Tonsillitis may Keep Head Turned to One Side, Torticillis

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Learned father of a five years old girl came to the out patients department complaining that his daughter was keeping her head turned to one side since two days, suggesting that she was suffering from a sprain in her neck. The girl was obviously in pain when asked to keep her face straight from a deviated position to right side, disagreeable to be touched at the neck. On inquiry, she said that there was pain during swallowing of food. When asked to open her mouth, she reluctantly did so. The tonsils of both sides are swollen and angry looking; but the left side was more so. The examination finished there only. It was thought, not to put the girl to further discomfort. She was suffering from tonsillitis.
Many think that once one painfully keeps the head turned to one side, must be suffering from a sprain, called torticollis.
The commonest cause of torticollis in children is tonsillitis, many times misdiagnosed as sprain in neck. Tonsillitis, most often is due to viral infection to be followed by a bacterial, streptococcal infection. It has to be found out from a swab culture of throat. Antibacterial treatment, a full course is recommended in case of bacterial infection. Oral hygiene is to be taken care of.
Before advent of good antibiotics, tonsillitis was becoming chronic leading to rheumatic disease of joints and thereafter affecting heart with serious illness. Now-a-days, that has decreased.