A collection of various experiences of adult tonsillectomy patients on their first day of recovery
From thousands of post comments to the tonsillectomy recovery forum, I have assembled a sampling of various accounts and impressions of tonsillectomy recovery for each day. We shall start with tonsillectomy day 1. These comments are taken from tonsillectomy patients who were kind enough to share their experiences to help others as they navigate the bumpy road of tonsillectomy recovery.
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Please feel free to add your own experience with tonsillectomy day 1.
-Greg Tooke My short bio
Tonsillectomy Day 1
Tonsillectomy Day 1: This is not too bad. Pussies on the forum!
Tonsillectomy Day 1:(surgery day): Thank God I woke up! Whoa – drugs.
Tonsillectomy Day 1: I had a freezie when I got home and lots of water. I watched some television and took the amoxicillin that I was prescribed to prevent infection. I decided to try to swallow the capsules because they looked small enough…BIG MISTAKE! After the first one, it felt like it was stuck in my throat, but I tried to take the second one…even bigger mistake. So I start getting anxious because I feel like the pills are stuck in my throat and not going down – even with loads of water. It turns out they did go down, but because my throat was swollen, they felt like they were just sitting there. I was prescribed liquid codeine and told to buy liquid Tylenol. However, the only liquid Tylenol my mom could find was for children, so instead, she decided to buy Tylenol caplets that melt in your mouth – which turned out to be for children as well. The first night I only took Tylenol because I wasn’t in that much pain at first. Needless to say, I was in pain during the night and slept maybe 1-2 hours in total.
Tonsillectomy Day 1: i had the surgery at 3:20 pm ( they were over an hour behind schedule).I woke up feeling like crap and the nurse had to give me lots of morphine through the IV drip. I spent the night in a hospital and it was the worst night ever. My throat was in pain all night even though they gave me the liquid codeine. There was only 2 of us in the “day surgery” ward ( where they keep the overnight patients) but the other lady was snoring all through the night! which made things even worse haha. I only got about 4 hours of on and off sleep. My mom picked me up at 6am and i went home and slept for a bit.
Tonsillectomy Day 1 : My surgery was at 9:30am ET this morning and I was home by 1:30pm which included a 20 minute drive home. I had a tonsillectomy and he just trimmed a little of my extremely long uvula. I woke right up from the surgery with no problems at all. The pain I had was a 1or 2 on a scale of 10. hardly any pain after the surgery and I was able to eat apple sauce, ice and water immediately after waking. No side effects from the surgery med’s. They did give me some anti-nausea drugs. I still feel like I have just a mild sore throat.
Tonsillectomy Day 1 : Days 1&2 were definitely the honeymoon phase. All was grand in tonsil land
Tonsillectomy Day 1 : I just had it done this morning, massively consming water, pain meds every 4 hours, popsicles, little apple sauce and trying to maintain a healthy probiotic regimine. Its weird because it feels like a bad case of strep throat….so far. But I do feel instant relief with my breathing.
Tonsillectomy Day 1 : Well i just got home from surgery. I had my tonsils removed, deviated septum fixed, uvula removed and turbinates (nasal wall tissue) reduced. I have no recall of surgery, only remember maybe a minute of being in the operating room, then waking up in the recovery center.
Pain is not what i expected it to be. I think i have worse pain from strep throat
Tonsillectomy Day 1 : Post op eight hours……everything feels fine but I’m scared for the horrible days ahead. Sandra you developed ear pain at 3rd day? That makes me nervous
Tonsillectomy Day 1 : (Day of surgery) I actually felt pretty darn good, was able to eat a little, but I wish someone would have told me that I needed to re-learn how to swallow. VERY SMALL sips is the key.
Tonsillectomy Day 1 : Slept only about 2 hours due to still being very restless and fidgety from the effects of the anesthesia. Stayed on a steady dose every 4 hours of pain med’s which seemed to edge my pain. Still in a great deal of pain all day. I ate more Popsicle and jello and applesauce and was able to eat some luke warm soup which tasted great and drank 2 ensure shakes and a yogurt shake. The anesthesia effects seemed to finally wear off sometime in the early evening making me a bit more comfortable. Still in a good deal of pain. My entire mouth now hurts along with the throat and I am having jaw pain and slight ear pain and tongue pain from the clamps they used during the surgery.
I am on Day 7 of my recovery and Thank God I am feeling alive again!! I just wanted to leave a few tips. I found that sweet tea, sprite, icecream, yogurt, pudding and shakes made the salava too thick in the back of my throat which caused swallowing and breathing problems for me. I found it much easier to drink ice cold water. It hurt real bad to drink the water but I knew I had to keep my throat moist at all times in order to keep hydrated and to keep soreness down. I ate orange jello and cheese grits for days 1-5 and it was heavenly. When I would try to eat mash potatoes or pasta it hurt my jaw, throat, tongue and teeth so I avoided eating anything that I needed my tongue to manuever. Yesterday was a good day and I even ran a few errands around town. Last night was kinda rough as I think the scabs are coming off in places. Today started out well and at times I feel a good bit of pain. I did eat cheese grtis, butter toast (not the edges) and a grill cheese sandwich today. I had to take a pain pill earlier today which I did not have to do that yesterday throughout the day. I am not pushing myself with the food issue. I want to eat real food and I can’t wait, however, I do not want to regress I want to move forward.
Day one (Australia): Arrived at the hospital at 8 AM to check in. I was told to fast no food or water 6 hours prior to this. I was a little disappointed as I was then told that my surgery was scheduled for 11am. How would I survive 3 more hours without water. Food I’m fine with but not having water makes me feel anxious! I changed into my robe and a porter collected me on the trolly. He wheeled me to what felt like a waiting room for surgery and I stayed there about 10 minutes. He got me a warm blanket and tucked me in and covered my feet.
I was then wheeled into a small curtained room, where the nurse applied chest pads and a blood pressure monitor band to my arm and pulse to finger.
The anaesthetist came (nice guy) he told me day 2 would be the worst but it would be worth it in the long run. He then put a needle in my arm and gave me a small cocktail of the drugs. He kept me talking and I told him I felt weird. I was then wheeled into the operating room and asked to shuffle onto the operating bed. At this stage I was shivering as it was so cold. I don’t really remember much else apart from the porter rubbing my hand telling me to relax.
I woke up in the recovery room gasping for air, the first thing I wanted was water. I the nurse got me it and I randomly said I wanted to gargle it but couldn’t and spat it right out, was agony. She then got me an icy pole and I lay there drugged up licking on that, weird eerie nice.
I heard them say my room was ready and they wheeled me to another floor where my husband was waiting for me. They immediately gave me sandwiches a cup of tea and a large junk of iced water, they kept telling me to eat but I was so drugged up I didn’t know what I could do. My eyes were heavy and i ate the icy pole for a bit.
My tongue was quite numb and I didn’t want to eat solids with a numb tongue in fear of biting the sucker off! The nurses came in every hour checking my pulse temperature and blood pressure. After an hour I was given paradox and I surprised myself and was able to eat the sandwiches! My husband then bought me some mashed potato from Aportos and that went down well!
The surgeon popped in on me half way through the day, he said I had large abscesses on the left tonsil and they were ugly. He also shaved my adenoids. He said allot of patients recently have had great success with eating sushi and sashimi. This was music to my ears, so off the husband went again to get me sushi For dinner (I’m a lucky wife).
Throughout the day I have had 4 panadol and 3 white tablets (strong mofos). Swallowing is getting much harder. I’ve gone through 3 drip bags and I’m still thirsty and not going to wee much. It’s nearly midnight and im scared to sleep in fear of waking up thirsty and sore. I dosed off on my husbands shoulder a few times in the day time, but not a deep sleep.
I took a look in the mirror at the damage. 2 massive white gaping burnt holes, not pretty at all. I was horrified t how large the holes were, looks like food could seriously get tuck in there!
Anyway, hopefully I may get some sleep tonight. Until then, signing off 🙂
Had surgery yesterday. Wasn’t prepared for inability to swallow without liquid. Sweet stuff makes me gag, so popcicles aren’t working for me either. Ice water is my friend and jello is going down ok.
I am a 26 year old female and had my tonsils & adenoids out yesterday. When I woke up from the GA I just had a bad sore throat (to be expected…) But was given some hardcore pain meds via IV which helped. When I got home I took my prescription hydrocodone but accidentally didn’t take enough (turned out I didn’t have a measuring spoon) so I was in a good amount of pain when I’d swallow. My boyfriend ran out and got me a medicine dropper which has helped big time. I’ve set my alarm for every 4 hours to take my medicine and stay on top of the pain. Overall, on a scale of one to ten I’d rate day one’s pain at a 6.5 (thanks to the hydrocodone). Don’t be a hero, take your meds!! Good luck all!
I’m a 32 y/o female who has had strep and tonsillitis at least a couple times a year since I was 6. Because of a demanding work and school schedule, I’ve been putting off this surgery for a good 12 years (who can afford to miss that much work?!) Anyway, after tremendous apprehension, I arrived for the surgery yesterday morning. Being a perfectionist and a planner, I’ve read gobs of glory tales shared by others online and have done all the research I think one could have done beforehand. I had my humidifier stocked with new filters, jello, applesauce, lidocaine gargle, a week off of work, and friends/family scheduled to take nursing rounds with me, and picked up all the scripts beforehand (hydrocodone 7.5/500 with instructions to take 12 per day and antibiotics (both in pill form). For those of you who do not realize, hydrocodone has tylenol in it, my surgeon’s prescription set off red flags for me immediately since he was prescribing 6,000 mg of tylenol per day (the absolute daily max is 3,000-4,000 for ANYONE and risks of exceeding that even once can result in permanent liver damage AND OD’ing (According to two pharmacists I’ve spoken to along with numerous friends who are doctors/nurses). Also, I’m only a 5’3 female. I called the surgeon and his nurse ASSURED me taking up to 7,0000 mg of tylenol for ten days is perfectly safe. I wasn’t buying it and I knew better. Second, most patients are prescribed liquid pain meds, not twelve horse pills to swallow each day after having a tonsillectomy. So, needless to say this greatly diminished my trust in a man who was about to perform surgery on me. My only opportunity to speak with the surgeon was right before my surgery, with IV already in place and sporting gown attire. Regardless, I knew if he didn’t prescribe a liquid pain med (prescribing huge pills after a tonsillectomy is just CRUEL with much LESS daily tylenol intake, I would happily have the IV removed, stand up and walk out. There is no way I would go through with a surgery with a Dr. I didn’t feel safe with. If he would prescribe such a reckless and dangerous amount of tylenol, what other things would he be sloppy and reckless with as a surgeon??? Luckily, we spoke beforehand and he changes both the antibiotic and the pain meds to liquid along with a smaller dose of tylenol in the pain meds (Liquid percoset 500/325). Anyway, although my tonsils are gigantic (referred to as “kissing tonsils” because they rub side by side), the surgery only took 15 minutes. From the moment I woke up in recovery (yesterday afternoon, 3/8/13), my pain has been about a 4 and though taking meds every 3-4 hours have remained around there. The pain is mostly in swallowing (which I’ve been doing a TON of trying to stay hydrated and not going more than two hours of sleep with waking up to sip. I will say I felt fully functional since the surgery, despite the pain, I’m perked up (might be result of percoset :)….I even called work and offered to work a couple hours from home. I’ve gone back and forth on the Amercian Vs. European approach to recovery (i.e. should I eat that piece of toast our brit friends claim to contain magical healing properties?) Although American I tend to have greater trust and faith in European health care practices. Dr.’s orders were to stick with applesauce and jello and then resume regular diet as soon as I can (no timeframe was given). Strangely, he also said there was no need to increase my fluid intake and that the regular 7-8 glasses of water would suffice. As before mentioned, I’m hydrating constantly and dismissing Dr.s advice on that one. So that’s about that. I know most people have an easy breazy first two days before the pain arrives. I’m hoping that I’m one of the few that fall into the first four days being the hardest and then improvement from there. It’s 6:30 in the morning of day two and I haven’t been able to talk AT ALL since getting home yesterday, even mouthing words hurts a great deal. Anyway, so far I’m really glad I finally did this. Yes, I’m using every last drop of my vacation and sick time at work just to cover the first week (really hoping to get back to work by day 10). I just keep smiling at the thought of never getting tonsillitis again. Plus, I recently developed bad sleep apnea where I would choke and gasp in my sleep without noticing or waking up (people sleeping over noticed). So I think with my quality of sleep improving vastly, I may even need less of it and that too delights me. Lastly, taking antibiotics a couple times a year for strep or for any reason for that matter is NOT good for us. There have been studies linking antibiotic use to things like cancer, etc. So this operation REALLY does promise an improved quality of life, not just short term but long term, too. Happy healing everyone! You’re not alone.
I am on Day 7 of my recovery and Thank God I am feeling alive again!! I just wanted to leave a few tips. I found that sweet tea, sprite, icecream, yogurt, pudding and shakes made the salava too thick in the back of my throat which caused swallowing and breathing problems for me. I found it much easier to drink ice cold water. It hurt real bad to drink the water but I knew I had to keep my throat moist at all times in order to keep hydrated and to keep soreness down. I ate orange jello and cheese grits for days 1-5 and it was heavenly. When I would try to eat mash potatoes or pasta it hurt my jaw, throat, tongue and teeth so I avoided eating anything that I needed my tongue to manuever. Yesterday was a good day and I even ran a few errands around town. Last night was kinda rough as I think the scabs are coming off in places. Today started out well and at times I feel a good bit of pain. I did eat cheese grtis, butter toast (not the edges) and a grill cheese sandwich today. I had to take a pain pill earlier today which I did not have to do that yesterday throughout the day. I am not pushing myself with the food issue. I want to eat real food and I can’t wait, however, I do not want to regress I want to move forward.
Day one (Australia): Arrived at the hospital at 8 AM to check in. I was told to fast no food or water 6 hours prior to this. I was a little disappointed as I was then told that my surgery was scheduled for 11am. How would I survive 3 more hours without water. Food I’m fine with but not having water makes me feel anxious! I changed into my robe and a porter collected me on the trolly. He wheeled me to what felt like a waiting room for surgery and I stayed there about 10 minutes. He got me a warm blanket and tucked me in and covered my feet.
I was then wheeled into a small curtained room, where the nurse applied chest pads and a blood pressure monitor band to my arm and pulse to finger.
The anaesthetist came (nice guy) he told me day 2 would be the worst but it would be worth it in the long run. He then put a needle in my arm and gave me a small cocktail of the drugs. He kept me talking and I told him I felt weird. I was then wheeled into the operating room and asked to shuffle onto the operating bed. At this stage I was shivering as it was so cold. I don’t really remember much else apart from the porter rubbing my hand telling me to relax.
I woke up in the recovery room gasping for air, the first thing I wanted was water. I the nurse got me it and I randomly said I wanted to gargle it but couldn’t and spat it right out, was agony. She then got me an icy pole and I lay there drugged up licking on that, weird eerie nice.
I heard them say my room was ready and they wheeled me to another floor where my husband was waiting for me. They immediately gave me sandwiches a cup of tea and a large junk of iced water, they kept telling me to eat but I was so drugged up I didn’t know what I could do. My eyes were heavy and i ate the icy pole for a bit.
My tongue was quite numb and I didn’t want to eat solids with a numb tongue in fear of biting the sucker off! The nurses came in every hour checking my pulse temperature and blood pressure. After an hour I was given paradox and I surprised myself and was able to eat the sandwiches! My husband then bought me some mashed potato from Aportos and that went down well!
The surgeon popped in on me half way through the day, he said I had large abscesses on the left tonsil and they were ugly. He also shaved my adenoids. He said allot of patients recently have had great success with eating sushi and sashimi. This was music to my ears, so off the husband went again to get me sushi For dinner (I’m a lucky wife).
Throughout the day I have had 4 panadol and 3 white tablets (strong mofos). Swallowing is getting much harder. I’ve gone through 3 drip bags and I’m still thirsty and not going to wee much. It’s nearly midnight and im scared to sleep in fear of waking up thirsty and sore. I dosed off on my husbands shoulder a few times in the day time, but not a deep sleep.
I took a look in the mirror at the damage. 2 massive white gaping burnt holes, not pretty at all. I was horrified t how large the holes were, looks like food could seriously get tuck in there!
Anyway, hopefully I may get some sleep tonight. Until then, signing off 🙂
Ps. 29 yr old female
Had surgery yesterday. Wasn’t prepared for inability to swallow without liquid. Sweet stuff makes me gag, so popcicles aren’t working for me either. Ice water is my friend and jello is going down ok.
I am a 26 year old female and had my tonsils & adenoids out yesterday. When I woke up from the GA I just had a bad sore throat (to be expected…) But was given some hardcore pain meds via IV which helped. When I got home I took my prescription hydrocodone but accidentally didn’t take enough (turned out I didn’t have a measuring spoon) so I was in a good amount of pain when I’d swallow. My boyfriend ran out and got me a medicine dropper which has helped big time. I’ve set my alarm for every 4 hours to take my medicine and stay on top of the pain. Overall, on a scale of one to ten I’d rate day one’s pain at a 6.5 (thanks to the hydrocodone). Don’t be a hero, take your meds!! Good luck all!
I’m a 32 y/o female who has had strep and tonsillitis at least a couple times a year since I was 6. Because of a demanding work and school schedule, I’ve been putting off this surgery for a good 12 years (who can afford to miss that much work?!) Anyway, after tremendous apprehension, I arrived for the surgery yesterday morning. Being a perfectionist and a planner, I’ve read gobs of glory tales shared by others online and have done all the research I think one could have done beforehand. I had my humidifier stocked with new filters, jello, applesauce, lidocaine gargle, a week off of work, and friends/family scheduled to take nursing rounds with me, and picked up all the scripts beforehand (hydrocodone 7.5/500 with instructions to take 12 per day and antibiotics (both in pill form). For those of you who do not realize, hydrocodone has tylenol in it, my surgeon’s prescription set off red flags for me immediately since he was prescribing 6,000 mg of tylenol per day (the absolute daily max is 3,000-4,000 for ANYONE and risks of exceeding that even once can result in permanent liver damage AND OD’ing (According to two pharmacists I’ve spoken to along with numerous friends who are doctors/nurses). Also, I’m only a 5’3 female. I called the surgeon and his nurse ASSURED me taking up to 7,0000 mg of tylenol for ten days is perfectly safe. I wasn’t buying it and I knew better. Second, most patients are prescribed liquid pain meds, not twelve horse pills to swallow each day after having a tonsillectomy. So, needless to say this greatly diminished my trust in a man who was about to perform surgery on me. My only opportunity to speak with the surgeon was right before my surgery, with IV already in place and sporting gown attire. Regardless, I knew if he didn’t prescribe a liquid pain med (prescribing huge pills after a tonsillectomy is just CRUEL with much LESS daily tylenol intake, I would happily have the IV removed, stand up and walk out. There is no way I would go through with a surgery with a Dr. I didn’t feel safe with. If he would prescribe such a reckless and dangerous amount of tylenol, what other things would he be sloppy and reckless with as a surgeon??? Luckily, we spoke beforehand and he changes both the antibiotic and the pain meds to liquid along with a smaller dose of tylenol in the pain meds (Liquid percoset 500/325). Anyway, although my tonsils are gigantic (referred to as “kissing tonsils” because they rub side by side), the surgery only took 15 minutes. From the moment I woke up in recovery (yesterday afternoon, 3/8/13), my pain has been about a 4 and though taking meds every 3-4 hours have remained around there. The pain is mostly in swallowing (which I’ve been doing a TON of trying to stay hydrated and not going more than two hours of sleep with waking up to sip. I will say I felt fully functional since the surgery, despite the pain, I’m perked up (might be result of percoset :)….I even called work and offered to work a couple hours from home. I’ve gone back and forth on the Amercian Vs. European approach to recovery (i.e. should I eat that piece of toast our brit friends claim to contain magical healing properties?) Although American I tend to have greater trust and faith in European health care practices. Dr.’s orders were to stick with applesauce and jello and then resume regular diet as soon as I can (no timeframe was given). Strangely, he also said there was no need to increase my fluid intake and that the regular 7-8 glasses of water would suffice. As before mentioned, I’m hydrating constantly and dismissing Dr.s advice on that one. So that’s about that. I know most people have an easy breazy first two days before the pain arrives. I’m hoping that I’m one of the few that fall into the first four days being the hardest and then improvement from there. It’s 6:30 in the morning of day two and I haven’t been able to talk AT ALL since getting home yesterday, even mouthing words hurts a great deal. Anyway, so far I’m really glad I finally did this. Yes, I’m using every last drop of my vacation and sick time at work just to cover the first week (really hoping to get back to work by day 10). I just keep smiling at the thought of never getting tonsillitis again. Plus, I recently developed bad sleep apnea where I would choke and gasp in my sleep without noticing or waking up (people sleeping over noticed). So I think with my quality of sleep improving vastly, I may even need less of it and that too delights me. Lastly, taking antibiotics a couple times a year for strep or for any reason for that matter is NOT good for us. There have been studies linking antibiotic use to things like cancer, etc. So this operation REALLY does promise an improved quality of life, not just short term but long term, too. Happy healing everyone! You’re not alone.
Loved reading this, I feel exactly the same and have also put off due to work most of my life. So happy to hopefully live a heather future!