A Tonsil stone is a piece of calcareous material which accumulates in the rear of the mouth, in the tonsillar crypts of the palatine tonsils or simply referred to as tonsils.
It is also known as tonsillar debris, sneeze nugget, calculus of the tonsil or tonsillolith.
This is the result when dead white blood cells, bad bacteria in the mouth, fungi such as Leptothrix buccalis and overactive salivary gland get jumbled up together and become a white or yellowish rock-hard lump that tastes horrible and smells terrible.
When you have a Tonsil stone, it feels like there is a foreign matter, stuck between the outside wisdom tooth and the temporomandibular joint region of the jaw.
This is quite irritating and is one cause of bad breath and chronic tonsillitis.
It is made of calcium salts alone such as calcium carbonate apatite, oxalates and other magnesium salts or containing ammonium radicals or sometimes along with other mineral salts.
It usually occurs in adults than in children.
It also manifests in young adolescents.
Common symptoms are sore throat, cough, painful swallowing, ear pain, terrible taste in the back of the throat, and halitosis.
It can be manually removed or through surgical treatment such as tonsillectomy, ear curette, or laser cryptolysis.
However, this can be prevented by gargling with salt water, no alcohol and no sugar based mouthwash, or cider vinegar.
Simply put, since saliva has digestive enzymes, the food that are trapped begin to breakdown and the food starch melts away forming a harder remains of food in the palatine tonsils which is called a Tonsil stone.