Radiation treatment every day for tonsillar cancer was filling his throat and mouth with sores.

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Brown reports that tonsillar stones are more annoying than worrisome, although they are occasionally associated with sore throats and bad breath.

CNN: What are those white lumps in my tonsils?

If that word looks as though it required extreme acts of tonsillar gymnastics to produce, it is because no sound or syllable is wasted in Ithkuil.

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In fact the data trends of increasing hospital activity for tonsillar problems seem to suggest that rather than performing too many tonsillectomies in the UK, we are now performing too few.

BBC: UK 'doing too few tonsil operations'

It sounds like you're describing tonsillar stones (also called tonsilloliths), which are clumps of food particles, mucus, dead tissue cells and more that can collect in the crypts found on the surface of the tonsils.

CNN: What are those white lumps in my tonsils?