Dr. Travis Stork: If you and your children have ever suffered from tonsillitis, you know how painful and debilitating it can be and you're not alone. A lot of people are afraid of tonsillectomy because they require weeks of recovery time and you drastically have to limit your diet. But now a new laser procedure is making your grandfather's tonsillectomy a thing of the past.
Jamie: I first started having problems with tonsillitis when I was young. I would get frequent infections, sometimes three and four times a year. It was really painful. After 25 years of having problems with my throat, my tonsils officially have their notice of infection. Feeling very nervous today, I really don't know what to expect as far as pain goes.
Dr. Craig Schwimmer: So today we're going to do the laser tonsillectomy. We're going to treat those tonsil stones. So the topical Pontocaine, it's a numbing agent. You can see moderately enlarged tonsils on both sides. We're looking at the left tonsil here and it's actually a little stone, a little white spot right there. What we're going to do is we're just going to resurface that tonsil so that it's smaller and smoother. You won't be able to see the tonsil over here, it's probably half the size than it was. So the concept, we reduce their size by about 50% and that work surface has been resurfaced. So it's smooth. We're all done.
Jamie: Yeah?
Dr. Craig Schwimmer: We are all done.
Jamie: Oh, my gosh.
Dr. Craig Schwimmer: Yeah, you do great.
Dr. Travis Stork: Jamie is here along with Dr. Craig Schwimmer. He is the Medical Director from The Snoring Center in Dallas, Texas. Welcome to both of you.
Jamie: Thank you.
Dr. Craig Schwimmer: Thank you.
Dr. Travis Stork: So it's funny because we all talk about tonsil and tonsillectomy, but most people don't even know in the world what tonsils do.
Dr. Craig Schwimmer: Right. Tonsils are the little lumps of tissue in the back of the throat on either side of the tongue. They are actually part of the immune system. They are like little antibody factories. So when people have frequent infections, those factories enlarge. They increase production and they swell and they get bigger. One of the problems can be that when those tonsils are chronically infected, they get a really rough surface. They can accumulate food particles and skin and that can accumulate in those crypts as we call them and be very problematic for patients.
Dr. Drew Ordon: Especially for adults.
Dr. Craig Schwimmer: Exactly.
Dr. Drew Ordon: Because as we get bigger, the tonsils are bigger. You may not have them removed as a child, but as adults they can collect all that stuff and bad breath.
Dr. Craig Schwimmer: Exactly. So they can cause irritation, bad breath and they are really troublesome to patients. The problem has always been as you know a traditional tonsillectomy is a horrible thing to endure. So it solves the problem, but sometimes the cure is worse than the disease.
Dr. Travis Stork: Well, Drew is just talking because Drew has trained as an ear and nose and throat doctor. You would know how difficult they used to be.
Dr. Drew Ordon: For doing a tonsillectomy on adults, I mean it was big deal and we talked about that a little bit and it was a great way to lose weight, because you couldn't eat for a couple of weeks after surgery and had to get them on really strong medications.
Dr. Travis Stork: You are calling that a great way to lose weight?
Dr. Drew Ordon: If you want to lose weight, doing a tonsillectomy on adult will do it.
Dr. Craig Schwimmer: My standard preop instructions for an adult tonsillectomy patients were, you'll come in, you'll go home, you spend the next two weeks at home on the couch thinking on ways to hurt me back.
Dr. Travis Stork: Jamie clearly doesn't need to lose any weight but walk us through what happens in a tonsillectomy.
Dr. Craig Schwimmer: So in a traditional tonsillectomy, what we do is we take the patient to the operating room, put them to sleep. Then actually grab the tonsil and pull it towards the middle and take an electrocautery device and sort of cut and burn it out from its capsule. The reason that it hurts so much is that what we're cutting it out off is muscle and so we cut into that muscle. So after the operation, the patient has a raw muscular surface in the back of the throat that they've got to swallow through while it heals. It's just a terribly painful two week recovery.
Dr. Drew Ordon: We know what a bad sore throat is like, this is a real bad sore throat.
Dr. Craig Schwimmer: Yeah, it's terrible.
Dr. Travis Stork: That's where lasers come in and take it.
Dr. Craig Schwimmer: Absolutely. What we did was a subtotal laser tonsillectomy. So we did not remove her tonsils. All we did was use a very sophisticated carbon-dioxide laser in the office to reduce the surface of the tonsil. We kind of vaporize the outer surface sequentially. So we made them an awful lot smaller, that's 50% smaller and smoothed the surface. So we solved the problem.
Dr. Drew Ordon: -- those crypts.
Dr. Craig Schwimmer: Exactly.
Dr. Drew Ordon: They were the source of infection, particles, bad breath.
Dr. Craig Schwimmer: Exactly, because the core is that outer mantle that's chronically infected. So if you remove that, you solve the problem without getting into the muscle and getting into the pain.
Dr. Drew Ordon: Sort of like a skin resurfacing which we do with CO2.
Dr. Craig Schwimmer: That's exactly right.
Dr. Drew Ordon: Okay.
Dr. Craig Schwimmer: Same principle.
Dr. Travis Stork: Jamie, can we ask a favor? Would you mind if we all look at your tonsils.
Dr. Drew Ordon: We really want to see those tonsils.
Jamie: Oh, my god.
Dr. Travis Stork: Let's take a quick look at her tonsils now. While you're doing that, explain to us who might be a good candidate for this procedure.
Dr. Craig Schwimmer: So this is a procedure for adults. We don't do this on kids, because we do this in the office with the patient awake and Jamie has spent a total of about 20, 25 minutes in the office, something like that.
Dr. Travis Stork: Jamie, you are feeling better now?
Jamie: I feel a lot better, yeah.
Dr. Travis Stork: Great.
Dr. Craig Schwimmer: So we'll take a look and her tonsils now, open for me Jamie please. I am just going to touch this against the side wall here. Her tonsils are now about 50% the size that they were and remember she is only six days out. So she is still swollen and her tonsils --
Dr. Travis Stork: And what you're looking out in the middle there is the uvula and then on either side, those two big lumps of tissue that Dr.Schwimmer is pointing right now, that's the tonsil on one side and that's the tonsil on the other side in the back of her mouth.
Dr. Drew Ordon: And it's a little white as a reaction to the laser treatment.
Dr. Craig Schwimmer: Exactly. That's the normal healing process. These will reduce in size by another 10% or 15%. They are currently about 50% of the size that we started with.
Dr. Travis Stork: Fantastic. Exciting new technology and Jamie, we're glad you're feeling better. Thanks for being with us.
Female Speaker: Thank you so much.
Transcription by:
Scribe4you Transcription Services