Home remedies · Throat, pharynx & cough
No home remedy here replaces treatment, and none is talked down. What has done good for generations does good — even if no one ever measured it. Where something is well studied, it says so. Where it is only experience, it says that too.
Gargle with lukewarm water, then gently stroke a moistened cotton bud upwards over the tonsil crypt.
Tonsil stones are compacted cell debris in the folds of the tonsil. They sit loosely and can be dislodged — the smell goes with them.
They come back as long as the crypts are there. That is not a failure of care.
Do not poke with sharp objects and do not use a pressure jet — the tonsil injures easily and bleeds. A firm, one-sided swelling lasting weeks is something else and needs examining.
Get seen at once: severe one-sided pain with high fever, trouble swallowing your own saliva, a muffled voice or breathlessness. Likewise hoarseness lasting beyond three weeks, and coughing blood. In children also drooling and sitting with the chin pushed forward.