The First Ten Days Tonsillectomy Recovery

Hemorrhage After Tonsillectomy
Tonsillectomy Recovery Experience

Sean’s Story

Hi all! 30 yr old male here. Doctors are Having my tonsils removed because of my sleep apnea and overly-aggressive strep throat I was prone to getting. I Had my tonsils removed on the 5th of July. So I’m on day ten now. The first few days were easy. Painful, but bearable with meds.

Come day 8: pain was too intolerable to eat anything. Which garnered a massive headache. But around 7 pm I went to lie down and almost immediately felt a rush of warm liquid in my throat that was filling my mouth very quickly. I sit up and lean over my cupped hands and out pours the blood. I run over to the sink in a panic and try to get some ice water down but the blood is coming out too fast for me to even swallow anything but that. I have my mother, who is taking watch over me during his time, call 911 and by the time the ambulance arrives (in about 5 minutes) I had lost more than 30 ounces of blood. I know this because I had a bio bag from the ER I was bleeding into which happens to have measuring lines. By the time I got to the hospital it had topped off well over the final measure of 40oz.

My hands and face were covered in blood and it looked like a vampire who just had a fight with his meal. The bleeding ended up clotting and stopping on its own so they had me gargle with ice water, spit, and repeat for about 20 minutes until the on-call ENT doc arrived and applied numbing spray so she could recauterize with silver nitrate sticks. I gagged so hard I accidentally hit her face while trying to push her hand out of my mouth. (She handled it like a champ) After observing me for a few hours I was sent packing with new pain meds and slightly positive outlook. Less than 24 hrs later on day 9: I had a smoothie in the morning and soy yogurt with applesauce in the afternoon as a vessel for my Percocets. When 6 o clock rolls around I feel the same sensation in my throat as I did the evening before and I knew immediately it was coming. And it did. So I reach for another bio bag immediately, open my mouth, and the nightmare begins again… I had my mother drive me to the ER this time as I felt a little more confident I wouldn’t bleed to death. The volume was half the amount from the previous night and clotted a lot faster, thankfully.

I was still admitted to the ER to be safe. They were going to perform another operation but decided not to since the bleeding stopped on its own. So they gave me an epinephrine mask treatment in an attempt to constrict the blood vessels and sent me home. So here I am Day 10. Just praying to every god I can think of that I will not have to make another trip to the hospital or morgue. And after reading over 150 different testimonies on here and other sites regarding this procedure, and seeing no accounts with anything even close to mine, I’m going to have to assume my doctor made a grave error during my procedure. So folks, make sure you have a really good doctor if you’re considering this surgery

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