How to beat painful stones that can form in your body: Experts reveal how they can be the true cause of everything from unexplained weight loss and stuffy noses to bad breath and agony during sex By Julie Cook Published: 07:03 EDT, 8 August 2024 | Updated: 07:08 EDT, 8 August 2024 e-mail View comments Sarah Gold was in her 20s when she first noticed strange white deposits appearing in her mouth. ‘I thought they were old bits of food,’ she says. ‘But then they’d start appearing even if I hadn’t been eating.
’ The fragments - although painless - seemed to come from her throat, where she could feel something that often made her gag. ‘It was annoying and I could sense something there when I talked,’ says Sarah, 39, an aspiring photographer and photobooth business owner who lives in the New Forest. Finally, after three months, Sarah Gold saw her GP, who 'looked in my mouth and diagnosed tonsil stones' Thinking they were bits of food, Sarah would try to swallow them or spit them out.
‘But this was hard to do – I had to cough or make a strange noise to get them out,’ she says. ‘And after some time, they would be back again – they were tiny, but definitely visible.’ Finally, after three months, Sarah saw her GP, who ‘looked in my mouth and diagnosed tonsil stones,’ she says.
‘I’d only ever heard of kidney stones - I had no idea stones could form in your mouth.’ Tonsil stones are small hardened balls of debris and bacteria that accumulate on tonsil.