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
I am a little more than four weeks post-op and still having pain in my throat and ears. Has anyone else experienced this?
I had a rough recovery with a chest cold, increase in meds, vomiting for two days, a couple bleeds, very little sleep. When I went back for my 2 week post-op check up, I still had a significant amount of scabbing that needed to come off. I ended up on the narcotic pain meds for almost three weeks. Since I’ve stopped taking the meds I have been very anxious and crying uncontrollably. This is not something I’ve ever experienced before. I am very independent and a generally cheerful person. I tried going back to work for half-days (I am a teacher), and was so exhausted and in pain when I got home, causing me to have meltdowns each night. The nurse practitioner in my ENT’s office said I shouldn’t be in any pain and that the anxiety and crying had nothing to do with my tonsillectomy because I had been off the meds for a week and suggested I go to my GP. My GP was very concerned that I was still in pain, believes my anxiety and weeping is a result of withdrawal from the pain meds, took blood to check my levels, said my exhaustion was a problems as well, and made an appointment with my ENT. He insisted I see the surgeon, not the nurse practitioner. My ENT did a very thorough exam of my throat and ears. He seemed concerned, but didn’t see anything significant. He did notice a tonsil tag on my right side, which is where the pain mostly is (but not all the time). He also cleaned out my right ear. He said if the pain is not gone in three weeks to come back.
I am so exhausted and frustrated with this. The pain in my throat and ears is inconsistent, and there is no sign of infection. I just want this to END! Has anyone else had an experience similar to this??
Well I have anxiety as a general rule, and stress usually makes it show up… so yes I’m had anxiety. But not to the extent with crying that you’ve talked about. I’m really sorry you’re dealing with that and I have to agree it sounds like withdrawals, some people are just more sensitive to narcotics.
As for the pain, I do still get ear pain and throat muscular pain. My ENT said the ear pain is just residual from the throat, that it isn’t actually your ears hurting but your throat. Now I don’t know if that’s actually what’s going on with you, but keeping in contact with your doctors seems like a sound plan.
You may want to try hold a hot water bottle against your ears, most comfortable is us the hot water bottle as a pillow and lay there for 10 min then switch sides… try it against the back of your neck too… if nothing else this will help relax you and cut down on the anxiety.
My doctor only gave me 50 loratabs. If I take 2 pills every 4 hours I will run out of pain medication by day 4.5. Is my supply of pain medication going to be enough….. i am worried…. HELP?
I stopped the hardcore pain meds on day 5 and switched to Tylenol. I’m on day 9 now and haven’t taken anything in about 24 hours.
try spacing your doses out a bit more maybe? I would also talk to your doctor and ask if he would be willing to refill the Lortab for you, if not then maybe he’d be will to prescribe a pain med from a different class of meds.
I asked my doctor for a refill on my liquid Lortab and he agreed, but then after the 2nd script was out he had be go to tylenol.
I am on Day 9 of this surgery and yes 50 should be enough to help you. Here is an example of what I did: by Day 2, I started taking 1 pill every 4 hrs and taking one dose of Tylenol. This saves your pill supply and the Tylenol helps reduce swelling. You will want to start stretching out your doses over longer periods of time (during the day maybe stretch the time to taking 1 pill every 5 hrs). Save your pills for Day 4 and Day 5 as those days the pain is quite surprising. Drink lots of cold water with little sips. And try an ice wrap around your neck. This is also a mental game. It looks bleak for many days, but it will improve.
HELP!?!? My 23 yr old daughter is on day 2 of her recovery. Today she has stated it is too difficult to talk, let alone swallow. She wasnt kept overnight in hospital. She was prescripted hyrdrocodone liquid and states that the phlem is pretty bad and it burns when she attempts to swallow. Has this occurred with anyone else? I contacted the doc and they stated any other medication would not be as potent. Trying to make her more comfortable, but not sure it is working. She has watered down the liquid pain meds to make it easier to swallow.
I had mine taken out on Tuesday Feb 26th. I am on the same meds and just trying to suck it up. I haven’t been able to eat much, but drink a ton of ice cold water. I have been very nauseous and burpy and that hurts, but I find if I stay in bed with my pillows stacked high, I can keep everything down. I did get sick once on day one. I am also on zofran. Day 3 & 4 have been my hardest. Today is 5 and I am a little better. I think it just takes time. Good luck!!
Thanks Mara. My daughter is also very burpy. I will try the stacked pillows.
I had a horrible time swallowing and when I did I ended up vomiting. There really is no way of being comfortable though. It’s painful, ackward, burning, tightness, pain etc etc. I used ice packs and a heating pad to relax my jaw.
The thing I did wrong was I spit out all the stuff forming in my mouth. The problem with that was I became very dehydrated quickly. I ended up back in the er with the most beautiful iv and pain meds given to me on my 3 rd day. I was able to eat and drink ice water for a entire day before going back to that useless same meds you were prescribed. I ended up stop taking them on day 6 when I realized all it did was ease the ear pain I felt.
My doctor did say to chew some gum so you can get at least saliva into your body. The most helpful thing I did get was nausea pills. With those I was able to at least swallow some applesauce.
I didn’t eat properly for almost two weeks. My voice was extremely soft I had to use my iPad text to voice app to say the things I wanted because I couldn’t raise my voice. When I did get a voice I couldn’t yell and it sounded like I had a sock in my mouth.
Darla, one other question do you think you became dehydrated because you were not taking in enough fluids in addition to spitting? I didn’t know if I should tell her to try to swallow the saliva instead of spitting it out. She said that it feels really thick and mucus like. We are keeping the patch behind her ear for the nausea and that seems to be working.
It just seems like we are going through the medicine very quickly. We are taking it every 4 hours without fail. Hopefully we will soon get to a point of reducing the dosage or increasing the times we are taking it.
AND she is soooo sensitive. The doctors said the medicine may make her feel that way. Whew, looking forward to a week from now!
I had my surgery 2/28/13. 24 year old male. I was prescribed loratab pills… i don’t know what the heck my doc was thinking because they are not very fun to swallow.
I still do not talk to my parents if i do not feel like talking because i think it is going to hurt. Hopefully she is doing better today. It is ALOT easier to eat and drink about an hour after pain medicine.
Todd, I am not sure why your doc would prescribe pills. I agree that would be pretty painful. It’s day 3 and it actually appears her pain is subsiding. I do know the doctor said that on day 5 we should expect an ear ache, or what will appear to be an ear ache when the scabs begin to pull away. Just taking it one day at a time.
Thanks for your response…
This sounds exactly what I went through and was assured that it was normal. I burped a lot, had tons of phlegm that made it difficult to swallow. I couldn’t really talk due to pain for the first 4 days or so.
Have her keep drinking ice water and every once in a while change it up with warm tea. I found that the warm tea help A LOT but there was nothing like ice water when I first woke up. Also have her stay away from dairy for a time, it only makes the phlegm/mucous worse. I think the notion that you get to eat all the icecream you want after getting your tonsils out is a myth. That was THE worse thing to have that soon after surgery. Sugar free Popsicles work way better.
Also have you hold ice packs to her neck to help with the swelling and ease the pain. Hope that helps!
I am on day 6. I found that warm sweet tea helped me and then an ice pack on both side of he neck has helped a lot!! I am sleeping in my recliner and I haven’t been using my oxygen because it drys everything out. I was given plenty of liquid Meds and found that using a dropper made it easier to take. The mucas has been the worst part. I did cough up a Hugh blood clot Saturday night that made everything feel better!! Grossed everyone out around me but made me feel better!!
I was given Loritab elixir for my pain meds, and yes, it burned really bad going down. Watering it down definitely was the way to go until I just learned to suck it up and take the medicine really fast and follow it with a drink of water. Granted, that took probably most of a week to reach that point. What I did was make a slushie (we have a snow cone maker, and I just mixed the shaved ice with some powerade) and pour maybe an ounce or two in a glass and mix my pain meds in it. That way it didn’t burn, wasn’t quite as disgusting, and the coldness helped. Plus it was a way to get fluids in me.
I myself didn’t actually drink much during my recovery, and it made things worse. While my recovery was very simple compared to some I’ve read, the dehydrated feeling made me miserable. It was so bad that I highly debated getting my mom to see if I should go get some IV liquids. My problem was that I just didn’t want to drink anything. So I highly recommend trying to get liquids into her as much and as often as possible.
As for the pain meds running out fast, try lowering the dose just a little bit and see if she can handle it. My written prescription was 3 mL every 4 hours, but I didn’t actually use a full dose very often. I think the first day or so I might have, but most of the day I would just take 2-2.5 mL doses and maybe do a 3 mL dose right before I laid down for the night.
I had a tonsillectomy and septoplasty plus also the removal of part of my sinuses on Feb 12. Took antibiotics orally one week, and painkillers (codeine candies, Tylenol, and some opioid in drops, the dosage of which I could determine in function of the pain).
I had pain (as in real pain that made me run for painkillers) from the tonsillectomy exactly once for 5 minutes after eating a raw tomato around day 7. The rest of the time I had mild discomfort and was taking around 1/8 of the max recommended daily dose of opioid.
Today (day 18) the doc said to cancel the next follow up appointments because there was nothing to see anymore.
Not sure what I did right but I felt there should be some positive testimonies too…
Went back to work after a week, the first few days were still a little exhausting, especially talking.
Drank a lot, ate ice cream, chew gum, ate only soft food for 10 days, nothing unusual.
Don’t go near raw tomatoes.
soooo glad to read something that isnt scaring me shitless! my surgery is tomorrow
I am sending restful and healing thoughts your way. I am 9 Days post op and read useful information along the way. Keep hydrating with cool sips of water. Also, have ice pops ready so you can have something cold in your mouth right away. Stay away from dairy for several days. Use a hydrometer because this will keep the air from drying out; your mouth will also keep from drying out when you sleep in the same room with hydrometer. Do you have some help? It is nice to have someone the first few days to refill drinks, get medicine etc. Use those tips above and you should do really well. Take pain medicine as it says.
Ok, had my op yesterday and been home about an hour. Not feeling too bad to be honest. Just a little sore and still very drowsy. Any reason why I feel really phlegmy though?
I had my surgery on Feb 27th so this is day 3 and to be honest I dont feel that bad either. I am sore but not in excruciating pain like lots of people. I have been constantly hydrating with water, popsickles, applesauce and tried kraft mac and chesse which went down smoothly. I have followed the docs instructions to a T and sleep with my head tilted.
Quavers are really good to eat too as they melt in your mouth! Let me no how the next few days go as I was told it gets painful around day 5
well I am on day 7 and yes around day 5 things changed!! THe pain became worse…I suffered from strep throat so the pain is equivalent to that, more fatigue even though all I do is sleep, mentally starving and daydreaming about food allday even though I know I cant eat any of it, depression( I believe the emotions and frustration of the recovery took over)….I am still waking up with some intense pain…I usually go right for the loratab elixer which I am almost out of….I dont feel addicted to it but it makes the pain go right away and I am down to about 3 doses per day. I am thinking of trying the liquid tylenol like some people on here said they did to see if that works as well. I am too afraid to leave the house in fear of getting an infection….I live in Atlanta with some of the worse pollution and the last thing I want is some nasty infection!! LOL I talked to a girl that said she went to her moms house and her mom was coughing and had mucus next thing she knew she ended back up in ER 4 days post op.
All I know is that it hasnt been as horrible as I have read about…no earaches, no severe pain, no crying…I drink tons of water daily but the hard part is the emotional drainage! Oh try the cepacol cough drops to help with pain….they work miracles. I hope this works. I am so looking forward to a normal life again.