Does your child have frequent attacks of sore throat, cough, cold and fever?

The commonest pediatric ailments are recurrent URTI, sore throat and ear infection.

Does your child snore at night? Does he have repeated colds and coughs? Is your child a mouth breather or does he/she drool while asleep?

Your child could be suffering from adenoid infection.

How is it best to evaluate a child prone to recurrent ENT infections? Some schools of thought recommend long term antibiotics. Some recommend early surgery. Who is right?

At our clinic an integrated approach that evaluates the child in totality is followed. A brief approach to tonsils, allergies, sinusitis and ear infection follows:

Understanding Enlarged Adenoids

So, what are adenoids? They are a mass of lymphoid tissue, located in the passage that connects the back of the nasal cavity to the throat. Adenoids — which are also called nasopharyngeal tonsils but are separate from the tonsils in the throat — filter out bacteria and viruses entering through the nose and produce antibodies to help the body fight infections.

Most doctors believe that adenoids may not be important at all after kids reach their third birthday. In fact, adenoids usually shrink after about 5 years of age, and they often practically disappear by the teenage years. They become unusually enlarged due to recurrent allergies or infections and then create symptoms. Usually the swelling is temporary, but sometimes recurrent problems may cause the swelling to be persistent and excessive.

What Are the Symptoms of Enlarged Adenoids?

You may notice that your child:

• complains of difficulty breathing through the nose
• is breathing through the mouth
• talks as if his or her nostrils are closed
• breathes noisily
• snores while sleeping
• stops breathing for a few seconds while sleeping (called sleep apnea )

To get a really close look, the doctor may even want to take one or more X-rays. For a suspected infection, the doctor may prescribe oral antibiotics.