Looking forward to a proper meal and wine
Female, 45, had my surgery on Monday 26th Feb, it is currently Tues 6th March, day 8. Tonsillectomy only, enlarged tonsils, multiple bouts of tonsillitis (last one landed me in hospital), potential cause for sleep apnea.
Thank you to all the past tonsillectomy warriors who have helped us all get through this. This website has been a godsend.
We’re all different, but my recovery has been similar to the prior posts, except I am still waiting for that second wave of pain… in that everyone says at day 6-ish it gets much worse. it has hardly been a walk in the park, but today I came off painkillers entirely – subject to change if that second wave of pain comes in. I still can’t swallow well or without a lot of pain (eating is still a chore), but the rest of the time now the pain is 1 or 2 out of 10.
The advice I want to re-iterate:
* The humidifier overnight is compulsory
* Chewing gum helps moisten the area when you can. I would often wake up and go straight for the gum to get my throat going.
* Keep on the pain meds timetable – I never took the overnight ones because I slept well the entire time, but if the pain is keeping you awake, take the drugs
* Drink as much water as you can tolerate.
Other things:
* it’s hard to breathe at times due to the swollen uvula and throat
* you will feel weak and tired that entire time – drugs and lack of food means you will have no energy at all. Every day for the last 8 days, I had 12-16 hours sleep a day, and I am still exhausted
* weight loss – I am down 7 kgs (15pounds) since last week, I expect that will continue down a little more as I am still not eating properly. Will now focus on keeping that off! At least there is an upside of the last crappy 8 days.
* if you were on opioids, and had to take stool softeners, the diarrhoea will kick in soon enough. Yay, one more thing to deal with.
I never got to that point of “I can’t do this” or “I wish I never did it”. It has sucked, OMG it has sucked, but it wasn’t horrific.