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Some people I know would never eat anything cold during tonsillitis, because they think ice cream can worsen it (some others are afraid ice cream could cause it, when ice cream is eaten with a cold outside temperature, and some others - Get Rid of Summer Tonsillitis - are afraid ice cream could cause it when eaten during a very warm weather, but both of this is probably out of the scope of this question).

Some other claim eating cold food like ice cream can relieve symptoms and some other claim it can even help curing the tonsillitis.

Does ice cream help relieving tonsillitis symptoms or even help curing the tonsillitis (reducing the tonsillitis duration)?

Suma
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    Cold can help with swelling in other contexts, no? So if some of the discomfort is attributable to swelling... Though I supposed that you'd have to eat unreasonable amounts of ice cream to keep it up. – dmckee --- ex-moderator kitten Feb 02 '12 at 19:59
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    I always assumed eating ice cream during tonsillitis was because it was easy to eat and cheered up the sufferer. – DJClayworth Feb 02 '12 at 20:05
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    @dmckee, according to the first aid course I went on recently, research has shown that cold doesn't help with swelling - only with comfort. I'd like to see the research done on this... – Highly Irregular Feb 02 '12 at 21:41
  • @HighlyIrregular Really? *::sigh::* I wish the physiologists would settle these questions, give us some definitive answers and be done with it. They've changed their tune on stretching as part of an exercises program several times in the last couple of decades. Now this. – dmckee --- ex-moderator kitten Feb 02 '12 at 21:44
  • @dmckee, really! It's a great question to have in the Skeptics site on SE... I've added it here: http://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/7816/does-putting-an-ice-pack-on-an-injury-reduce-swelling – Highly Irregular Feb 02 '12 at 21:48
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    The reason `they think it can cause it` is unlogical, if they already have it. And there are billions of people who consume ice cream without getting ill - surely this is a well known fact. – user unknown Feb 08 '12 at 04:11
  • @userunknown You are correct, I attempted to improve it. As for the general lack of the references for the claim, this is hard for me. All the claims are claims I generally and frequently hear told by parents to their children, but I was unable to find any significant online references other than discussion forums. – Suma May 14 '12 at 11:01
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    @dmckee - I like your excuse... erm plan of eating an unreasonable amount of ice cream to relieve the swelling! – Chad Dec 23 '13 at 15:46

1 Answers1

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You asked at just the right time. New research has just been published to help settle this age-old question.

The conclusion they reach is clear:

Our data suggest that ice-lollies are a cheap, effective and safe method of reducing postoperative pain up to one hour following paediatric tonsillectomy.

They based this conclusion on a sample of 92 patients, aged 2-12, about half of which were randomly given ice-lollies as treatment, and having nurses do several pain assessments over a period of 4 hours.

The pain score at every time interval was lower in the group that had received the ice-lolly compared with the group that had not. This was statistically significant at 30 (P = 0.008) and 60 min (P = 0.049).

There are two factors I would love to learn more about with this prospective study.

1) Were the "blinded" nurses taking the pain scores the same nurses responsible for cleaning up the ice-cream off the faces of the smaller children?

2) Were the children who did NOT receive ice-lollies familiar with the standard protocol (i.e. tonsillitis = lots of ice-cream)? Was there a nocebo effect, where the control group were upset about the lack of expected ice-cream?

Oddthinking
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    Note: This is about post-operative care, not during the symptoms of tonsillitis. – Oddthinking Feb 07 '12 at 05:27
  • giving children treats will make them feel better, whether it's physiological or psychological doesn't matter :) Not sure about now, but when I was that age all kids had their tonsils removed as a preventative measure, the hospital always kept ice lollies in stock for the purpose. – jwenting Feb 07 '12 at 06:45
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    While interesting, tonsillectomy is not the same thing as tonsillitis, I am afraid. – Suma Feb 07 '12 at 06:56
  • tonsillectomy is the removal of the tonsils, nowadays usually only performed as a remedy for tonsillitis. In the past, it was (as on me in the 1970s) performed as a preventative for tonsillitis on young children, for which I'm glad seeing as to what adults who had to have the procedure performed had to suffer. – jwenting Feb 07 '12 at 12:23
  • But it is an extreme remedy, used only in chronic / frequently repeated cases, not a part of normal treatment. Normally the tonsillitis is treated by antibiotics. – Suma Feb 08 '12 at 08:26
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    Keep in mind... "ice-lollies" are not the same as "ice-cream". Most "ice-lollies" are not even dairy based. They are more commonly some fruit flavored water-based concoction. I can't find any reference in the *type* of ice-lolly in the article. – TheCompWiz Feb 10 '12 at 17:17
  • @TheCompWiz as the soothing effect is partly the temperature of the treat and partly psychological (maybe partly the act of sucking as well), the ingredients don't probably matter much if at all. – jwenting Dec 23 '13 at 06:36
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    In other words, one control group should have been given non-cold sweets to suck on, another should have been given unflavoured ice lollies, and another ice cream to be eaten with a spoon, to distinguish three different possible causes (sweets, sucking, and coldness). – Sebastian Redl Mar 17 '16 at 11:01