Recovery from Tonsillectomy - 17 year old

I'm also 17 and I'm in a lot of pain because of acute tonsillitis. My doctor is giving me antibiotics to get rid of them, he told me I have to recover from the tonsillitis and THEN get them removed, is that what happened with your daughter? Also I'm REAAALLYYYY scared of getting a tonsillectomy, what happens exactly and how long is the full recovery time?

I think that it doesn't matter how old are you, are you 17 or 57 because you will be in the pain after your tonsils are out. I am 41 years old and I was crying because of the pain I had. I had issues with eating, swallowing, drinking...It was a nightmare for me. I think that some small pockets on the side of the throat  also made my life harder. I know that I had problems with a sore throat after surgery, and you should also know that you might also feel pain in your jaw, ears, or neck. That is all normal and those all are the effects after this surgery. My advice for you is to get plenty of rest, especially in the first two or three days after the surgery. You will survive, you will be OK. 

I'm 17 and I had my tonsils taken out 1 week ago. I had 12 cases of strep throat last year, which is why if was decided that it was time to get them out. The surgery itself takes about 45 minutes as all they do is laser them off. Once I woke up, I had a Popsicle and stayed in the hospital for a couple hours and then I was sent home. I was prescribed liquid dilaudid and percocets pills. Although it hurts, the most important thing is to drink- LOTS of cold thing. I always kept ice water beside me and woukd drink the water and suck on the ice cubes. it hurt but felt good at the same time. the first night my uvula was so swollen that I had issues breathing and was rushed back to the emergency room. the doctor prescribed me prednisone- a steroid to help bring the swelling down. the only issue with that is I had to take 8 pills a day for 2 days! that's a lot when you can barely swallow. the steroids made me feel very weak and nauseas, but 2 days later the swelling did go down. the first 4 days I felt pretty good, still had pain but managed to eat mashed potatoes, apple sauce, and even a poutine that was soaked in gravy. but as I was told, it got worse before it got better. day 5 and 6 were definitely the worst. this is usually the time where the scabs start to fall off and let me tell you, it is awful. I could barely drink anything and I didn't eat a thing for those 2 days. the most I ate was 1 Popsicle so I didn't take my pain medication on an empty stomach. the pain even kept me up all night and even taking my medication brought tears to my eyes , it was awful. day 7 I was finally able to eat some mashed potatoes and apple sauce and the pain is a little more bearable. however, talking is really an issue. I can only get a few words out before the pain makes it too much. but it generally takes 2 weeks to heal and I can almost see the light at the end of this painful tunnel!! to anyone getting this procedure done, my advice is to drink lots of cold water for the first 5 days and then switch to warmer liquids! when the scabs start to come off, luke warm liquid will feel so much better. I found pudding and Popsicles to help the best! Apple sauce was okay, but sometimes the acid would sting my throat. it's going to be painful to swallow, but you have to keep hydrated. the first couple days I had alarms set every 4 hours, even in the night although I was usually up every 4 hours on my own, and I would drink and take my medication. if you sleep through the whole night, when you wake up you will be in an unbearable amount of pain!! other than that, just take it easy for 10 days and try to relax. hope this helped, and good luck on future procedures! :)

Im 17 just turned 17 and I had my tonsils and adenoids removed 6 days ago. Day 1-3 were a bit painful but really not too bad. It did hurt to swallow but it wasn't like oh my gosh im gonna die. All I ate were popsicles and vanilla ice cream and shakes. But be sure to drink plenty of water after eating ice cream and shakes because it'll feel really sticky in the back of your throat like a bunch of mucus. It's very important to stay hydrated and to drink tons and tons of water to keep your throat from getting dry. When you wake up in the mornings that's when my throat hurt worse than ever. You need to drink at least a glass of water when you wake up to make it feel better. It will be painful but you have to push through the pain. Also eat something before you take your painkillers like a popsicle and yogurt. I found applesauce too acidic for my throat. Day 4 overall was the the worst. I was in a lot of pain and my ears and jaw hurt bad but I kept on drinking water. I felt very low and sore on day 4. Day 5 was a good day a little of the pain went away and I felt much better. I was also keeping up with pain medication and would take motrin in between if needed. Most of the scabs are gone, I started losing scabs on day 3. You will hack up scabs and spit out gunk. Scabs will come off your adenoids as well and you will hack those up to with snot that will taste and smell absolutely disgusting but it made me feel better getting all that out. Today is day 6 and I feel GREAT! I just have white where the tonsils were and all the scabs are off of my adenoids because I kept hacking them up with snot when I needed to because I couldn't blow my nose. All the scabs are off where my tonsils were. And earlier I hacked up a scab that was almost an inch long from my adenoids and I feel so much better because now I don't have that scratchy feeling back there. I still have a bit of ear and jaw pain but it's not bad. I have to say that so far this recovery has been fantastic. I know I have a few more days left of recovery but I am definitely glad I had this surgery. My tonsils were a stage 3 of 4 and my adenoids blocked my airway in my nose and I sounded like I was constantly stuffed up because my adenoids were very large. Now I can breathe out my nose great and hear great!

I'm 17, almost 18 and had my tonsils out 6 days ago. Days 1-3 weren't bad at all just felt like a normal sore throat but the pain has gotten a little worse day by day. Now that I'm on day 6, it has definitely been the most painful and am hoping it will get better as the week goes on considering I have my first day of school tomorrow. Drinking lots of liquid is recommended but I haven't been doing so because it hurts that bad to swallow. Also with eating, I haven't ate much the last 2 days just a couple bites of soup or applesauce then I'm done because it hurts so bad, which caused me to lose some weight. The pain medicine I have had helped a lot but also makes me very nauseous so I don't like taking it. When I wake up in the middle of the night or in the morning, that is when the pain is by far the worst definitly 10/10 when during the day the pain is probably a 7-8/10. The best advice I could give is even if you feel like you can do things, stay in bed and save your energy for recovering you'll need it. If you have a job I recommended taking 2 weeks off just to have enough time to be fully healed.

I had my tonsils out 6 days ago now, I'm 17, 18 in four months. The first two days passed perfectly fine with only minor pain, but it has worsened. Day three and 5 were by far the worst. I felt weak and just in constant pain. It is bearable but HIGHLY uncomfortable. I did have the issue in which I went out three times within the first 5 days as i didn't feel too bad, which was a mistake, am now spending two days in bed to make sure i have this saved energy. The best thing i have found to help the pain i chewing chewing gum. It helps to exercise the jaw which has been aching and also produces excess saliva which keeps the throat moist not dry, which , makes it sore. I have not slept a full night yet without waking up in pain, and it is by far the worst during this period as you have been breathing heavily with an open mouth which has caused the throat to dry out and become sore. the best advice is to not get too confident like me, i ate a normal diet from day 1 which i think may have put too much strain on my throat even though the doctor recommended me top eat normally. Stay in bed as long as you can get away with to save energy, drink gallons worth of water, this really does help a lot, and stay on soft foods such as mashed potato, rice ect.

Thank u for sharing ur experience though i am afraid for the same for my child of age 17.

Hello everyone! In my case I’m 18 Female in USA and just had my tonsilectomy yesterday at 2:00pm...everything went fine, although the doctor said my tonsils were ugly looking. He also removed partial adenoids. It comes 8:00pm and I’m already drinking my 15th cup of water and eating cream of wheat. Around 12:00am my boyfriend noticed blood i spit in the trash can and didn’t notice. I continued to spit up blood and tried ice water gargles for hours. Didn’t do much. The bleeding eventually stopped in the morning and I called the office and they told me to meet my doctor at the ER as soon as I could. One side of throat (my worst side prior to operation) looked completely bloody but was no longer actively bleeding. Surgeon came in and decided we needed to recauterize due to a clot on my right side. They gave me anesthesia and cauterized my right side super fast. I woke up fine and was given pain meds right away because Yes it did hurt but it was not unbearable. Don’t worry about the horror stories and the this is horrible don’t do it rumors. I just had to be recauterized and I’m doing fine. You lose weight so I guess that’s a plus! Drink lots of water (ICE WATER) it’ll help tremendously. Force it down. Dehumidifier when sleeping and put 3 pillows behind you so you sleep upright. Keep up with pain meds and don’t give up! I know I’m only on day 2 but prior to surgery I was in hospital CONSTANTLY with “bad cases of tonsiltis”. These suckers NEEDED to come out. You won’t die, you’ll live through this like everyone else. If a doctor has considered taking your tonsils out it’s for a reason. Just my opinion and I had it bad already! Don’t give up!

Glad to hear this as all I keep seeing are horror stories! Thanks!

In case anyone is reading this in 2019 like I am... I had mine out at 40. It was horrendus for 2 weeks. The doctors told me this was due to age. Your tonsils grow into your neck the older you get which is why doctors used to take them out when kids were young.
They cauterize(burn) the area where the glands were attached.
If anyone has history of tonsillitis in their family, get your child's tonsils out while they are young if they start to develop issues.