anyway, you can beat the developed stone to the punch by cleaning out the holes in your tonsils with a cotton swap. Every morning and evening, when I had my tonsils, I would put a cotton swab into the hidden holes which were each about a half inch deep, and it would take about 3 cotton swab heads before I could get everything out... And since I did this all the time, there usually wasn't any stone formed yet, just a slimey mucus like yellow goo, which if left undisturbed for a couple days, would begin forming into a gross ball.. Sometimes this goo would also hide in the crevice under a flap of skin back there. Anyway, I became very familiar with those areas and their structure.. Never gagged after I explored the area a couple times.


Maybe you know this much, but the tonsil stone is just all the matter that collects in the crypts of your tonsils. It packs together and rots, forming a ball of pure hate and despair. Hm.. the consistency might be akin to that of a chewed up ball of bread. So it's not that anybody 'gets' a number of these balls per day or week. It's that they're always being developed from whatever left over food, bacteria, and mucus happen to fall into the trap.

Sometimes they pop out, other times they don't.


I used to have them reeeaal bad when I was around 18 or 19.. I had no idea where they were coming from at the time, so I just made these horrible hacking actions into the sink and sometimes they would pop out. I thought they were coming from up above my uvula or in my esophagus. That's where it felt like they were coming form... but that's because once they popped out the tonsils, that's where they would end up as I recognized their presence.

I had this huge record breaker one time... I hacked like crazy, and this enormous almost marble sized beast popped out into the sick. It must had been in there for a long time, because it was green with decay, and had a little blood on it. It's like it was alien spawn.

... They used to come loose when I made out with my girlfriend too.. man, that's so sick. I never let them get into her mouth though.. Either swallowed them (ew) or .. and this is disturbing, just turned my head, hacked it out like a bullet (I had it down to an art at that point) and continued kissing.

Haha. ooh ... The trials of a BB sufferer....

My experience with my tonsils is almost identical to Mike's.
The stones are never hard, they are kinda like a hard chalky parmesan cheese clump consistency. I dont know when I first started noticing their appearance, I just assumed they were bits of food that got trapped somewhere and then released, I had no idea they were coming from my tonsils.

Before I realsed where they were coming from, I'd cough up stones about once a month or so. I guess I must have swallowed a lot of them while eating without realising.
They varied in size from a grain of rice to sweetcorn sized. When I first realised they were coming from my tonsils and tried to clean them out I used a closed pair of nail scissors to ease them out. I collected a pile of them onto a tissue, it went on for hours. I was totally convinced that night that I'd found the cause of my BB and tried to get every bit out and thought that was all I ever needed to do and that I'd never have BB again, but over the coming days I realised it wasnt gonna be that simple. New stones form in a day or so if left undisturbed. Like Mike says, if you clean them out every day, you dont really find much in the way of stones, its more of a yellowy goo that you can mop out with a cotton bud. After I had my tonsils out I never saw a stone again and never had that skanky taste/smell up the back of my nose when I moved my tongue in and out.

My ENT surgeon told me after my tonsillectomy that my tonsils were in quite bad condition and that they were packed with stones, yet the morning of my tonsillectomy, I did my utmost to clean them out and thought I had no trapped stones left in. I think my surgeon knew that all I'd done was line his pockets with £1700 and this info was just to pacify me when I eventually ended up realising that stones are only a symptom of having BB.

well here i am again

i have been finding small tonsil stones alot in the last few months whilst i have been searching around my tonsils. the biggest one i have found was last week and it stunk

i still have never coughed one up. i guess most of the time i must swallow them because i get a rotten taste in my mouth sometimes when swallowing food and drink

i have just had enough. i know it probably wont cure me but i want my tonsils out. it is my last hope. i have tried everything in the last 3 and a half years

i dont expect the NHS to do it, though i do get quite alot of sore throats. i am already preparing to go private

i have read it costs around £2500

if anybody knows any good sites for private operations where i can start the ball rolling i will be greatful