A 34-year-old father died just days after complaining of swollen tonsils.
Mark Bramley suffered from a sore throat during his three-day trip to Amsterdam in March, spending most of the vacation in bed. He was on vacation with his fiancee, Charley Miller, 26.
Bramley returned home and on March 15, just days after initially complaining of the affliction, was found unconscious by his wife-to-be on their kitchen floor.
She called emergency services and attempted to perform CPR. Bramley was rushed to the hospital but his life support machine was switched off the next day, reported Nottinghamshire Live.
“He suffers with a bad throat a lot but the doctors would not take out his tonsils. We came home and I found him unconscious in the kitchen,” Miller told the outlet.
Posted by Mark Bramley on Tuesday, September 17, 2013
Posted by Mark Bramley on Wednesday, June 18, 2014
“It was very sudden. We have not got a cause of death yet but we think what has happened is his throat has swelled that much it has stopped the oxygen and he could not breathe,” she added.
She said that Bramley tried taking paracetamol but that it didn’t really help.
A charity soccer match is now scheduled for May 26 to raise money for the 11-month-old daughter that Bramley leaves behind.
A fundraiser on JustGiving, a website popular in the United Kingdom for raising money, similar to GoFundMe, has raised over 2,100 pounds ($2,727).
According to Health Line, tonsillitis complications can happen if the condition isn’t treated.
“People who experience chronic tonsillitis may start to experience obstructive sleep apnea. This happens when the airway swells and prevents a person from sleeping well. It’s also possible the infection will worsen and spread to other areas of the body. This is known as tonsillar cellulitis,” it stated.
“The infection can also cause a person to develop a buildup of pus behind the tonsils, which is known as peritonsillar abscess. This can require drainage and more surgery. If a person doesn’t take a full course of antibiotics or the antibiotics don’t kill off the bacteria, it’s possible a person could develop complications. These include rheumatic fever and poststreptococcal glomerulonephritis.”
Additionally, swollen tonsils can cause difficulty breathing.
If left untreated, the tonsillitis can also spread to the area behind the tonsils or the surrounding tissue.
Family’s heartbreak as student dies just days after being diagnosed with tonsillitis https://t.co/tZ3u4qyIOh pic.twitter.com/335QKn8AoN
— Daily Mirror (@DailyMirror) February 25, 2016
Similar Case
A similar case arose in February 2016, also in the United Kingdom.
Chelsea Jackson, 20, got a sore throat shortly after Christmas the previous year. She was diagnosed with tonsillitis and given antibioitics but her health worsened and she ended up in the ICU at a hospital.
Jackson couldn’t eat or swallow and her eyes turned yellow as she struggled to breathe, reported the Mirror.
Doctors finally diagnosed Hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis (HLH), a rare life-threatening immune condition that causes organ failure, saying it was likely triggered by the tonsillitis. She died shortly thereafter.
“We had no idea how serious things were about to get, tonsillitis is a common illness and everyone normally recovers but her body wasn’t responding to the medication,” mother Nicki Jackson said.
“Doctors initially thought she might have glandular fever after a lump was found on her neck before Christmas, so we assumed it would take a while before she was well again. No-one expected her to die, it was awful having to say our goodbyes, it was way too soon and she had so much life left to give.”
