Tonsillectomy Recovery Time
After a lifetime of tonsillitis, it was time. I made the appointment. Was I scared? Yes. Was I prepared for tonsillectomy recovery? NO. Can you be? YES!
Planning for and recovering from a tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy procedure, (often referred to as T & A Surgery), can be daunting experiences. The days leading up to your surgery can be frightening. If you haven’t read up yet, you can find information on tonsillectomy methods, risks, costs, adult tonsillectomy, sleep apnea, and numerous tips for tonsillectomy recovery on the other pages of this site. I’ve even added pictures of a post tonsillectomy throat by each day. Study, talk with your doctor and consult with your friends about the decision to undergo tonsillectomy and adenoid surgery. Explore the pages created here to aid in your journey.
If you should decide to have tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy, let us help you through the entire process. Whether due to problems with sleep apnea, chronic tonsillitis and strep throat, tonsil stones, trouble swallowing, or a combination thereof, you can benefit from the experience of others. My own experience taught me that, as patients, we need to advocate for ourselves. Ear, nose, and throat doctors are, by and large, extremely talented individuals. However, very few of them have experienced an adult tonsillectomy, and the subsequent recovery. I have. Many others have too. We share our experiences here at the adult tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy recovery resource center. As you’ll read in the tonsillectomy recovery forum, everyone’s experience is unique. There are many factors that influence the level of pain you experience, as well as the length of time required during recovery. The method, and skill of your surgeon can have an affect, but there are also many things within your control that will reduce pain and recovery time. I’ve tried to include as many helpful tips as possible within the pages of this online resource. Tonsillectomy recovery can be pretty rough, especially if you are unlucky enough to be an adult! It takes longer for an adult to recover from most things. Tonsillectomy is no exception. There are many things you can do to make it go more smoothly. I’ve published numerous tips here on various pages. I encourage you to read up BEFORE you are in the throws of tonsillectomy recovery.
Talk with your doctor, friends, family, and work as you prepare. You are not alone in this. Like you and like me, many others are facing or have faced a tonsillectomy recovery. I created this forum for you. The community of adults or parents of patients will amaze you and warm your heart. I read these comments every day and every day I am humbled by everyone’s story and their compassion for others in the midst of recovery, or the anxiety that often precedes a tonsillectomy. Please join in. Hundreds of other people, perhaps in your same situation, have shared their wisdom, concerns, tips, and questions about tonsillectomy, as well as their tonsillectomy recovery.
-Greg My short bio
Soo I’m day 15 and I had read something about taking ibprophen my doctor said I couldn’t take that for my swollen uvula bc it’s a blood thinner and that it highers the chances of bleeding in which I didn’t do yesterday still had a slight ear ache this morning I ate a banana and it has given me a pain where as my tonsil would be. Sucks but it’s true can now basically eat what ever I want apparently not a banana lol I see many from the uk they seem to do things much different than here in the us I have now a piece of scab hanging on my uvula and it feels like I have something caught in the back of my throat still white hope this helps
Ahh thankyou.
They apparently were considering steroids for it while I was in there, but the doctor decided to tell me to just let it heal naturally and the ibruprofen would help etc. But wouldn’t tell me how long to expect.
This has left me feeling shit, unable to eat, reduced to doing nothing but laid with head back, and constantly sick, thanks doc!
I’ll ring them on Thursday and ask for the steroids if it is still too big, it will have been a full week then. Damn thing is hanging down my throat!
Thanks Amber. 🙂
I think I’ll ring the hospital if my Uvula hasn’t gone down by Thursday, it will be a few weeks then.
Also yes they said not to take aspirin cause of that. As to the ibruprofen that’s to help with the swelling (hasn’t really). As part of my meds they gave me something called Lanzoprazole to take once a day, which is apparently supposed to protect my insides from bleeding due to being told to take ibruprofen 3 times a day. Other than that I’m on 2 paracetamol and 2 tramadol hydrochloride 4 times a day.
As to Day 6, not the best start. Woke up in the middle of the night feeling like I needed to puke, and did. Mainly bile (seems I’d digested my lil bit of toast, yay) but some blood in it. Fortunately wasn’t much, just slivers in my puke and spit. I gargled with some water with an ice cube in and fortunately it stopped fast. Was probably just due to a scab coming off which was probably what made me puke.
Other than that, currently feeling hungry, shit and sick, damn uvula.
Ok so today is the end of day 4? I don’t even know, my days are all blurring together. Today I started to get a terrible taste in my mouth, I don’t even know how to describe it, but it makes even water taste like death. I still cannot eat anything solid, not even the noodles in my soup. Anything solid feels like shards of glass scraping my throat all the way down. So I haven’t been eating pretty much anything. Only warm/hot stuff feels good. Cold is always painful. My meds make me sick and I got a migraine yesterday on top of my throat pain. And the ear pain started yesterday too. I feel like I’m going to pass out. Ugh.. When will this all end?!
Honey you have to try eating. I’m on day 7 and the pain is still bad but I force myself so I don’t get an infection. It might feel like swallowing glass through your ears but it will be worth it. Keep trying. Little food will make you sick on the meds and give you a bad head, it’s a vicious circle you need to try and stop. Totally feeling your pain, if you eat toast it will get better faster. Sounds harsh but it’s true.
I’m day 8 and in huge amounts of pain I can’t swallow anything much less water my ears feel like exploding my head hurts and pain meds not working dunno what to do.
Hi,
I’m a 20 year old guy and I got mine removed on the 16th and since then every day has been a nightmare the last 3 have had to have been the worst. I’ve been waking up constantly during the night and I can’t take it. I usually wake up with pain on my right side and ear. Same thing happens when I drink anything the last 3 days. The doctor prescribed percocet and Tylenol with codine. The Tylenol burns like hell when I try to take it so I stopped and stuck to the percs which help somewhat. My diet has consisted of pudding, apple sauce and liquids. This morning I woke up and I thought I was going to die because the pain on my right side was so excruciating. I went to the bathroom to spit because I felt like I couldn’t swallow a thing and when I got to the toilet I spat a glob of blood. That’s the most blood I had spit at one point (I had light blood come up since the day of the surgery). I got nervous because I had been reading other comments saying that if at any point I spit more than a tablespoon of blood to go to the ER but I waited and it stopped. Now every time I drink something I get a sharp pain that transfers to my ear. Hopefully I feel better tomorrow being that I go back to school and have class until 9:30 pm. This website has been the only thing that has been helping me through this time. Can’t wait to get through this and be able to eat good food again.
Hey David! Sorry things are going so rough. One thing you can do to try to help with the pain in your ear is place a heating pack on it when you go to sleep. If you don’t feel comfortable with using an electric one while you’re out, you can make your own by placing either dried beans or rice in a sock, microwave it for about 2 or so minutes (long enough for it to get nice and warm), and then put it on that ear with some kind of towel between you and it so you don’t end up getting burned. As the rice/beans cool, though, you can remove the towel.
As for the Tylenol with codine (Which is just liquid Loritab), I know what you mean. Not only does it burn like acid, but it also tastes horrible. Since I wasn’t prescribed any other actual pain meds than the Loritab Elixir, I half figured out how to get it down. One method I used the first few days is take a slushie-like drink, pour about a quarter to a half cup of it in a small glass, and then mix your dose of Loritab in it. Though it didn’t help me much with the taste and just kind of drug it out, the coldness from the drink helped with the acid-like feeling. The other thing I started doing about a week or so in was just taking the Loritab like it was a shot of alcohol and then immediately filled the medicine cup with water and then shot that. By doing that it both rinses out the cup and helps wash the meds down.
As for you going back to school tomorrow, I seriously don’t think that’s a good idea. You will just be hitting the time that most of us have the most problems. I know missing days in college really isn’t the greatest idea, especially not the first few days of the semester (I’m half going off the assumption that your semester is just starting like mine), but now I think it’ll do more harm than good. Not only will you probably need to be relatively doped up to help dealing with the pain, therefore making it much more difficult to concentrate in class, but if heaven forbid you happen to bleed, it would be better to be in bed or something rather than having to rush out of class. I had made sure to schedule my surgery so that I’d be completely cleared before my classes, but I’m almost positive if you either call (if you have that option) or email your professors, you should be able to get something worked out so that you can miss without it hurting your standing with the class. Especially seeing how probably most doctors don’t even clear their patients to return to normal daily activities for a minimum of one week, sometimes up to two. If nothing else, you can get a note from your ENT saying that you had a medical reason for not being able to attend, and due to that the school pretty much has to work with you.