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. My name is Sean, I am 28 yrs old. I wanted to post here because I know how terrible the recovery process can be following a tonsillectomy. I have never posted on a forum like this before but I feel compelled to. Reading posts from other people while I was at my worst, helped me through it, and still is actually. I want to share my experience in detail with hope that it will comfort those of you that are struggling to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Everyone’s recovery is a little bit different. Don’t be too discouraged if yours doesn’t match exactly each stage of the recovery outline sheet that you keep picking up and reading every hour. The following experience is for anyone to read, but in particularly, for those of you that feel as if you are having it worse than others whom had the same procedure. Think positive! It WILL end! Your experience will amplify your appreciation of health and build empathy of others! Read about my experience below and how Murphy’s Law made an example out of me. My limits, strength, and even faith was tested. At the end, I will share some things that helped me through this experience. Remember, You are not alone:
This last winter/spring, I had been getting strep and tonsillitis every month for about four months straight…needless to say, the time off work and antibiotics were getting a little old. Also, keeping up with my 6 yr old and 2 yr old became more strenuous than before. Being former military and currently a Police Officer, I felt the need to “tough it out.” I eventually realized that this was unrealistic, so I decided to get a tonsillectomy (with no objection from the ENT). I thought I had a clue as to what it would be like….kids get their tonsils out all the time, right? Wow…I didn’t know this would be one of the worst experiences of my life.
On April 10th I had my surgery and was released from the hospital the same day as planned. For the first two days, the pain was minimal-moderate. “This isn’t so bad,” I thought. On day three the pain started to really set in and I noticed that I was stuffed up and had green mucus when I blew my nose (I had gotten sick, great). Blowing my nose was painful to do but I had to breathe out of at least one of the holes in my face! Day 4 I became nauseated and began throwing up and had diarrhea along with a fever. At this point I was feeling pretty discouraged. “This isn’t going how it is supposed to!”
Day 5 the pain was absolutely excruciating and I now had a cough to add to the other things. The pain was so unbearable that I could not swallow (not just because of the pain, I literally could not get water to go down my throat without gagging and choking on it. I became dehydrated, lethargic, and could barely walk. Luckily, I have wonderful parents that allowed me to recover at their home rather than my own (as to not give my wife a third child to care for 🙂 My mom brought me to the hospital where they put me on IV fluids and gave me stronger pain meds. I was also provided antibiotics again do to the fact I had a fever (they wanted to ensure that I didn’t get an infection during the recovery).
Days 6-11 were all the same. PAIN. I felt like it would never end as each day blended into the next. Things started to feel unreal like I was in a movie. Little food, the flu, and Hydrocodone will do that to you. At least by day ten I was starting to get an appetite and wasn’t throwing up. I could only eat soft food and liquid and still had diarrhea. I could now taste the odor of the scabs that I had read about. Finally, a sign of healing that I can recognize. My hopeful thought didn’t last too long though.
Remember how you read that little part about how post-op bleeding occurs in 1-2% of patients? Guess what? I am one of them (I hope you are not). While attempting to carry on a conversation with my mother (still couldn’t speak well) I felt a hot liquid running down the back of my throat and then could taste that metallic taste. BLOOD. Its happening to me?! What the F’ do I do? I don’t know, will it stop on its own? Nope it won’t, now its pouring out of my mouth (leaning forward at this point). I shot up and grabbed a paper towel, twisting it into a tight wad and crammed it in the back of my throat, now gagging on paper towel and blood. The towel completely fills with blood…I take it out, grab another, same thing. By the third towel, the blood began to clot into this giant purple blob, which I had to reach in and remove and then immediately replace the towel. Finally the bleeding stopped. I wanted to pretend that this just didn’t happen so I didn’t go to the hospital that evening. I went to bed, woke up on Day 12 and repeated a day much like days 6-11 except with a new anxiety surrounding the bleeding episode.
That evening around 11pm, while reading a book in bed, the bleeding spontaneously started back up. This time it was worse. While dripping blood everywhere, I rushed downstairs and woke my mother up. Of course I couldn’t speak so she had to turn the light on and figure out what was going on. I had retrieved a Tupperware bowl which was quickly filling up. I was terrified because of how difficult it is to access the back of the throat to stop bleeding. As I soaked up towel after towel and dripping into the bowl at the same time, My Mom rushed me to the fire station and awoke the medics there (this was quicker than awaiting them to come get me). They saw the amount of blood that was in the bowl I had and immediately put me in the ambulance and rushed me to the ER (longest ride of my life).
While enroute I had to use several gauzes to get the bleeding to stop. By the time I got the bleeding to stop, I was anemic and had a very low pulse. Without taking the steps taken, I would have lost much more blood. The ER visit was terrible. They were very unsympathetic (I guess they were hoping for another gunshot victim to speed the shift up). At one point, the nurse came in and was squeezing my IV bag to force the fluids in faster. When asked by my Mom what she was doing, she referred to her method as “fast bagging.” While she was doing this, I suddenly felt like my chest was being crushed and began having trouble breathing. I told the nurse this and she was immediately alarmed and went and got the doc. When he came in, he examined the IV. He had me roll over into a recovery position and had a whispered conversation behind my head with the nurse. They were discussing the possibility of air getting into my IV line. Apparently the bag had a crack in it and was completely dry. The doctor then hooked me up to an EKG to monitor my heart. At this point, I gave up on feeling scared and just began praying, but while praying, became angry.
Where is GOD in all this? At what point is it enough? Looking back, we can say, “yes, this experience is quite unpleasant, but so many, have it so much worse.” That is hard to do in the moment sometimes though. I had never felt so vulnerable and weak in my life. Luckily nothing came of the whole IV incident. Oh, and guess what?, the “on-call” ENT that was supposed to show up for emergency surgery to re-cauterize my throat, never did. To top it off, the on-call surgeon that night happened to be the Doc that did my initial procedure. Not so much as a phone call, still to this day. (I cancelled my post-op yesterday because I don’t want to see the guy).
May 23, after spending all night on the ER bed, At 10 A.M, a different ENT showed up, took me into the OR, they put me under and re-cauterized my throat. I was released that day and returned home.
So as you can imagine, I am pretty discouraged about life in general at this point. I have lost 15 lbs (which is a lot considering I weigh 135 when I am healthy) and look like death. Pale, face is sunken, weak, and look nothing like I used to. Having the supportive family that I have, They helped convince me that the worst was over. I forced myself to think positively. Healing went much quicker after re-cauterization when compared to the initial surgery. I began to see the light at the end of the tunnel and really turned a corner by day 20. Eating regular food at this point, bout with diarrhea (which lasted over two weeks) was gone. I began doing small things like taking the dog around the block. Each day after this I was able to do more and more until I was able to return to work on the 5th of May. Overall, it was 25 days after the initial surgery that I could finally return to work.
I made it through the work week and here I am typing this out and thinking of you guys. Strangers, yes, but people that I have something in common with. People that I can feel empathy for. So the question becomes, what do I take from all of this? What do you take from this? I understand that many people are not religious and while I am not one of those Christian extremists, I try to maintain a relationship with God. It helps me accept situations I cannot control, and opens up the window to learning about ourselves. This experience was very humbling for me. I can be very prideful and have gotten used to being the one that is strong enough to help others. I was faced with a situation where it was me that needed to care and I had lost so much strength, strength that I took for granted on a daily basis. Looking back, I am thankful for this experience and appreciate that I can relate more to the hardships of others. If you read this whole entry, I appreciate your time and sincerely hope that it somehow helped. If you are experiencing something similar, you know you aren’t alone, if you are having a little bit easier than I did, you can take comfort in knowing it could be worse. Below are some things that I followed which I know for a fact ended up helping me. Some of these things I didn’t follow until I had second procedure. Learn from my mistakes. Good luck. Hang in there.
If you skipped right to this point: Congrats! you have almost as little patience as I do.
1) Try to think positive. In my experience, the toll stress takes on your body is far worse than the other physical factors.
2) Use a humidifier! and sleep in a small room if possible, the humidity will be higher. If you can, get the humidity up to 65-70. Moisture is the key to healing properly.
3) Be patient. Rushing anything will more than likely lead to setbacks. Even when you start feeling good again, don’t eat sharp foods (Doritos, nuts, etc) wait an extra week. Chew very well. swallow small
4) Chew gum between drinking. (Not the minty stuff). Trident Layers isn’t as harsh and gets the saliva going for longer.
5) Rest! but also take a short walk and don’t overdo it…set a small goal like to the end of the block and back just to get the blood flowing.
6) If you are like me, you’ve been on a bunch of antibiotics leading to this point, restore your normal intestinal flora with probiotics. I started using Probiotic10, diarrhea went away within 2 days
7) I had issues with bleeding. I don’t know why but I have a strong feeling that the supplements from GNC I was using, played a part. STOP using them if you are, even after the surgery. I was using a protein supplement after surgery because the label just says not to use before surgery. Just wait a month. If you have had an issue with bleeding before, remember Vitamin K is what helps blood to clot. Here is a link that shows some of the herbs/supplements that can complicate surgery:
8) Here are some food products I enjoyed that may not be suggested: coconut water, (its 100% natural, has more calories than water, and has electrolytes) Ensure Plus (350 calories in each little bottle and makes up for those times you just can’t swallow food). Greek Yogurt (has twice as much protein as regular yogurt, you’re losing lean muscle everyday after surgery so this is good) I like to break open and add the probiotics to the yogurt in the mornings.
9) Don’t talk too much. But If you are having a conversation with someone, you should take a sip of something every minute or so. Or txt them responses even if right next to you.
10) If you are having a really hard time remember that after this, you are stronger. This bible verse helped me: “But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. – 2 Corinthians 12:9-11
Wonderful writting. Thanks for the motivation and glad things are coming along for you. Please keep us updated on how you are feeling a few months post op. I look forward to hearing how everyone has benefited from this surgery.
Thank you for reading it. As of today, I feel strong and can only see progress on the horizon. Take care.
Sorry to hear you had complications, I hope things get better soon. If you don’t mind sharing, what method of tonsillectomy did you get done (electrocautery or coblation)?
Thanks for sharing. I’m on Day 18. I also had post op bleeding and the ER I went to “didn’t know what to do with me” and left me to bleed for 5 hours until transferring me via ambulance to another hospital. At that hospital they told me they typically receive post op tonsillectomy patients who need to be recauterized several times a week, which makes me question the 1-2% post op bleeding stat. I’ve also lost 10 pounds and look unhealthy thin. I’m feeling better, but still am tender and have trouble eating. Also, I’ve seemed to have lost my sense of taste. Nothing seems to taste the same. I’m back to work on Thursday and am confident I will feel better. Recovery has lasted forever. I just want to feel good again and get back to the gym! I need to post a diary like you did as well to help everyone out. Hang in there everyone. It will eventually get better.
Thank you so much for taking the time to write out your experience. I am hoping I’ll be a rare case of a breezy recovery like some of my friends, but I don’t hold high hopes on that. Reading your experience gives me hope that even if it does go badly, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Thanks for the tips and tricks too. I’m trying to learn from everyone else’ mistakes and try to so all of the right things.
When is your surgery scheduled for? I haven’t had mine yet either. I wonder if your friends with the breezy recovery had the coblation method? That’s what I’ll be getting, and it’s hard to find information on it. What method are you getting?
Thank you Amanda and bree . This site has be a God sent. Thank you both for the helpful info. I don’t think I’ll back out. Especially if I can look forward to breathing again & eventually a good nights sleep & waking up refreshed & energy again. You have been more helpful than you will ever know. Thank you ,thank you. Not sure if I need to loose anymore weight but I will have fun putting it back on 🙂 Have a wonderful weekend. BTW, My name is Robyn
Glad to help Robyn. I was thinking one of the things that need added to the list of must haves for this surgery is a good blender. I am very surprised by the amount of people eating toast or pizza so so after surgery but I did have a little more done than just tonsils.
I have a ninja (just the inepensive blender) but this has been wonderful. I can make smothies and such and this type of blender is great for frozen items even ice turns to slush. Depending on how things go this might be a great way to keep the diet a little more normal.
Again, I am getting ready to go through this surgery with the tonsillectomy & uvula shorten so not to cover my airway . Not sure about whether I have anything done with my nasal area yet. My question to anyone right now has the breathing gotten any better after the surgery? If so the pain may be worth it for a week or so. I haven’t slept in so long my bags have bags under my eyes. I have shortness of breath all day & when I try to lye down at night and the breathing is almost to the point of suffocating or at times I stop breathing for a few seconds at a time. I do that several times a night. The snoring seems to have gotten a little better since loosing 43 lbs. but not breathing is scary. Probably even more scary than the surgery. I have been watching the videos on you tube which maybe I shouldn’t. At times it seems to make me more apprehensive. The closer to June 5TH which is the day I get more frightened. Even though I’m 59 it still looks scary on the videos. Maybe I shouldn’t watch anymore. My ENT said to stop watching & reading negative stuff on the internet. But they wouldn’t put it on the internet if it wasn’t true ,right? HA , HA , commercial . I guess if I loose more sleep after the surgery it won’t make much difference at this point being I haven’t had a good night sleep in so long. I wouldn’t know what to do if & when I do get a whole 8 hours sleep. If I wake up without the bags & looked refreshed I might not know who that person in the mirror is 🙂 Any input would be so appreciated. Have a great weekend & good luck to those who have already gone through this & the pain. I am not looking forward to this but if I am able to breathe afterwards it may be worth it & look forward to that light at the end of the tunnel. I do have my list ready to go buy items from some good advice here so far. I know the biggest thing is not to let the throat get dried out. Keep water or liquid close by at all times. Take pain meds, meds or patch for nausea being I do get very sick after anesthesia. I normally get nausea meds in an IV which helps. I hope to be able to keep up with day by day posting on my progress afterwards just in case I need on going advice.
There is a lot of pain, but for once in my life, it feels like there is room in my mouth to breathe freely. My tonsils were so big I choked on them in my sleep as well, although my problem with breathing doesn’t sound nearly as bad as yours. I still snore because of the scabs in my mouth, but they have begun to fall off and even with only half of the scabs gone, it’s making a HUGE difference. It hurts a lot, that is true, but If i had to do it all again, I would. Even right after surgery you can see and feel the difference. Good Luck! I’m sure it’ll be worth it for you. Hope you finally get that good night sleep 🙂
I had septum and turbine surgery on my nose along with tonsilectomy. I don’t know anything about the uvula shortning.
this is can tell you. I can breathe!!!! No cpap since surgery. Its the best I have felt I think ever. I always felt like I had someones hand covering my face. Always fighting for air. I have been sleeping well and I am only 7 days post op. I’m not young -37 so I’m not just bouncing back quick.
Still on a liquid diet because everything wants to come out my nose but I have been reading and told by the doctor that this will improve. I really haven’t had the desire to eat much anyways luckily. Its a heck of a diet plan 🙂
i’m more than happy to answer anyother questions. I hope this helps.
Hi, it looks like you have been doing your research. Being aware of the risks is good because we can prepare in advance, however, I think your ENT is right. Don’t over involve yourself in the negative stuff. 1) it causes undue stress, 2) it cannot change the reality of your own situation. It has been 30 days since my initial operation and I feel great. You will too. Stay positive, drink plenty of fluids, use a humidifier, and be patient. You are going to feel pain, let it be an opportunity to build strength. At 59, you are extremely brave for committing to this operation and it is admirable. I wish you a speedy recovery. -Sean
Hello everyone. I have just recently found this site and it is really interesting and helpful to hear about everyone’s different recovery stories, so I have decided to add mine 🙂
I am a 20 year old female and am just going in to Day 9 of my tonsillectomy recovery. On the day of my surgery, I was scheduled to get my tonsillectomy at 7AM. The surgery started a bit late to start, but I was back from recovery by about 9:30AM. Right after i woke up from surgery, my voice was a bit scratchy, but because of the amount of medication I was on via my IV drip, I was in absolutely no pain. When I got back to my room (because they keep you under observation for a minimum of four hours post op) I was able to talk right away, and I would just describe it as slightly uncomfortable. When the surgeon came in to see me afterwards, she informed me that my left tonsil was removed with no complications, but my right tonsils was severely infected. She said that I had an untreated peritonsillar abscess and that the tissue around it was necrotic (dying). I also had tonsil stones, but this I already knew about since I cleaned them out every day for over two months (ew). The surgeon said that when she tried to remove the right tonsil, it was stuck to the back of my throat, so the cauterization wasn’t as cleanly done, and I may need another surgery to remove the scar tissue. I was given water, ice chips, and a popsicle in the hospital, and i gladly devoured all of it. I was given Oxycodone for pain as well as some antibiotics to treat the infection that was left over in my right tonsil. That night, I woke up every four hours to take my medication, but slept for a total of over eight hours.
Day 2-Day 6 I made sure to stay constantly on my drug regime and never missed a dose. I drank tons of water and was able to eat things like mac and cheese, jello, pudding, mashed potatoes, rice and one night i even had a turkey dinner (although it was cut into extremely small pieces and it took me forever to eat). I was exhausted for the most part, but I didn’t feel like the pain or the exhaustion was anything I couldn’t handle. After hearing all the horror stories, I thought I was getting off easy. I did, however, have the worst taste in my mouth from the scabs. Rinsing with salt water and brushing my teeth would help for a time, but it always came back. I have definitely experienced way more pain from my previous tonsillitis stints then I was feeling in these few days. Again, sleeping was a non-issue for me and I would have naps constantly. I thought everything would be bearable from here on out, until I woke up the morning of Day 7…
Day 7: I woke up to realize I had been sleeping with my mouth open and breathing through it the majority of the night. The pain was excruciating and since I hadn’t experienced that type of pain before then, I had no idea what to do. I was due for more medication, so I forced my pills down. My throat felt like it was ripping into a million pieces any time I would swallow. To fix it I used ice chips and ice water. I also have found it extremely helpful to turn the shower on to the hottest setting it will go to, close the bathroom door, leave the fan off, stand on the toilet and let the steam fill the air so I’m breathing in the moisture. This may sound extremely weird, but it’s the fastest remedy I’ve found, and it’s the one that hurts the least. With the ice chips, I suck on them until they’re small, then tilt my head back and let the cube melt on my tonsils. After about an hour or so (maybe a bit more) the pain had lessened, but I’m on Day 9, drinking water constantly and my throat still feels dry. All of Day 7 I just laid on the couch unable to nap because I needed to constantly be drinking water to try and keep my throat moist. I was bleeding all though out the day, but it wasn’t in a great quantity. Sucking on the ice chips helped it stop and I didn’t end up needing them re-cauterized. That night I fell asleep after about a half hour after taking my pain killers. I woke an hour later in so much pain I almost threw up. I didn’t even have the option of taking more pain killers because I still had over 2.5 hours before the others had worn off. Let me tell you, this is when that shower method works. And this brings us to Day 8…
Day 8: After waking up in so much pain, I did not allow myself to fall back asleep. I continuously had ice, a popsicle or ice cold water with me and was drinking it. If I didn’t sleep, the pain was much easier to manage. I drifted off a couple times throughout the day, but every time I’d wake up regretting it. I also was unable to eat anything but popsicles for the whole day. I tried some chicken broth in hopes of eating something a little more substantial, but that did not go over very well and ended up just not bothering with it. The whole day I just watched TV keeping track of when to take my pain meds, because if I was in this much pain ON them I can’t even imagine how much pain I would be in when they completely wore off. Ear aches and jaw aches started on both sides, I used a frozen gel pack and wrapped it around my whole neck, and it helped. I still had a constant feeling of dryness in the back of my throat and if I wasn’t constantly sucking on ice, eating a popsicle or drinking water, I would be in almost unbearable pain, even on my medication. Again, last night I received about an hour, if not less, of sleep and woke up this morning feeling like complete crap and had to repeat what now seems like my usual morning ritual.
I am now going on to Day 9 and I really hope I start to get better, because for the last two days, I feel like I’ve been getting worse. I know that there is light at the end of the tunnel, the trick is trying to find it :P.
I will try to keep this updated, and I really hope everyone else’s recovery is going a lot smoother than mine!
Good luck everyone!
Hi. I Had ups and downs too as far as pain. At day 9, in my opinion, it is still normal to be in pain. I was in pain beyond day 9. It will get better! Your body knows what to do, it will be over soon. hang in there!
I just got my tonsillectomy done yesterday, the pain isn’t nearly as bad as I want to throw up so much cuz the pain meds, idk if I should just not take any meds and try to heal without, I hear the worst day is the 4th or 5th and because today is only my second day I feel a little nervous for the next week. Is there any natural remedies for pain?
You could ask your doctor for an anti-nausea patch or pill so you can stay on your pain meds.
I would ask for nausea med or possibly change the pain meds. I luckily had not problem with my pain meds. I’m being honest when I say, by day 4-5 you will need pain meds. Good luck.