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
It has been one week since my surgery.
I posted, the other day, that the only real problem I was having was some rather bad jaw soreness.
I thought it was from having arthritis but I decided to check it out, so I went to my chiropractor this morning!
Turns out my jaw was dislocated and my neck was out of place!
After the adjustment, my face/neck was SCREAMING with pain!!!
Not 30 minutes later I feel worlds better!!! My jaw is sore but not too badly and I CAN CHEW!!!
I can breath better too, so I guess my sinuses really needed the adjustment too!
Keep in mind, if your jaw is OVERLY sore…it may be out of place. They do, after all, pry it WAY open for this procedure!!! LOL
BTW – It is only sore to yawn now! Before, it was QUITE painful.
Hey guys. So today is day 12 of my recovery and this morning I actually woke up pain free! That didn’t last long however lol the right side is kind of aching now =( I still can’t see any scabs forming, it’s still like a white kinda film. Anyway, I came on here as I was looking up about loss of taste, which I have myself lost. Then I was thinking back to my stay in hospital, and everything I had eaten there tasted normal. So now I’m wondering whether this loss is due to the meds I’m on (dihydrocodeine and diclofenac). This is what I’m hoping anyway! I’m already feeling depressed about eating, and have lost weight which I really can’t afford to lose. I regret getting my tonsils out now as this has been hell.
I had my tonsillectomy in January 2013. I was scared beyong scared. I really didn’t want to go through with it and was ready to call the whole surgery off. This was my first surgery. The surgery was done in 30-45 minutes and I woke-up pain free. I was very thirsty and ready to sit up. I was given a prescription for percocet but I didn’t get it filled. I told the doctor I wanted something not as strong and he gave me hydrodocone. The morning I got home from surgery the pain wasn’t bad at all. I sat up in bed, ate some soft foods, and watched TV. The pain was a 2 on a scale from 0-10 (10 being the highest). I woke up that night every 4-5 hours to take 10mg of liquid pain medicine (I was supposed to take 10-20 mg depending on pain) and then I went back to sleep. I was more aggravated with having to wake up and take medicine cause all I wanted to do was sleep. The second day was about the same (pain level was a 2-3). I forced myself to eat. My tongue was very sore, which isn’t uncommon. Day 4 and 5 the pain was a level 5. I kept taking my medicine every 4-5 hours and kept drinking lots of water. My uvula was swollen and I was getting very annoyed with that. It would tickle my throat and I kept coughing. My only “rough” days were 6-8. The pain started peaking a little (pain level = 7) and eating became more painful. I kept pushing through it and reminding myself I was almost healed. Day 9 I began to feel normal again. I still had scabs but the pain was very, very minimal. I stopped the pain medicine all together on day 8 and only took regular tylenol when I needed it. My scabs never “fell off” to where I had to spit them out or anything – I don’t know where they went? I didn’t have horrible breath either. I used alcohol free mouth wash every single day. I also brushed my teeth 2-3 times a day. My ability to taste certain foods was a little wacky for about 3-4 weeks after surgery. I believe I had a good experience. In my opinion, if you can handle strep throat then tonsillectomy recovery isn’t bad at all. Strep throat hurt worse!! The bad part is not being able to eat normal foods for about 2 weeks. I made sure to sleep “sitting up” in bed for about 10 days and it helped out a lot. I made sure to drink plenty of water and made sure to drink something that had lots of protein in it. Protein helps speed up the healing process. Don’t worry yourself about the surgery nor the recovery, just take it one step at a time. I am so thankful I had the surgery done because I dont snore anymore and I can breathe again. My tonsils were super huge so getting them taken out was for the best. Don’t believe everything you read b/c it’s really not that bad.
Hi, I’m 37 and on day 7 of recovery (8 if you include the day of the op) and after reading some of the experiences i wanted to share mine which is more good than most! I’m from the UK and by the sounds of it things are done slightly different here. After years of trouble with my throat (since a child) my doctors sent me to an ENT surgeon, usually its NHS but i was lucky enough to get into a private hospital as the NHS had a long waiting list. I had coblation, radio-frequency treatment which isn’t widely used here. Had no problems at all on the 1st day, had op at 12pm, awake by 12.30 and home by 4.30pm! Couldn’t stop eating either after! Any thing i could get my hands on! I was told to eat as usual which i have tried to do. I was told my right tonsil was so infected they had trouble removing it and i may suffer more pain than normal..hasn’t happened! My throat has been sore but mainly at night, waking up every few hours gasping for a drink, but within an hour of getting up and taking my meds (Ibuprofen & Paracetamol) the pain is hardly there. Apart from this I’ve had no problems at all! Haven’t been able to eat everything though from day 3 but managed to eat a pizza last night no problems. Not sure if it’s due to having Coblation treatment or i’m just lucky but i’ve not found it as painful as i was expecting. I feel loads better already, up and about doing most things. Hopefully the remainder of my recovery will be as plain sailing, fingers crossed, but i just wanted to let people know that are thinking about having it done, everyone is different and you may not suffer as bad as the next.
Thanks for sharing your story. There are not many coblation stories out there, which is the procedure I plan to get. I hope my recovery is like yours.
When is yours booked for Allison? After looking around and reading other peoples experiences with coblation treatment I do think the procedure and a good surgeon is the reason why recovery is a lot less painful. I did have some ear pain but again nothing major. Today day 8 (9 if include day of the op) i’m off the meds! Got up with no pain at all, eating and drinking as normal. As to the scabs everyone talks about, i don’t know if i’ve had them or not, not noticed. My throat is pretty much back to normal with just a little whiteness left at the back. I am very stubborn though and am the sort to just get up and get on with things regardless so maybe that has helped a bit. I will add I am a smoker and have smoked through recovery (bad i know!), should give you an idea how much pain i haven’t been in to still light up. Hope your goes as well as mine.
I have my second ENT appt. on May 6th, so I will probably be scheduling the coblation surgery then. I bet there’s less coblation stories online because more of those patients have easier recoveries and don’t feel the need to post. So I’m glad you did post! I will make sure to post after mine as well. It would be nice if this website separated the recovery posts by method used. That makes such a big difference it’s too bad people don’t realize they may be reading a horror story recovery from a method they are not even getting.
So I’m 2 weeks post op and I still have a thin layer of white from the scabs but there’s also a lot of pink that I can see.
1.Is this normal??
2.Does this mean my scabs haven’t fallen out yet?
3. When can I start eating spicy and acidic foods??
4. If the scabs fall does that mean it’s fully healed?
My throat is sore but nothing serious, it just feels like I’ve been screaming it’s very bearable but it still hurts to yawn : (
Normal, it’s what i saw after 2 weeks, I didn’t look again til 3 weeks. Wednesday will be 4 weeks Post op for me and yawning is pretty much back to normal, just once in a while yawn feels different. Foods is a give or take, I was eating Everything after 2 weeks.
Lucky you I’m just waiting for the day I can eat a taco with spicy sauce. Friday will be my first day attempting to eat something spicy. Your scabs are gone already??
i’m day 20 post op, pretty much had the same thing as you described except pain wise week 2 was the worst. cannot wait to eat spicy foods again!!!
Ten days post op. ordered Indian yesterday. No problem. My problem is with sugar more. It burn!