A lump in the back of your throat can be an indication of many problems and illnesses. In most cases it would suggest you have swollen glands or swollen tonsils which could mean a cold, tonsillitis, strep throat or any other throat infection. However, when you have any of these illnesses, the lumps in your throat are usually accompanied by other symptoms such as a fever, exhaustion, nausea or a stuffed up nose.

If you feel lumps in your throat but don't have any of the other illnesses then there is a chance that you have tonsiloliths.

Tonsiloliths, also called tonsil stones, is not a serious infection. In fact, it's not an infection at all. It is simply the formation of stone-like white balls of disgusting food, bacteria and mouth debris that get stuck in the back of your throat and in your tonsil crypts. They can cause a lump in your throat, a coughing and chronic bad breath.

At this point you may be wishing it were tonsillitis or some other sort of serious infection. However, in reality, tonsiloliths are not that bad.

Sure, you have to deal with bad breath but there are ways to get rid of the tonsil stones and prevent them from coming back. And, when it comes to dealing with tonsil stones, you don't have to swallow any antibiotics or take disgusting cough and cold medicine.

Instead, to get rid of these stones, you need to dig, scrape, soak, gargle and cough them out. You can do this by using some sort of scraping tool such as a toothpick or a cotton swap and digging at the white lumps until they eventually let go of your tonsils and come free.

You can also try to soak them away by using a syringe or some other sort of squirting device. Fill the device with warm salt water and spray away. Or, you can also try gargling with salt water which can loosen the debris up. Finally, many people find it easiest to simply cough the little balls up. If you can contract your throat you may be able to squeeze them out of place.

In really bad scenarios you can also undergo laser tonsil surgery which will flatten your tonsils out so that the lump in your throat has no place to form, or hide. You may also have your tonsils completely removed; however, in most cases this expensive surgery can be avoided simply by following a good oral hygiene routine. Flossing, rinsing and brushing twice a day will keep the tonsiloliths away. Now if only you could do something about that recurrent cold.