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 had my tonsillectomy last fall, and it was the best decision I’ve ever made. I haven’t been sick since!
I really felt compelled to write about my experiences because what you read on the internet are just plain horror stories. This is dedicated to the person who is reading this a few days before surgery and is freaking out as to how awful this is going to be. I am from Washington DC and I am a 29/m. This is a very detailed article about my experience but scroll to the bottom for my tips at the very minimum.
So here I am the day before surgery and I am doing my homework on what to expect and what do I read? HORROR story after horror story about how awful it was. I have had wisdom teeth out before but nothing really beyond that. I got so nervous about what I read, I really considered cancelling the surgery the day before. If this is you, don’t do it! Think about all those horrible sore throats you have had. Anyways, that’s what I did and hence I went through with it.
This may be a really unfair statement, and it probably is, but I’ve noticed that all the horror stories for the most part are from women. I only know this from reading the authors names on message boards but I saw a correlation between women and how bad this was. So if you are a woman, maybe it’s different from what I experienced or maybe the pain threshold is perceived a little different, i’m not sure. I know, very unfair but I did notice this.
I am now on day 13 and I can say I am pretty much completely recovered. I still have white on the back of my throat but its very quickly going away and doesn’t hurt. So if you are asking when you should expect to feel better, target around 2 weeks.
Should you take 2 weeks off from work or 1? I thought I could do 1 but I was dead wrong, you need 2! Don’t kid yourself. It’s not because you will be in so much pain, it’s because my bleeding happened on days 10 and 11. You do not want to be at work and start bleeding, so avoid this completely and just take the 2 days off no matter how good you feel.
Was this painful? To be honest, no it wasn’t. It was not any worse then a typical sore throat i’ve had. One motto I read online and stuck by is “stay ahead of the pain” and that’s probably why it didn’t hurt. Meaning, take your pain meds religiously. Mine said take up to 3 oz every 4-6 hours, so I took 3 oz every 4 hours. I set my alarm at night to do this.
However, doing this lead to the real annoyance and hard part of this surgery…. the side effects!…i’ll get into that more in a bit.
The surgery itself was a breeze. I woke up and had a standard sore throat. Nurse gave me some ice to suck on as I came out of the haze and then a popsicle. I say it took me about 30-45 minutes in recovery (surgery was 45 min according to my gf) then she asked me if I wanted t go home and I said yes. I got home and took a nap and had crazy dreams from the anesthesia. I woke up and felt pretty good, I was talking and even called my mom. So days 1 and 2 are a breeze, again just keep taking your pain meds.
I made the mistake of eating a large meal (Wings) for my “last supper”, HUGE mistake. The wings constipated me so I went into surgery already semi constipated. The pain meds will constipate you! So when you do your last meal, don’t stuff yourself and don’t eat anything out of the ordinary…. a standard meal. Have your glutton meal the week before.
Day 3…. constipation! Ouch….I tried to go so bad and wasn’t even close. I started taking the stool softeners and at that point it was too late. So if you are going to take your pain meds full blast, take stool softeners in the morning and evening from the very beginning! Anyways, so i’m screwed at this point so I eventually had to go with “Milk of Magnesia” which basically is a liquid that makes you explode. Yup that worked…. pure diarrhea. Problem is, it didn’t stop! 3 days of pure liquid coming out. So here I am on day 5 and I kept expecting to get clogged up again but it just never happened. I even took Imodium to plug me up and that didn’t work, and that is strong stuff. I must be missing something so I ended up calling the doctor and the liquid antibiotic I was taking twice a day had a diarrhea side effect. Ahh that made perfect sense as to why I wasn’t getting normal. He told me to stop taking it, which I found surprising but that ended up doing the trick. Thank God I did not have any infection issues, I think this was a roll of the dice on the doctor’s part. Day 6…. diarrhea stopped. After being completely emptied for 3 days, I decided no stool softeners (mistake). I’ll get into that later.
I noticed on day 4 my tongue had a gash on the side. I read online beforehand that they clip your tongue to the side during surgery, so I knew what it was. I then noticed a small canker sore and by the time I was over my diarrhea on day 5, I had a HUGE painful canker sore on the site where they clipped my tongue. This was the worst part of the surgery!!!!!! OUCH. It was so painful, the pain meds did nothing. I had to wake up every 2 hours to put a numbing gel on it just to get some temp relief. Again, throat itself is okay, but between the diarrhea and canker sore that was so much worse! This canker sore went on until day 10 until it finally started going away.
Day 10 I was getting ready to go to sleep, kind of happy the canker sore was going away. I laid in bed and I was talking like crazy to my girlfriend, since I couldnt really talk before this. I also took some advil PM to get drowsy. Big mistake! Between the advil (which should never be taken during recovery, blood thinner) and talking so much I noticed I was swallowing alot. Looked back, yup I’m bleeding on my right side. I kind of freak out and right away ran for some ice water. I hold the ice water in the back of my throat until it was warm, spit it out and then put some more in. I also put an ice pack around my throat. After 5 minutes, the bleeding stopped and I slept with my head elevated all night. Good thing I didn’t go back to work.
Day 11 I am feeling good but then I realized I hadn’t moved my bowels since the diarrhea on day 5, so I haven’t gone in a week. Not good! Yup…. I’m constipated again. I finally had the urge to go on day 11 and it was the most painful bowel movement ever. So hard and difficult to pass. This is a helpless feeling of having to go but not being able to. I read online what to do…. took a stool softener, drank a bunch of water, and that allowed me to barely pass the stool. OUCH. So now back to the stool softeners which helped slowly but upset my stomach for 2 days. I go to bed that night and wake up in the middle of it with me swallowing alot, I am bleeding again from the same side. I hit more ice water. I still don’t know why I started bleeding. I slept again with my head elevated.
So that brings me to day 13, right now. Stomach is still a little off but returning to normal. Throat is not painful and I should be eating normally (providing my stomach comes around) tomorrow. I stopped my pain med on day 11. I feel pretty good but I lost a lot of weight from the liquid diet.
Anyways, to sum it up, my advice:
*No big meals the night before surgery! Standard meal, your stomach should be strong going into surgery.
*”Stay ahead of the pain” – Take your pain meds religiously but also take a stool softener. If I could do it over again I would take one morning and night right when I start my meds. If you ever get diarrhea, call your doctor.
*Be prepared for a canker sore: nothing you can really do here to prevent, maybe tell your doctor you are concerned about it (especially if you are prone to get them, like I am) and maybe he can be gentle with the tongue clamp but I would have numbing gels in the house.
*Bleeding is always a possibility up to 2 weeks…. never think you are past it. If you ever wake up with excessive swallowing you should get up right away and check. Have ice water and ice packs ready. I did not have to call the doctor because I got mine to stop but if you bleed a lot then call your doctor right away (or if it is the middle of the night you should consider an ER visit, I know it sucks but it’s just bad luck it happened at night. Don’t be nervous, just go and they can stop it).
*Nausia is a huge possibility but I didn’t experience any of this. I would ask your doctor beforehand on what to do in you experience this, he may have you get some medicine before (especially if you are prone to nausia)
*Keep hydrating! I didn’t mention this above but it was hourly goal to try and drink as much water as possible. You read this everywhere and it is so important. I stuck to water as gatorade aggravated my canker sore but always hydrate.
Anyways, that’s it! Do not be worried about the pain!!! If anything, be worried about the side effects because they could be much worse (they were for me). But if you are aware of them and are proactive, then this whole surgery could be a breeze. So stop reading about the horror stories…. people are more bound to write about a negative experience than they are a positive. Just take it with a grain of salt and just be prepared!
Hope this helps everyone.
Hello! I’m a 29 years old female on day 7 of recovery. I’m not sure what horror stories you read because I did not read that many on here. Each person has there own experience. My experience is similar to yours. I have taken my pain medication every 4 hours for the first 5 days and now take it every 6 hours. I’m also prone to canker sores and have just developed one on the left side of my tongue. I drink water constantly and put an ice pack on my neck. So far no bleeding but lots of saliva in the back of my throat. My throat pain is very little. My only big thing is I can’t really talk. It very painful but if I do talk it is a whisper. I just wanted to share with you that no all women have horror stories.
Good to hear! I feel we need more positive stories on here so it was really nice to hear that your recovery is going well and that the experience is most likely similar for both men and women. 🙂
I think it has a lot to do with the fact that the people withOUT horror stories, don’t think to tell their tale!
I had my tonsils removed on the 16th. I am a 41 yo stay-at-home mom and I have a fairly decent pain tolerance.
This does NOT mean, I am not in pain…there is always pain with surgery!
I have noticed that my pain is mostly in my jaw, not my throat. I am not sure if this comes from the fact that I have arthritis to begin with, I suspect it does, a bit.
I have not had any problems with constipation, bleeding, talking (been able to talk all along!), nausea…just tongue pain (which is apparently normal) and jaw soreness! They did not give me antibiotics to go with my pain syrup.
I ate yesterday, but it must have taxed my jaw a bit too much because today I can’t chew! Oh, well…whatever.
I just keep reminding myself I will NEVER have to go through this again! LOL
I was suppose to start steroids but the first dose made me really ill and since I have no noticeable problems they said I may not need them. I’ll hold onto them, in case I start swelling but, so far, less than a week out, I’m good!!!
Except for yawning…yawning hurts! 🙂
Surgery 4/18. Woke up in years with pain in my ears. Worst day yet.
I meant tears. Worst ear pain ever. With the 5 bouts of strep I had this year I only had pain in one ear.
Surgery yesterday morning. Already scabbing. Applesauce. Jello. Water. Children’s ibuprofen and cepacol. And humidifier at night!!!
I had my tonsils removed Wed., April 17. I am 45 years old and this website helped a lot reading up ahead of time on what to expect. Now I am back to the website while in recovery.