I’m a 21 year old female and currently on day 10 post op tonsillectomy. Honestly the days are starting to blur together but I I figured I would do more of a post on some tips or things I was surprised and not really prepared for during this time.
Before hand I would be prepared to have someone who can take care of you for AT LEAST the first week if not the full two weeks. You will be surprised how just getting out of bed to get a drink can make you feel so awful. Also make sure you have lots of your favorite drink ready and in the fridge (mine was Gatorade). Everything tastes different and off for a while be prepared for that. Take a shower the night before because honestly showering was horrible even on day 3. I wasn’t able to shower again until day 7 because just standing made me so nauseous and dizzy. Have pain pills and a notebook ready beside your bed to keep track of when you take your meds.
Day one is probably the easiest day I had, you come home still drugged from the anesthesia and other good pain meds they give you there. I remember just sleeping a lot but it was a little hard to talk and drinking was A LOT harder than I expected it to be.
The next few days kinda blurred together but days 2-8 just got worse and worse each day. My biggest advice is take your pain meds as percribed and If okay by your dr also take Ibuprofen along with it. I was taking my pain meds every 4 hours and trust me I knew when that 4 hour mark was coming because the pain would become brutal. One of the things I was most surprised with during these days were was the amount of mucas and saliva I had in my mouth. Also I don’t so super great with pain meds and considering the most I would eat was a popsical my stomach was empty and I got super nauseous. It got to the point where I was throwing up anywhere from 1-4 times a day. At times I was throwing up blood but hardly any so it wasn’t anything serious.
I can’t remember what day it was I believe Day 4 that got the best of me but I ended up getting a blood clot and was very dehydrated. I ended up having to go to the ER and get put on an IV where they gave me morphine and fliuds for the dehydration. They wanted me to stay overnight to watch over the blood clot but it was visible enough that my mom (a nurse practitioner) could watch over it. My biggest advice for this is to stay hydrated. I really failed at this.
Also another huge thing that caught me off guard was how HORRIBLE your mouth tastes when the scabs are forming. It seriously tasted like a dirty diaper (sorry I know it’s gross) but seriously your breathe will smell horrible and taste even worse. Honestly it was probably the main cause of me throwing up the taste and chocking on the mucas and scabs.
I didn’t expect drinking to be so horrible either, If it’s too cold it hurts! Also i couldn’t drink more than a sip at a time for the first 8 days. Eating is pretty much impossible. I didn’t even try most days more than a popsical.
Coughing has become an issue in days 7-10 I find myself getting in coughing sprees and it hurts. Feels like something’s stuck in my thoat.
Today (day 10) I ate some very soft noodles and some potato soup and it actually went down decent so I got cocky and tried one of my sisters McDonald’s fries (it was even very soft) and it hurt pretty bad. I feel basically back to normal other than the fact it still hurts a little to swallow my own saliva and liquids and the fact that I still can’t eat super solid foods. Hoping within the next few days I will be able to eat more stuff. That’s the hardest part right now cause I just want to get back to normal and it’s frustrating!!
I just weighed myself and have lost 15 pounds in 10 days. (I’m only 5’1 so that’s a lot of weight). Today I have only taken 3 ibuprofen earlier in the day and nothing besides that. The pain is definitely tolerable. It really just feels like a sore throat at this point. Sadly today’s the first day I have actually got out of the house and did something without feeling awful. My two week checkup is coming up in a few days so I’m hoping dr says all is looking good and I am able to get back to normal activities.
Sorry I know this was a super long post but honestly I wish I would have read some of this before had because the littlest weirdest things caught me most off gaurd and I didn’t feel fully prepared. Hopefully this will help someone in any way!