Des: Glad to hear you're ok. Tonsillar abscesses can be impressive, and dangerous. Most of the time tonsils have atrophied enough that they pose no problems as adults. When I was doing my Comprehensive Dentistry residency in the Army, I was called late one evening from the ER to come in and treat a tonsillar abscess. I told them "no thanks", that is an ENT doctors bailiwick. I told them that as the oral surgery resident on call, my jurisdiction ended at the tonsillar pillars. Turns out that the only reason I was called was the ENT doctor didn't want to get out of bed to go to ER. Needless to say, he got called out on the carpet and had to go in anyway. I knew I didn't want any part of "Big Red", the arteries in the back of the throat.
THe moral of the story is, don't be afraid to get a second opinion and see the specialist.
Tim Pivonka