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
Helpful posts but no one has stated what type of tonsillectomy they had. Some surgeons still do the traditional knife procedure but many are doing the laser procedure.
Our 17 y.o. daughter is having tonsils out Wednesday, May 8. We’re trying to be as prepared as possible. She will be having the laser procedure with a top-notch ENT surgeon. Hoping for best outcome. She is a competitive swimmer w/ college swimming aspirations but she suffered almost the entire past school year with chronic illness and huge “trophy tonsils” that cause obstructive breathing, particularly while sleeping – leading to a vicious cycle of not enough sleep, weakened immune system, leading to more infection w/ tonsils and other viruses & such. This made it very challenging for her to keep up with training, academics etc. She is exhausted and wants the tonsils out, pain or not. Guess we will learn more during the pre-op on Monday and I am using this forum to accumulate a list of questions for the doc.
I agree, I wish everybody would say the method they are getting.
I had mine done with the coblation.
Had to make a change -the site has had multiple hacking attempts. If you have not registered as a user, you will need to to participate in the discussion and use chat. Sorry for the hassel –Greg
Hi everyone,
Im Crista – a 20 year old female. ive done my tonsillectomy surgery on the 25th of April 2013..that means today its my 8 day post-op recovery. If I had known how much pain one has to endure IM PRETTY sure i would not have done it in the first place..i would rather be happy staying with a swollen neck with protruding lymphnodes rather than passing through hell!….
Basically to write my experience in short… I arrived at hospital at 11am and the operation wasnt due until in the afternoon say around 3pm. at 12pm i got called in to operate me and pretty soon they injected me 3 times [because they couldnt find my veins] and they injected anesthesia to put me to sleep and they gave me the mask as well. as soon as i woke up i dont remember anything except that i was so much in pain that it seems that i started panicking and crying and my heart rate was going too fast and suddenly the machines starting beeping. then they gave me again the mask and i was put out.
As soon as i woke up… my throat was on fire even though i had anesthetic in my body. i couldnt speak and couldnt even swallow my own saliva it seeme i was on fire. soon after the hospital staff gave me a sandwich and told me to eat it [imagine i couldnt swallow my own bile-let alone eat a sandwich!] anyways.. for the rest of the day all they gave me was paracetamols and during the night they gave me an antibiotic liquid to soot down the pain through my drip.
day 2 they sent me home in the morning and spent the day in pain and asleep mostly. days 3 and 4 were pretty much the same in loads and loads of pain :/ and i didnt eat anything much except drank some water, took paracetamol suppositories and ate a tiny bit of jelly.
on Monday: that is day 5 the pain was so unbearable that my mum had to call the hospital and they told her that all i could take was the suppositories and that if i dont eat i might risk bleeding but i knew that paracetamol wasnt enough….i was literally crying in pain. then the doctor came saw that my moouth was white from all the puss and prescribed me voltaren and catafast sachets. i also bought DIFFLAM moutwash which really helped in soothing down the pain.
day 6: started taken the voltaren and the catafast sachets…and it was a miracle…all day no pain!!! and first time that I SLEPT THE WHOLE NIGHT without waking up crying in pain!! 😀
days 7 – this present moment..it was hell again. most of the scab of my left hand side has fallen off. but couldnt slp due to pain. eating is hell again…and when i take the catafast and trying to eat at first its ok..then suddenly the food touches somewhere- a sensitive part and i would start crying and tears streaming down my face due to pain! cant eat much and throughout this process already lost round 5kgs!
So basically from today onwards im really hoping that there comes a day when finally the pain starts to wear off..because honestly i dont know how much i can put up with this pain anymore!!! 🙁
P.S VERY IMPORTANT: unfortunately since 2days ago iv noticed that my right hand side of my mouth there is a piece of meat dangling downwards which is covered a bit in puss [i dont know how i can explain it sorry xD] ..and i dont know if they forgot to burn it out or its because it didnt fall yet….either way i think most of my pain is coming when the food touches it and its becoming a problem because the little food that i eat, i cannot swallow properly due to sticking in my throat because of this ppiece of ‘meat’ since its blocking half of my throat hole…..any help please?!
Thank you!
Had my surgery 5-1-13 can u say misery when I was awaken. Came home around 12pm slept til 4pm, hubby gave me prescribed rociet, which gave me an allergic reaction! Today (day 2) I was suggested by my surgeon to take extra strength Tylenol, it works. However I heard about “magic mouthwash” my doctor Prescribed that and boy does it help soothe & numb my throat. I’m only on day 2, reading everyone else’s comments helps me even though I know I have a long painful way to go 🙁
about the magic moutwash…is it DIFFLAM? because it does help yea! is it a bottle with a green liquid?! Hang on there.. we will make it through!!
Hang in there! I’ve been there. Going on Day 9 here. I also asked for the magic mouthwash and yes it helps. Word of advice- just be careful not to take too much and focus on swallowing after you take it. One day as I was enjoying all of its great wonder when I realized I wasn’t paying attention to swallowing and the next thing I knew I was choking and I couldn’t swallow because my throat was numb. It turned into a terrible coughing episode. I also bought some Cepacol Sore Throat & Cough drops. They help also. My Dr says overall I’m doing very good and he attributes it to staying hydrated and eating. Oh and if you don’t already have one, I recomment the humidifier. Good luck!
Greg – any chance the different methods of tonsillectomy could have their own categories on the site to post in? That would provide more useful information for everybody using this site. Thanks.
Me again :-/ Going on Day 8. Just woke up and felt a lot of mucous in back of throat so I spit it out and sure enough- blood. I’ve had this a couple times today and mh Dr says it’s a normal part of the scabs falling off and not to worry if the bleeding stops within 10-15 mins. For the most part it’s done after 5 nins. I’m still not liking the whole ‘bleeding thing’. Did/Has anyone else experience the same? Thanks!
I had pink/red saliva today, too. I sucked on ice cubes and it stopped. I ahve stinky breath though. Did not have this before surgery. I wonder if it’s coz of the scabs? Do you have a strange stinky breath around this time too? I brush my teeth and gargle often.
I had the bad breath a couple days ago amd every so often it comes back, but it’s not as bad. I was told it was from the scabbing. I also brush daily and use a mouthwash. I also asked Dr if it’s ok to lightly gargle with salt water and he said yes so I’ve been doing that.
Okay, so after reading all these horrifying stories on the internet, I wanted to post one that is not so horrible… I am on day 14 today. So here’s how it went down: (I am 24 years old for reference)
I woke up from the anesthetic while still in the OR. (yeah, it wore off FAST) I was very confused and disoriented and started screaming, they had to sedate me. When I woke up in recovery the nurses asked me what my pain scale was, it was about a 4 so they gave me some morphine which knocked me out. They kept me for about 4 hours after surgery and then sent me home.
I did not get any prescriptions, I took regular old Tylenol, which worked although I did find it wore off before I was able to take another dose. Later that evening, I began vomiting which was awful. I continued to vomit the next day.. Days 3-7 went by sooooo slowly, and the swelling in my mouth didn’t go down either, I was essentially on a liquid diet… but keep in mind, I took regular Tylenol and nothing else, I was in pain, but it wasn’t the worst pain I’ve ever had or anything… I can’t see how so many people can get hardcore narcotic drugs and still complain!!! anyways, as far as the scabs go, I’ve read a lot of people who claim that its unbearable pain when the scabs fall off, I have a different experience, if I attempted to eat anything even slightly solid it would get caught on the scabs on the way down and pull them off, and that hurt but only for a few seconds at a time, which is why I stuck to liquids/soft foods until day 10. I did not have any bleeding or anything from the scabs coming off either…. I started back at work yesterday and am feeling almost back to normal and able to eat most things now, although I’m still staying away from anything crunchy… So, yes, it was a crappy recovery and yes there are a few miserable days, but please please please don’t believe every horror story you hear… Some people really do have a hard time, and the older you are the worse it will be, but, some people are just big whiners. Take everything you read here with a grain of salt (including my experience).
I just gave a recap of my experience thru today (Day 7) and posted it on the Recovery Days Page under Tonsillectomy Day 7. Hang in there everyone. You’re not alone !