adult post tonsillectomy & adenoidectomy, what to expect

About 14 days after getting my tonsils out all I can taste is METAL! It is horrible. The worst thing ever, like a mouth full of pennies. It is the worst when I drink! Anyone who can tell me when this will go away would be really helpful. I mean the pain just started to be tollerable and now I dont want to eat copper!

Whew - I made it through day 1! Now i am expecting my pain level to get worse - expect the worse; hope for the best! Day 1 wasn't bad - sounded really bad when I did talk - but that is slightly better this morning. I read this entire board and there are some real troopers out here! :-D

I am 1 week post tonsillectomy, 30yr old male. I had the doctor use the coblation method...hardly any pain, I was eating mac & cheese and scrambled eggs the same day. I was off of pain meds in less than 3 days, back to work in 5. This procedure is worth it, but you have to find a doctor who is willing to work with the hospital/insurance co., because it apparently costs about $150 more to do it this way. Anyway, 1 week post-op, I just have this nasty taste in my mouth from the scabs, but even with a weak stomach folks, this hasn't been bad at all.

I'm about 2 months post and still having light face, jaw and teeth pain. Has anyone experience this??

I'm scheduled to have a tonsillectomy on monday and the doctor told me that afterwards your breath will smell really foul for about 2-3 weeks (until scabs fall off). Did any of you experience this? If so, was there something you used to help?

I am 3 days shy of 1 month out of surgery.... the pain is completely gone, but my tongue still has hard "nodes" in it and I have no recognizable(?) sense of taste... everything "tastes" nasty... it's like having a penny stuck in my cheek... it is almost unthinkable... I still wont eat any of my favorite foods for fear of ruining the mental taste forever..... I dont want to associate the nasty taste with my favorite foods, so I'll keep putting off until I have all senses return. How long did you experience lost of taste or numbness in your tongue? I know not all people experience the same symptoms, but there are alot of similarities out there.....

BTW my Doc told me to be watchful, sometimes the lil darlings grow back... I told him that if they grow back, it is GODs way of telling me that they realy are needed in there and to leave them alone, I will never go through this again, he simply laughed... I find no humor in this.
So far this is my first month without strep throat, no tonsillitis or tonsil liths for over 2 years.... a whole month without.... Perhaps worth it in the long run!!!

Best wishes and tons of strength prayed to all currently going through this and those yet to endure.....
If you have someone in your church that can give you blessings, PARTAKE... before surgery and about a week into healing, it does make a difference......

I am 21 and am going through my 4th severe bout of what my doctor has put on my doc certificate as Pharangitis this year. Only this time i have had the pain (but never much swelling) and fever and now a horible dry cough with the c**p in my nose and throat on and off every 2 weeks for almost 3 months now. I am deathly scared of needles and still cant mannage to swallow tablets. So i have been on course after course of liquid amoxicillin but seems that once i finish the bottle it all comes back.

I am starting to fear that my doctor may be a little incompitent as my mum and i have noticed a problem with getting the horrible puss forming in my tonsills since i was roughly 11 (and i dont think this has ever gone away) and lately when i mention getting my tonsils out he ignores me.

I am going to try the other doctor at the surgery this weekend, but if i have no luck does anyone know how i can go about seeing a specialist? I am just so over falling asleep at work due to fatigue and the pain shooting from my tonsills into my ears EVERY time i swallow, even the anesthetic strepsils arent working anymore..?!

I live in Sydney Australia if anyone knows any good specialists?

Dear God, someone reasure me that I will be ok. I am having my tonsils removed on Nov. 7th, and scared out of my mind. I work two jobs a single mother of 3 and I can't be out of work for 2 weeks. I am taking 3 days off, should it be the first three?? or should I wait and take the middle. Will this affect my singing voice? Also like on of the others, can I have whole pills? I have bipolar issue and have to take meds to keep my chemical embalance in the brain on track. Any comments are more than appreciated. :cry:

Day 4 on recovery...I had mine pulled out a week after my 28th b-day %-) ..pain hasn't been too bad. Mainly earaches and a little bit when I try to swallow. Dr. gave me hydrocodone and tylenol, which worked pretty good until I developed an allergic reaction to the hydrocodone (itching). Now I rotate it in after two doses of codine. Using an ice pack helps too. The biggest problems I've had is I make a lot of saliva now, and it's really thick. It makes it kind of hard to swallow, and I have been carrying a spit cup with me. It also has some phlegm with it. Also, it feels like stuff just sits in the back of my throat and won't swallow down.

After reading some of these posts, I'll take these problems :O . Good luck to some of you... :-)

Dear, I hate to tell you this, but three days off almost certainly won't be near enough. I had mine done two days ago (Thursday 10/25) and I know there is no way I could have gone to work yesterday or today. And I haven't even gotten to the stage where the scabs start to loosen up and the pain worsens. I deliberately scheduled two weeks off of work.



I don't know the answer on your singing voice, sorry.



On the meds for your BP, you might want to talk with your psychiatrist about whether there are liquid equivalents you can take for a couple weeks, or other alternatives to having to swallow whole pills. Editing to add: And you should probably talk with your pdoc about possible interactions between your BP meds and the pain meds you will be on - which will probably be something like Vicodin, Lortab or Percocet. (the pain meds themselves are a reason for not going to work)



Hang in there, it will be ok.

I must admit that I looked at this site before having my tonsils removed and it scared me to death. My reasoning for having them removed was the constant recurrance of severe tonsilitis. I had them removed on Thursday October 25th and I am now 3 days post op. Honestly I have not had these horrible things happen to me as previously posted. Yes my throat is sore, but it feels no worse than a bad case of tonsilitis. And to be exact, it isnt even as bad because this is just a wound healing. When I would have tonsilitis or strep throat my body would be sick (fever, aches, pains, weakness) and this is nothing like that. I'm not saying that it doesnt hurt, but with the pain meds my doctor gave me it is not difficult to put up with. I feel bad for the people that have had bad experiences with this. For me, I was terrified of going into surgery. I wasnt so much worried about the recovery. However, I went in to have it done and everyone was so nice. They immediately gave me something to relax me, and from that moment on I was completely relaxed about the whole procedure. All I remember is waking up in recovery, and not feeling any pain because they were giving me meds through my IV.



I began eating foods like scrambled eggs and pasta with butter yesterday because I was just so hungry! As long as I took very small bites I found that it didnt hurt bad. In fact, i think the nourishment is making me heal faster. I still cannot wait to dig into a huge pizza once I am recovered though!



As for the scabs and the foul smelling breath, its really not that bad. The first night I did wake up with a "metal" taste in my mouth and I panicked thinking it was blood, but it wasn't. Ice water has been a life saver for me. I have tried juices and they end up irritating the wounds. Dairy products taste great and don't irritate my throat, but they do cause more mucus. However, after having so much water, milkshakes taste incredibly delicious!



I am only on night 3 of post op, so I am aware that things can still get worse for me. I did however want to post my progress so far. I think everyone is different in how they handle pain. I am not a huge baby, but I'm not exactly tough when it comes to pain either. Just get a lot of rest and drink plenty of cold liquids. I am still sleeping slightly propped up just to be safe, but I may try to sleep laying down tonight because I feel much better. I will continue to post my progress for you. I spent so much time stressing myself out about this surgery and i regret it now.



The one thing I would say though, is you will definitely need more than 3 days off. I took off all of next week just to be safe, but I'll see how I'm feeling around Wednesday. Also, I am able to swallow pills. I am taking 3 meds right now and 2 of them are pills. I am taking about 8-9 pills a day to help me heal from the surgery and I have no problem getting them down. Good luck and if you have any other questions please let me know! :D

o.O

OK, I had my surgery two weeks ago, I must say the first 2-3days I thought was ok, for a moment I thought this is a breeze....well that lasted a moment, then the nasea started to intensify and I was taking the liquid perkosets like every 2 -3 hours instead of every 4. I'm not gonna lie it was very uncomfortable, especially after the third day. the first night I did'nt sleep cause I was drinking alot of water every 30 minutes to prevent a dry throat since I heard if you do that then you will really be in pain if its dries out! Not eating for a few days is ruff but then the hunger pain goes away and your stomach just rumbles. The scabbing wasn't bad, It looks like someone made a wax molding of my throat and stuck back there and it just gradually thins out?? weird. I am still in pain today...I feel like I have strep throat ? So I'm not gonna say it wasn't torture, but I can say thanks to drugs I was able to deal with it!

Hi I'm 42 years old and am on my 7th day since having my tonsils out. I also had my septom straigthened and some sinus work. I'ts been hell. The nose hasn't bothered me at all but since I had both done at same time and am restricted to mouth breathing.The tonsils are killing me because my mouth is so dry. Trying to drink anything,found that warmer liquids worked best for me . Can't wait for this to be over. Good luck everyone!!!

Indeed exercising faith in God will get you through it better. I have experienced a very troubling taste disturbance following my tonsillectomy two weeks ago (salty, metallic, yucky taste, even when air or water touch my tongue). I have lost a lot of weight and I have been very troubled by this. My father and brother gave me a blessing and I have definitely improved in the last two days. I have also been taking anti-inflammatory medicine (prednisone, 6-day, tiered doses) to reduce tongue swelling which I think has helped significantly. Do all you can, and leave the rest up to the Lord. Best of luck to everyone.

Indeed exercising faith in God will get you through it better. I have experienced a very troubling taste disturbance following my tonsillectomy two weeks ago (salty, metallic, yucky taste, even when air or water touch my tongue). I have lost a lot of weight and I have been very troubled by this. My father and brother gave me a blessing and I have definitely improved in the last two days. I have also been taking anti-inflammatory medicine (prednisone, 6-day, tiered doses) to reduce tongue swelling which I think has helped significantly. A co-worker said that she experienced the same thing and noticed a lot of improvement within a couple of months and a full recovery a year later. My primary care doctor said that there is a 75% chance that it will improve within 2 months and a 95% chance that it will improve within 6 months.

Do all you can, and leave the rest up to the Lord. I hope everyone can recover soon!