Clicking Throat, Cryptic Tonsils

[drew1977]

So I am a 33 year old male, in the past I was social smoker and drinker. I occasionally when I swallow (a "dry" swallow with saliva, never with food) I have a click or a pop sound I can hear it and I can feel it on the outside of my neck, just to the right and just above my Adams apple. Along with this I have a palpable lump in the right side of my neck (it is about 4 fingers from the Adams apple and two almost three fingers down from the jaw line) it is long and skinny (about one inch long) and about 1/2 the diameter of a pencil thickness, the lump seems to move back and forth. It is usually painless (when I get sick sore throat, sinus infection, etc the lump will get larger and will be painful (about a 1 out of 10) to the touch) and is firm but not rock hard. Also my right tonsil is sort of misshaped and a little larger than my left tonsil. My right tonsil I can see holes in it and will use my fingers, popsicle sticks, etc to push on it and squeeze smelly chunks out of it. My left tonsil does not have the visible holes but if I press on it I can some times squeeze out chunks. My tonsils don't feel painful, but I am aware of them. Sometimes the click will get really bad (more often) and if I squeeze out my tonsils it will get better. Honest to goodness I have has this since 1999 (the click/pop) and I recall coughing up smelly chunks of "food" in high school '94/'95 and college '94-'99. I usually get a physical done every year or every other year along with blood work, I told a Doctor several years ago at a ready care center about the click and she was not really concerned about it (I was there for a sore throat), she did look down my throat and didn't see anything. I am completely stressed out about this, and I am terrified it might be cancer.

[drew1977]

I appreciate you helping...I'd love to come to the Maldives to get checked out.

The thing that I am most worried about is that I can feel the click and hear it separately of the normal Eustachian tube sound.  And that the lymph node has been enlarged for 12 years too, but it gets larger and smaller but it is always there and I can feel it even when I am well.

For the tonsil meddling...my right tonsil is sort of smashed, it is kind of in the shape of a figure 8, narrow in the middle and wider at the top and bottom and it also peaks out into my throat a little bit.  My left tonsil is mostly round, but it is starting to produce some stones.

Since I have had this issue for 12 years, I really need to just be brave enough to go see an ENT.  

[OHNS2010]

Hi,

Relax! There is nothing wrong in you, you are perfectly fine. The click sound is because of the opening of the ventilating tube connecting nose and the ear, it is a normal phenomenon. Secondly, the swellings in the neck are the lymphnodes, which can enlarge during infections in the throat and the mouth, they are like the policemen of our body, indicate an ongoing infection in the relevant areas. Finally, the pits over the tonsils are normal crypts of tonsils, and the cheesy material which comes out when you squeeze are nothing but the accumulated food material. Please do not meddle with tour tonsils. You do not have any cancer. You seem to worrying a lot. All the Best.

Regards
OHNS2010