How a Robust Social Media Presence Can Benefit Otolaryngologists and Their Patients

TikTok Boom: Tonsil Stones

Over the past four years, TikTok has grown into a social media engagement behemoth. By the end of 2021, the short-form video-sharing app is expected to surpass 1 billion monthly active users worldwide, approximately 80% of them under 40 years old.

Although at first blush TikTok might not seem to impact the practice of medicine in a significant way, recent evidence indicates that the contrary is true. In a report published in Ear, Nose & Throat Journal (doi:10.1177/01455613211038340), otolaryngologists Anita Sulibhavi, MD, and Glenn Isaacson, MD, in the department of otolaryngology at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University in Philadelphia, discussed the role that the social media app has played in the dramatically increased number of disproportionately female and teenage patients they’ve seen visit their clinic complaining of tonsil stones.

The physicians were mystified until one of the patient’s parents suggested that the phenomenon could be related to TikTok. After conducting a search for “tonsil stones” on several social media databases, including TikTok, they found “a plethora of videos,” viewed by millions, mostly of teenagers’ intraoral selfies showing “large tonsillar concretions or debris-filled tonsillar crypt with do-it-yourself techniques for management,” they said. The popularity of the videos was compounded by the isolation and protracted social media exposure during the COVID-19 pandemic, said the doctors, who reported that the use of those suggested remedies for tonsil stones have led to injury and unnecessary surgery.