My tonsils have been swollen for months. They have small things on them that were originally white and now look more like scars. There is a new white one, though. The whole back of my throat is red, but it doesn t hurt, and really, the tonsils aren t causing any problems, it s just that it won t go away. At one point they were so swollen that I had to go to the emergency room to get a steroid shot.