Diet taboos for enlarged adenoids

High-sugar/high-trans-fat highly processed foods, highly irritating foods, foods that are known to cause allergies, and other taboo requirements must be judged based on your own physical constitution and disease stage. There is no unified "fasting list."

During a pediatric nutrition follow-up visit, I met a 5-year-old baby whose adenoids were 80% blocked and kept snoring while sleeping. The doctor arranged a date for surgery. The mother adjusted her diet for three months with a trial mentality, and stopped all the butter bread, fruit peel, and iced milk tea that she must eat every day. After half a year, the reexamination showed that the baby had 30% blockage and the surgery was canceled directly. This is why clinical practice now pays more and more attention to the role of diet adjustment.

Let’s first talk about the most pitfalls of high-sugar and highly processed foods. This does not mean that all sweets are off limits. It’s okay for your child to occasionally eat home-steamed steamed buns with a little sugar in them. I’m afraid he’s afraid of the ones with more than a dozen additives: such as non-dairy milk tea that costs 5 yuan a cup at the school gate, and artificial milk on birthday cakes. The trans fats and excessive added sugars in things like fried chicken tenders and French fries from fried skewers stalls, as well as colorful gummy candies and preserved fruits that children carry in their pockets can aggravate the inflammatory response throughout the body. Adenoids are originally immune organs located in the throat. Will they become swollen and larger when the inflammation is stimulated? Last month, a mother came to me and said that her baby's adenoids had almost disappeared. She attended two classmates' birthday parties in a row and ate two pieces of cake every day. When she came back, she immediately started to snore and breathe with her mouth open. It took half a month to recover.

Many people think that only spicy food is irritating. In fact, it is not the case. Too salty cured fish and bacon, freshly hot pot, stewed with a lot of spices, and even puffed potato chips that smell very fragrant. The essence and high salt in them will directly irritate the mucous membrane of the throat and adenoids. If the already swollen areas are stimulated again, it is easy to induce acute edema and make the blockage more severe. A family member of a patient in Chongqing asked me before if he could not eat hot pot at all? In fact, it’s not that serious. Order a light mandarin duck pot, stir-fry some fresh vegetables and meat, and let it warm before eating. It’s perfectly fine to eat it once a month. I’m afraid that if you eat spicy red oil pot every day, no matter how good your physique is, you won’t be able to withstand the stimulation.

There is another point where it is easiest to go to extremes: allergenic foods. When many elderly people hear that adenoids are swollen, they say that they should not eat all "foods" and stop seafood, eggs, and milk. As a result, their children cannot keep up with nutrition, their immunity is weak, and they catch colds every three days, but the adenoids cannot be cured. In fact, it’s not true. Everyone’s allergens are different. Some people are allergic to milk, some are allergic to mangoes, and some are allergic to wheat. If your child can eat it, you must either get an allergen test or keep a food diary for two weeks. Every time you snore or open your mouth to breathe after eating something, you need to avoid foods. Otherwise, there is no need to blindly fast, but you will lose the nutrients needed for growth and development.

Speaking of this, someone must want to ask, is it true that people on the Internet should avoid cold weather? This is actually a point where the views of Chinese and Western medicine differ. Chinese pediatricians generally believe that most children with enlarged adenoids have a weak spleen and stomach. Cold foods such as ice drinks, iced watermelons just taken out of the refrigerator, and iced yogurt can damage the spleen and stomach. The accumulation of phlegm and dampness in the upper respiratory tract can easily aggravate the enlarged adenoids, so it is generally recommended to eat less. ； However, the view of Western medicine is that as long as the child does not have gastrointestinal discomfort and is not allergic to such foods, it is perfectly fine to eat cold fruits at room temperature and occasionally eat ice cream, and there is no need to completely ban them. Both statements have their own clinical basis, and you can choose based on your child's situation: if your child usually has diarrhea and coughs when eating ice, then touch it less. If your child eats ice and it's fine, don't worry too much.

To be honest, among the many cases I have come into contact with, very few are really successful by completely avoiding food. On the contrary, in those cases where the control is too strict, the children always secretly buy junk food outside to eat, and the effect is even worse. In fact, you don’t need to be so harsh. As long as you stick to the three red lines just mentioned, it’s okay to eat the rest once in a while to satisfy your cravings. After all, a good mood has a great impact on immunity, right?

Of course, don’t take diet adjustment as a myth. If the adenoids have been blocked by more than 90%, or you have problems with adenoid appearance or hearing loss, you should follow the doctor’s instructions and take medication. If you have surgery, diet is only an auxiliary means of conditioning. Don’t hold on to it and delay your child’s treatment.