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
Took a turn for the worse overnight sadly. Yesterday evening was fantastic, barely any pain, swelling was down, infection/fever was at bay. Joyous. By midnight we were back at 7/10 pain and by 2am I was dry retching/vomiting with the pain to a firm 9/10 reaching 10/10 this morning. No sleep at all and 7 hours without any fluids. Was bleeding a fair bit too.
Doc stepped in and wasted no time. Increased the codeine, given me a second super strength antibiotic, and pulled out the tramadol prescription (and still maintaining 1g paracetamol).
Just had a full dose of everything at once and looking forward to an hour or two of peace (and a drink!). I suspect I’ll be staggering them again later though.
So sorry to hear you’re having a horrible time again Ben. I suppose it is difficult to keep liquids down if you keep vomiting, and the act of vomiting was probably torturous on your throat. ugh! Really glad your doctor stepped in so quickly to help get you back to a manageable level again.Wishing you a few hours at least of somewhat normalcy so you can rest, get your fluids going again, and get your healing back on track.
We all have set backs, don’t let it discourage you. Just keep in mind that one day soon you will be feeling much much better. 🙂
Oh the sweet sweet power of drugs en masse. Even if this doesn’t last it’s bliss. I’ve had 3 hours of barely any pain, even ate some cheese on toast without problems.
Spreading out the tramadol and codeine now to make sure there’s coverage. The two in combination had me proper floating sparks, was awesome.
I am a 38 year old female. I had my tonsils removed on Monday January 21st. This website was incredibly helpful in preparing me for surgery. I noticed a few things that I thought I would share with people. I worked from the shopping list on the website to have everything at home I could think of for the recovery period. I found the smaller humidifier (with wam steam) was more useful to me than a big one. I could place the small one right in front of me and get the most benefit from the steam without getting cold. I ate (and am still eating) a huge amount of jello. I found that on waking up when the pain was worst; eating jello seemed to reduce the pain more quickly than sipping on water to rehydrate my throat. I am surprised that I cannot tolerate solid foods yet, I guess I thought that I would “power through the discomfort”. That was not the case for me. Anything vaguely solid caused pain and often caused a flare up of ear pain (which i would not wish on anyone). As a result I haven’t pushed a return to solid foods and am sticking to jello, ensure, and really squishy ramen noodles. I kept a written list for the first 3 or 4 days of when I had taken pain killers and how much because I wasn’t very with it and I didn’t want to duplicate a dosage. I also set alarms on my phone for every four hours to remind me to take my painkillers. I found sleeping very propped up for the first week or so was definitely the way to go. I think my uvula and possibly soft palate was quite swollen so if I tried to sleep lying down it resulted in snoring and pain. I recommend being an advocate for your pain control with your doctors. I was very clear with the surgeon prior to the surgery that I have a low pain threshhold and pain post surgery was my main concern. Even with that conversation I received a small amount of pain killers which would have lasted about 4 days. I made sure to go to my family doctor and explain the situation and get a sufficient amount of pain killers to take me through the worst of the recovery period. If there are people that can stay with you perhaps consider that. My parents were going to stay with me for the required 24 hours but ended up staying for the first 4 days while I was drowsy with pain medication and feeling delicate and nervous about my recovery. Good luck everyone!
Thanks for the advice Bob. I have been saving the T3’s so that I would have more, when I really need them, but it makes sense to have a normal concentration of it in my body so that when the pain finally hits, it won’t be as bad…hopefully.
Probably still worth you taking your prescribed dosage I think Jim (unless they give you bad side effects or are some of the wierd addictive American ones), I think Amber mentioned it’s good to have them in your system ready for when it gets worse.
That will likely be between days 5-7. You seem to be doing great so far though! Keep hydrated and hope it continues to go well for you. 🙂
Day 3 has gone fairly smoothly so far. I have been following my antibiotics schedule and have not needed any painkillers for almost 12 hours. Everything is going well. I am now just waiting until the real pain starts.