Tonsillectomy Adult – What to Expect
Tonsillectomy as an adult is quite different than tonsillectomy for children. The methods employed for tonsillectomy in adults and children are generally the same, (See Tonsillectomy and Adenoidectomy Methods page), and the risks for adults are similar to the risks for children, (See The Tonsillectomy Risks
Tonsillectomy – Adult Recovery and Risks
Most studies indicate a two to four percent risk of delayed hemorrhage [severe bleeding]. Where tonsillectomy in adults differs most from tonsillectomy in children is in the recovery. Recovery from childhood tonsillectomy generally takes five to seven days. Recovery from tonsillectomy in adults usually requires at least ten days and more often two weeks.
Before deciding to get an adult tonsillectomy, it’s important to choose a time frame in which you have the time and the support. Recovering over your favorite Holiday might be a good choice in terms of time, (eg holiday leave from work or school), but it may not be a time that people will be available to help you.
The pain associated with adult tonsillectomy recovery, by almost all accounts, is more intense than that experienced by children. Some theorize that children haven’t had as much time without pain as adults and thus their frame of reference is different than adult tonsillectomy patients. Others assume that children may be less able to articulate their discomfort. Having read the accounts of THOUSANDS of adult tonsillectomies in the forum,(See Tonsillectomy Forum page), I can say with some confidence that generally, the younger the patient, the easier the tonsillectomy recovery. There are of course exceptions. I’ve read from many middle aged adults who had a fairly smooth recovery. Perhaps they read up on this website and prepared well. Perhaps they had good genes. In any case, many time an adult tonsillectomy recovery is better than the horror stories we hear about.
“If I could recommend one item to buy before tonsillectomy, it would be a humidifier. My readers know how important moist air is to a healing throat. I bought one of these years ago and still use it daily” -Greg
I’d like to take a moment here to make a suggestion. As you read through the people’s accounts in the various chat rooms, message boards, and adult tonsillectomy forums, consider this: People having a harder time, may be more prone to seek out information and share their experience in these venues. Adults experiencing milder tonsillectomy recoveries, might be less apt to be posting. I don’t want to drag Richard Nixon into my website, but this silent majority may be quietly recovering and you’ll never hear from them.
My advice is to research as much as you can, talk with your doctor, talk with your family and friends, and talk with your employer before scheduling your adult tonsillectomy. I wish you all the best.
I’ve put together a collection of items that I think would be helpful, if not essential, to making tonsillectomy recovery a little more pleasant. Check out the Tonsillectomy General Store.
Hello!
I am a 23 year old female and currently on day 10 recovery and thought I am finally well enough to share a bit about my experience and some tips I have. I was EXTREMELY scared before the surgery after scouring this site and reading various horror stories. While it has been a tough 10 days I would say my experience was not as bad as other posts I have seen – my pain has never been over a 7. The first 3 days were bad but I was also pretty out of it and slept a lot. It got better around day 4 and 5 and then started getting worse when the scabs started coming out. Today was my first day actually walking around and talking. Still get super tired from a little activity and swallowing is not fun.
Tips:
– drink as much water as possible (cold felt the best for me)
– ice chips were key – I would constantly chew on ice
– food: first few days all I could eat were popsicles and jello (when I would try eating anything salty a bad taste would be left in throat and I would feel sick). Certain days were harder to eat than others. I recommend eating as much as possible on the days you feel better as other days are a lot harder. Once salty food didn’t taste as bad, I would eat soup and mac n cheese. Something else that tasted really good were pancakes that had a lot of syrup on them cut up small.
– get a humidifier!!!
– set alarms to make sure you take your medicine on time (I also set other alarms at night to wake me up to drink water).
– don’t talk!
– sleep sitting up for the first few nights.
– hot showers in the morning feel great
– brush your teeth a few times a day to make you feel like a normal human
– ask your doctor for pills to help with nausea – before I took the pills I had puked a few times after taking the medicine.
– chew gum!! this helps when your mouth is dry
– the past few days i have had trouble swallowing my spit so I have to have empty cups ready to spit in
All in all it has been both physically and mentally rough 10 days but I think it will be worth it in the end. Everyone’s experience is different so I would not get too scared from what you read. Just go in prepared and have someone who is there to take care of you!
I wish you the best of luck!
Long post but advice re bleeding requested at bottom 🙂
Hi, 31 year old female in the UK. Had my surgery performed privately through health insurance via work after repeated tonsillitis and tonsil problems. Was sick of being sick…I am sure most people here can relate! Wasn’t just the pain at the time of an infection, but the missed work, the exhaustion on either side of a sick period, missing work, feeling worried about doing normal activities and socializing in case I got sick again, never mind the disgusting tonsil stones and bad breath! So I was relieved when I scheduled my surgery and on purpose avoided the internet and other peoples stories (unless they were positive).
On the day of my surgery my consultant re-iterated that usually the first few days were manageable but that the pain would increase by the weekend (had my op on a Monday) as the muscle starts to regrow. The anesthetist separately informed me it wasn’t uncommon for the pain to get worse up to day 11 of recovery.
Surgery was fine, I was nervous about it so asked for a little something to relax me prior 🙂 They put morphine in my drip after which I haven’t had before, but was obviously good stuff as I was most chipper that first day. I went home the next day and the pain started. It has been very bad, had tooth abscesses, infected wisdom teeth and the mumps to compare it to only, this is worse. Difficult to talk and swallow, at times water even has caused a searing pain on one side. The pain comes in various forms to make it fun, first my tongue and jaws kind of feel restricted probably due to the scabs so eating and talking is difficult. It is sore to swallow at all, and at times when swallowing water or food the pain turns into a searing pain and will continue for up to 10 mins after. When it is time for the next dose of medication the jaw and ear pain returns. I have to psyche myself up for about 5 mins to swallow to take the painkillers. Hopefully in hindsight will be able to laugh at this 😛
I am on 16 pills a day, 4*2 paracetamol, 4 codeine and 4 ibrufen – all spaced out accordingly. I take the paracetamol on its own and then around 4 hours later the codeine and ibrufen. When the pain is at its worse you can take paracetamol and ibrufen together as they are unique but would recommend taking one 2 hours before the other so you get more pain coverage over time.
Deepheat a topical agent used for muscle aches has been one of my lifesavers. I rub it on my jaw – pretty sure you are not meant to. But if you do and then press something cold to your face it is really pain relieving. Tiger balm would probably also work in the same way.
In terms of food I started of well eating most of the hospital food and trying toast for the first couple of days. However as the pain got worse it became more difficult to eat, felt like the food was getting stuck in my throat (yuck). From the first day I had decided to look at my throat and the scabs, and then spent a lot of time worrying about them falling off, so I imposed a ban on myself from doing this, would recommend not looking unless you expect a bleed at least until mid of second week to see scab progress. From what I can see it would appear they slowly start to disolve and not come off in chunks which is what I am hoping is the case!
I had a bleed at the weekend, over a period of about 36 hours there was a little bit of blood and then on Sunday it was more substantial and according to my consultant not standard…I was trying to sleep but I noticed it straight away, like something warm in my mouth. At first I spit the blood out and then panicked a bit but my mum told me to gargle with cold water as this is meant to stop it. I could see a lot of thick blood oozing at back of throat so I gargled and it seemed to stop after about 20 mins. Then I had an ice pop to continue the cold treatment. I have been too scared to eat anything solid since. My mum is leaving today (I live in London, family in Ireland) and I live alone so am a bit worried if it were to happen again and be more serious that I could die….lol. So I am just going to attempt to be extremely cautious and on the first signs of bleeding go to casualty. My consultant said if it bleeds more than a couple of spoonfuls or lasts longer than a few minutes to go to casualty. Has anyone else experienced bleeding and been on their own? Did you eat food after? So far I am living off ice pops, protein drinks (plain) but am feeling very hungry..!
P.s. Trying to think of this as character building and also counting down the days (at day 9 out of 11 supposedly bad days) has helped me mentally. Also quit smoking because of it and the weight loss so far is about half a stone, so tonsillectomy diet is helping that beach body along…:P – you can laugh or you can cry! good luck everyone
Had my tonsillectomy and UPPP procedure 16 hours ago. I felt prepared with the humidifier, ensure light ice cubes, cold packs, etc. Boy do I feel like a failure right now. Guess it wasn’t a good sign that we had trouble controlling the pain before we left the hospital. I have slept less than an hour total since the procedure. At least I have been hydrating well..and peeing a lot! Never had a problem with pain meds not working…usually help and let me rest. Haven’t had nausea… but took a pill in hopes that it might knock me out. Also have taken dissolvable melatonin without success. Ugh! Anyone else feel like there’s a “flap” that comes in the way at times with breathing. Also, sometimes I find it difficult to perform the action of swallowing… like focusing on the task too much I find myself holding my breath. Yep, I’m a mess!! Any suggestions? Thanks!
It is so interesting readying all of these comments and seeing the differences in what everyone’s doctors have suggested and not suggested compared to mine! I am on day 8 of recovery and am 30 years old and had my post op appointment today with everything reportedly looking as it should. I would say the pain level is pretty bad. I have never had any type of surgery before but am pretty tolerant of pain but this last week has been extremely painful even with liquid oxycodone and alternating with extra strength Tylenol. However the pain has been getting better each day especially the last two days.
I am seeing that many people are gargling after surgery and my doctor has told me multiple times to absolutely NOT gargle anything! Also seeing people on here use salt to gargle which I would think would be extremely painful- just thinking about it makes me cringe! I have noticed that any tiny bit of seasonings found in soups for example, salt included, is excruciating for me! I have had to stick solely to plain everything; everything meaning anything I have been able to stand swallowing which has been solely consistent of popsicles, ice cream, mashed potatoes and room temperature soup on very little occasion as I notice any type of textures get stuck in my throat or side of my tongue which hurts a lot. My surgeon was also very clear about not eating or drinking anything warmer than room temperature because the heat increases chances of bleeding. Also people on here have said not to eat ice cream because of the dairy which I also thought before surgery but my doctor insisted that it was fine and I have found ice cream to be perfectly fine and almost necessary! I have had so many milkshakes they have been a lifesaver and the cold sensation has been the best feeling especially first few days all I had was milkshakes, ice cream and popsicles which is still my primary diet but most beneficial in the very beginning.
I also have been thankful for cough drops, non- menthol! Tons of water is so helpful even though it sometimes kills just to swallow water it is essential to keep hydrated.
Not sure what else to include but good luck to all of those that are researching pre-surgery. I asked a lot of friends and did some research myself before surgery and found that it really helped me to get tips from others so I hope I am able to help at least one person. Good luck!
I’m 33 days post op. I still have pains on right side of tongue and jaw and where the tonsils were on both sides I have some reactive tonsil tissue. I get ct scan here Monday.
Also everything I swallow on right side I feel like a piece of skin ..likes it’s laying on my tongue. The right side feels almost like a bee sting……I’m 42 years old…..anyone else experience this kind of residual effects….it comes and goes.
And the right side is still sore to swallow at times like the food rakes against where the tonsils were and it’s sometimes sore.
I remember feeling like there was a piece of skin, and my tongue took some time to stop hurting. Every once in a while my throat still hurts when I yawn but the other issues are gone now. I am 3 months out.
Jody
I found 2 lumps on the back right of my tongue in the crease……this has Been like this since a few days after surgery. Ent said it’s lymph tissue. He said give it time to heal. It’s been 8 weeks!
He said he would biopsy it but I wasn’t sure.
I am going to OSU for biopsy on Tuesday as CT scan shows nothing. My ent offered but I’m seeing a cancer ent for biopsy.
I have soreness and pain in my jaw off and on. I really hope it’s just from surgery and not the c word. I been put on anxiety meds because I can’t calm down about it.
So depressed……
So sorry Stan! My tongue was one of the last things to heal. I pray this is the same thing for you. It seems too much of a coincidence to be cancer. My doctor’s assistant said that it can take 6 months to a year for the throat to fully heal. Hopefully you will hear good news. Please keep us informed of your progress. Sending prayers and positive thoughts your way.
Thanks……I appreciate that. I hope that it’s nothing……my anxiety is up and before my issues I was 237 in weight, now I’m 209…….i dropped 15 before surgery and the rest after….they had to put me on anxiety meds because of my worries……im also taking 800 mg ibuprofen.
Just want to cry.
I went to OSU Ent cancer specialist. They saw the 2 lumps under the back right of tongue. They actually stated that everything I’m feeling could take 6 months to a year to heal. He stated that is where they took the tonsils on that side and had to make a cut or a stop on the lingual tonsil tissue……and that’s what those little bumps are…lingual tonsil tissue. They requested my old tonsils as they have to hold for 10 years and perform more test to confirm what was tested with other ent. Its been over a week and have not heard anything. It’s still sore when I swallow on that side but sometimes it feels fine……i don’t get it? Anyone else experience this issue with numbness in the cheek?
Once I feel this it makes me not want to eat……im struggling with anxiety and depression. I know they said nothing is wrong but everytime I swallow I feel those lumps and feels like a piece of something back there.
it’s playing with my mind, I don’t want to live life anymore……really need some good advice or support. Cuz this is breaking my marriage cuz my wife thinks it’s all in my head…..she don’t understand what I feel! Says I shouldn’t worry about it.
Stan, So sorry you are struggling! Please believe that it will get better! Ì am glad you got some positive answers to your concerns. Please know that even though it is irritating it is not life threatening and that it will take time to heal. You might want to see a counselor to help you through your depression and anxiety. Don’t give up, feeling better is just around the corner.