RECOVERY AFTER TONSILLECTOMY IN ADULTS

Billy · Site Admin Joined: 23 Jul 2005 Posts: 303

Recovery after tonsillectomy in adults may be a though time. Share your experience with the others in the same boat.

This thread is an extension of the
POST TONSILLECTOMY SURGERY AND ACUTE EAR ACHES
thread. Please continue posting within this thread.

Guest · Guest

Hi... Im 21 year old female scheduled to have my tonsils out in 4 weeks. Im beyond nervous. Never had surgery at all in my life. So needless to say Im very scared. I took off 14 days from work so I hope this will be enough time. I keep reading everyones reaction and its all so horrible. I wish someone would write something positive lol.

36 year old female · Newbie Joined: 08 Jun 2007 Posts: 6

On my 3 week anniversary post op.. I finally feel less like a patient and more like a person. I only have to take my pain meds about 3 times a day vs every two to four hrs..
There is light at the end of the tunnel but this was a brutal ride!
Still eating minimal food. Lost 12 pounds, hoping to eat soon! Smile

Guest · Guest

Guest · Guest

I'm 21 years old and had my tonsils taken out last monday...one week from today. Needless to say, it is a painful procedure, but it's not as bad as everyone had told me it was going to be. The first couple of days after the surgury I was in minimal pain(with the help of loratab), and was able to drink and eat liquid or soft foods. The third, fourth, and fifth day were by far the worst for me. That's when my throat started to heal and scab over, and the pain was pretty horrible. I also became extremely nauseated because of the taste in my mouth caused from the scabs, coughing up the scabs, lack of food in my stomach, and the amount of painkillers I'd eaten. I'm doing much better now though, except for constantly feeling like i have a big rock stuck in my throat, and the small amount of pain that's left over. The scab is the worst part to me...it just makes me sick. I'm thinking I should be able to eat normallly again by the end of the week. All in all, it wasn't too terrible of experience. I've been in worse pain. It's different for everyone, though. My only advice is to stay hydrated, and prepare for the worst, but hope for the best. Good luck!

guestintheuk · Newbie Joined: 27 Jun 2007 Posts: 3

i'm a 32 year old female who is 20 days post op and all i can say is what a nightmare! on day 8 i ended up back in hospital cos i was bleeding and coughing up huge blood clots, i ended up with a drip as i couldn't eat or drink and was on morphine drip to numb the pain. After 5 days in hospital i was finally allowed home but have since developed oral thrush due to all the antibiotics the hospital had me on. i've lost 12 lbs and still can't eat due to the pain from my throat and the oral thrush! i'm feeling pretty down and praying there is light at the end of the tunnel!

mandymae · Newbie Joined: 28 Jun 2007 Posts: 1

I am 21 and on day 6 of recovery. I found it kindof funny because I started reading these posts a few days before my surgery...and my thoughts were sooo similar to everyone else's. I had never had anything done before and I was really scared. The surgery went really fast, and at my hospital they make you stay overnight. For that day the pain meds in my IV hurt more than anything. They just give you pudding and make sure you pee. Smile

Once I got home I found it hard to rest. As long as I took my pain meds every 3 hours it really wasn't too bad. For the past two days my neck and ears have hurt and nothing seems to help too much. The heating pad has been my savior for the past week, and chewing gum is ok. I mainly just drink lots of ice water...and I'm slowly adding foods like mac and cheese and mashed potatoes. I am gradually weaning off the meds. I have lost a few pounds...but I am craving pizza and barbeque so badly that I will gain it back as soon as I can eat normally. I have found that fried chicken in little pieces without the skin is pretty good. You have to eat some protein because I being so hungry is making me feel more week than the pain. I just wanted to write in because some people's horror stories were freaking me out! So far it's not too bad and I haven't had any bleeding...but the scabs are slowly starting to come off. This will be so worth it because my frequent tonsillitis hurt SO bad! My advice is drink ice water and find some good dvd's!

Guest · Guest

Hi - I am a 47 Year old Male who had my tonsils removed 11 - days ago.
first 5 - days were relativly easy the main thing you need to do is make sure that you keep yourself very well hydrated. I drank between 3 - quarts to 1 - gallon of ice water each day. If you do this you will not experience any of the horror stories you have been reading about.

I too read these stories and even cancelled the operation once due to what I both read and heard from people. If you stay well hydrated you hopefully will have the same experience that I have had.

I was able to eat soft foods right away and the past 3 - day have eaten hot dogs and today a pot pie.

Also I was able to discontinue the pain medications after 7 - days. Since then I have only used tylenol as needed twice daily at this point.

Good Luck and remember drink, drink, drink.

36 year old female · Newbie Joined: 08 Jun 2007 Posts: 6

Reading through these post it becomes quite obvious that the old adage is true that this surgery is harder on you the older you get. With few exceptions it is the 25 and under crowd that breeze right through this surgery.
I have had two children and horrid labor and would do it ten times over than go through the last 5-6 weeks.
Who knows if the super hydration method would have lessened the pain but even water was excrutiating to get down. I could only do ice chips for nearly 3 weeks! I was on pain meds into week 5! I am going into week 6 and while the pain is mostly gone I have lost some sense of taste . As odd as it sounds I am also dealing with learning to speak a little differently. The best way of describing it is like I am attempting to speak with a spoonful of peanut butter stuck to the roof of my mouth. When I drink liquids, it tends to ride up into the nasal passages. I wish I had been aware of these after effects prior to the surgery. I may have deceided against it.

Guest · Guest

i'm 16 years old and i had my tonsilectomy on tuesday. The day right before the 4th of July. Ugh. I think I made myself more nervous the I should have been to have my tonsils out. I thought i was going to die in pain but actually, it wasn't even really that bad at all. I'm on day 5 of the healing process and on a scale of 1-10 the pain is about a 1. The highest the pain has ever been is about a 4 or 5. Now, I have white mucusy stuff trying to heal it, and its coming along just fine. Everyday i see more and more of that white stuff going away. I still can't eat REGULAR everyday food. I eat campbells soup at hand soup. lol. Cream of Broccoli and Chicken and stars. This is exactly how it goes if anyone wants to know:

Day 1: [surgery goes as follows]

you go to the out patient center in your local hospital. There they will go over your medical with you and such.

Then a nurse will take you into a patient waiting room for surgery and make you get completly naked under a johny. They ask you to get completly naked because of the germs on your clothes. They will offer you socks because the O.R is cold.

When the anestiseologist is ready, they will roll you down to them. He or she will set you up with the needle. 99.9% of the time they put the needle where the blood work is taken from. They spray your arm with a freezing numbing spray and then they stick you with the needle. In my opinion, blood work and IV's are the same thing, pain wise. The won't put the medicine in until you are in the O.R. The only thing you will receive through that IV is a water substence.

When you are in the O.R they will put a cap over your head so no loose hair gets in the way and the germs remain away. They hook your IV up to morphene or some kind of pain medication that will make you very sleepy. They will give you oxygen to maintain your breathing. In no less then 2 seconds you will fall asleep and they will begin the surgery.

After the surgery is done you will wake up in the recovery room. By your side is a nurse that will see how you are doing. In recovery there is 1 nurse to every patient. Your vision might be a little blurry due to the intake of the medication. But that gets better in about 2 minutes.

From there they will give you jello, popsicles, and possibley a ginger ale.

After the medication wares off they will send you home.

The operation is probley about 20-30 minutes long.

Your doctor, whom operated will perscribe a medicine with codine in it. Thats for the pain. She will also perscribe amoxacilin to help the healing process and prevent infection.
____________________________________________________________
My experience:

The first day, i suggest you stay home and rest. Take an ice pack to your throat and drink lots of gatorade, water, broth, ice tea. But nothing with an acid base in it. Restrain from solid food. You don't want to start bleeding. When you sleep at night. Sleep with your head elevated on two or three pillows or sleep in a reclining chair. This helps prevent swelling and pain. The first night you wont be able to sleep. You need to wake up about every 30-1 hour to drink something to keep your throat very moist. Also, take your medication as perscribed. The pain medication is very icky tasting so i suggest to have a bottle of water handy to help it go down. The first couple of days, you wont want to drink anything because it hurts. BUT DRINK AS MUCH AS YOU CAN. you're throat is going to heal and the reason they say to keep you're throat very moist is because as it heals, it scabs. You don't want to have an occurence of a thick scab. So you need to keep the scab as thin as possible. So when the scab is ready to fall off, it does so with little or no bleeding. I say remain doing all the above things for about a week.

After a week, your solid to eat normal everyday foods. You can no longer hurt nothing back there if you do. You will find that every night it gets a little better for you and you can get more and more sleep.

The older you are getting them out, the more it will hurt. But the pain for me isn't that bad at all. Resume normal activity within a week after surgery to refrain from damaging your throat.

RECOVERY AFTER TONSILLECTOMY IN ADULTS

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