Does having your tonsils out make you sicker?

Is having your tonsils and adenoids removed when you’re a kid make you vulnerable to other diseases as an adult?  Yes, according to a very large and long-term study.  Removing tonsils relieves breathing problems or recurring throat infections, but, later in life, there’s a 300% chance of getting more upper respiratory infections such as colds and bronchitis.  If the adenoids, the glands at the roof of the mouth that are usually removed to help with chronic ear infections, are taken out, the risk of COPD doubles.  It’s recommended that these surgeries be delayed until after age 9 to give the immune system time to develop.  All of this may be true, but when kids have chronic ear infections which cripple hearing and language development and then, impair reading and writing skills, something has to happen.