Dr Phil Kieran: Should my son get his tonsils taken out?

Years ago, the bar for removing tonsils was much lower as they were seen to cause many problems and of little use to the body, but nowadays, doctors are slower to remove them. 

Every time my ten-year-old son gets an infection, it nearly always develops into tonsillitis. Sometimes, he needs an antibiotic to clear it. I got my tonsils removed around his age due to repeated chronic infections. Is this a procedure you'd recommend, or should we wait until he's older to see if he grows out of the infections?

Recurrent tonsillitis can be a real pain in the neck. The tonsils sit in the back of the throat and form part of a ring of immune tissue surrounding the upper openings of the oesophagus (food pipe) and trachea (windpipe).