Tonsillectomy Recovery Day by Day
Day 7
A collection of various experiences of adult tonsillectomy patients on their seventh day of tonsillectomy healing
I have assembled a sampling of various accounts and impressions of tonsillectomy recovery for each day. Below I share comments about tonsillectomy day 7. 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.
Please feel free to add your own experience with tonsillectomy day 7.
Tonsillectomy Healing Day 7 Recovery : Light? At the end of the tunnel?
- Tonsillectomy Day 7 :Breakdown. Crying, laughing, sucked into YouTube. Is there no end?
- During the night I noticed a weird sensation in my ears. It was a hollow feeling, kind of like I have water in my ears and they tend to pop really severely when I swallow. Other than the ears, the throat isn’t bad. I tried eating blueberry pancakes for breakfast and I was able to get a few pieces down, but then it was uncomfortable, so I stopped. The last thing I want to do is rush myself. I’ve made it this far, I don’t want to do anything that will negatively affect my progress. The swelling is finally gone – I think. My tongue and the scabs used to be white – or so I was told – but now my tongue is like a grayish color. If that is normal, I’m not sure, but I’m not that worried about it. I know I’m still recovering, but I noticed a weird feeling when I was swallowing today. The water just kind of flows down my throat now; before it used to touch my tonsils. I know I don’t have tonsils anymore and that’s why; I’m just curious if it is something I will have to adapt to once I’m fully healed. I guess I’ll have to wait and see. My ear pain is still there but it is definitely not as bad as it was from days 3-5.
- It’s been one full week as of today that I had my tonsils removed. I saw the ENT yesterday and he said I was healing very slowly. The scabs still have not come off and every day seems to hurt more than the previous day. This morning has been almost completely unbearable. I don’t understand how some of you say you eat toast. How do you choke that down? Everything hurts! Warm, cold, it doesn’t matter it feels like swallowing knives.
- Day 7 you did it! I mean I could barely stand due to the pain. Trying to coat my stomach with Ensure that morning so I could take my pain meds was like aggressively shaving my throat with a million shards of glass. And the ears! Not the ears!
- day 7 post-op and am doing amazingly well. I thought I would share my tips to help some of you out! It really is important to drink, drink, drink! Every time I woke up from my sleep I would be in such enormous pain because my throat had dried out. Every time I wake up during the night I take a sip of water which I found has helped. Twice a day I have done a saltwater gargle with a teaspoon of salt in 500ml of water for 30 seconds. This apparently removes the bacteria and the salt is good for healing. The day after my surgery I had a tiny little bit of toast.Are you concerned about pain medicine addiction? Read more…
>> Next – Day 8 >>>
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Hallelujah for this site, it turns out I’m not the only one in excruciating pain here!
I’m a 17 y/o female who had my tonsils (and adenoids) removed 2/5/13. Haah! I thought it was gonna be flying colors the day I got my surgery. I was talking, in little pain and hungry as hell.
Now it’s day seven and I feel like a horse that needs to be put down due to all the pain. Every day has escalated worse for me in some way and the pains moving all around, my throat, my head, my tongue and NOW it’s my jaw, ears, and tongue.
Unfortunately I was allergic to the codeine they prescribed me so I’ve been living off alternating between children’s liquid Tylenol and ibuprofen, but now it’s 3 1/2 normal ibuprofen, crushed up and added to food. (Either way it tastes like crap)
Eating is SUCH a joy.. (Not). Every meal is a little time consuming project. I can’t chew with a swollen, bruised and thrush covered tongue or more or less swallow with it. And Im a pretty skinny girl, weighing in at 115lbs but am now 108lbs and losing thanks to this.
If my swollen tongue would go down, and this killer jaw pain would ease up I’d be fine. I can’t even speak like this. When I do my tongue feels like its rubbing against a scab and I gag a little.
By the way, how can you tell/notice/feel if a scab comes loose/off?
That’s one of the things I’m scared of.
I didn’t feel the scabs come off but you can definitely feel them when you swollow them. If your Like me they will come off in big sheet and it will feel more or less like your trying to swollen food. I’m on day six after my surgery and I lost most my scabs yesterday. As soon as the scabs came off the pain tripled. It feels like touching fresh skin after a burn. Swill owing is very hard and I still have really bad thrush but sippin on chicken broth just warmer then room temp is amazing.
About the thrush
Today was Day 6. I have been pretty textbook, but on the lucky side of textbook. Anyhow, I wanted to say that today I wanted to eat something soft, and since I was making cookie from scratch, I hit the soft cookie dough. Seriously… minutes after eating the cookie dough, my tongue puffed up… with yeast! It just got thick and white.
It makes sense if you think about it – when you are baking bread, you sprinkle the yeast into water, add a little sugar and blammo! You have an eruption of yeast in minutes. I don’t know why I didn’t see that coming. Anyhoo, I happened to have gentian violet on hand, so I used a q-tip to swab some on my tongue and then brushed it in good (and then off). It seemed to truly nip it in the bud.
@Andrea –
Are you on antibiotics? I just wonder if you might have thrush since you said you have a coating in your whole mouth. Is it white and thick? Or just goop from your mouth being so dry? I have dry mouth and mucus in the very back of my windpipe (not the wet scabs – way behind those), but nothing on my tongue or inside of my cheeks. If you do have white stuff on your tongue and inside your mouth, call your doc to find out if you do have thrush (it goes away with medication really easily).
BTW – we had our surgeries on the same day!! So I guess we can commiserate together :).
Post Op Day 7:
I am doing a bit better today – I can actually SPEAK a little. I am sleeping longer stretches, which means I wake up dry and in excruciating pain, but I have been able to get it under control with the liquid Lortab and the numbing lollipop prescribed by my doctor. Those first few minutes are BAD – but after I get the meds in me and some sips of ice water, it becomes tolerable. I have not left the house since I got home from the hospital and really have no intention of doing so if I can help it – there is about two feet of new snow here and with the wind chill, it is ungodly cold. But even if it were nice out, I don’t think I have the energy yet to really do anything – I go from the bed, to the bathroom, to the couch, to the fridge, and back to bed…and that wears me out. My husband and kids are still pretty much taking care of me…bringing me my broth (my husband has been making me homemade broth which I drink through a straw – it’s like a warm hug for my throat!!), ice water, red Jello, and vanilla Special K Protein drinks (they are sooooo soothing and make me feel like there is something in my stomach!!). I can’t drink the flavored, carbonated water that I usually drink or any kind of pop – the carbonation is like nails in my throat. My ears are still hurting really bad, but I have found relief in lying on the heating pad. I had a new issue last night – HEARTBURN! I was scared to take my usual Zantac, but I guess the doctor told my husband I needed to quell heartburn quickly so no acid ends up in my throat. Wish I had been awake for the post-op discussion with the doctor {sigh}. Anyway, the Zantac worked as quickly as usual and didn’t cause any adverse effects to my throat.
I am also dealing with the recovery from my sinuplasty and turbinate reduction. I have a lot of mucus draining into my throat from that surgery which exacerbates the pain in my throat. So it is hard to tell if all the pain in my throat is from the tonsillectomy.
STACIE’S RECOMMENDATION:
Do NOT wait until you are 38 years old to have your tonsils removed if you have chronic strep or other tonsil issues! If your child has problems, seek out an ENT NOW! My 12 year old niece had her tonsils out two months ago – she came to visit me today and just clucked, “Oh, Aunt Stacie – getting your tonsils out as a kid is way easier!”. Truer words have never been spoken.
@Stacie. I am 26 years old and had my tonsils out Feb 1st, Today is day 7 Post OP, yesterday I had a great day and today I am right back to pain in my ear and throat. I am just curious how you are feeling now? When were you able to start eating normal again? I am still unable to eat other than pudding and applesauce, My tongue was cut during surgery which makes it very hard to eat as well. I am out of pain medication and will be going to my doctor today for a check up and to request more. My daughters Birthday is on Sunday and I am praying to feel well enough to enjoy her Birthday with her. any suggestions wold be great as I found this webiste very helpful.
Hi Stacie,
I had the same surgery Feb. 27. I guess that makes me Day 8. I thought I was doing fairly well today and even ate some turkey, mashed potatoes and stuffing from Bob Evans. Not a lot, but the most I’ve eaten since surgery. I thought I would try my bed tonight, but that was quickly cancelled due to phlegm in my throat. I have Lortab and a liquid Lydocain that I swish and swallow, but had to ask for Percocet and my post op check Tuesday when he took the splints out of my nose. All of it wears off in less than 3 hours. I am curious as to how the rest of your recovery went since you are about 3 weeks ahead of me. I am so exhausted from not being able to sleep. I have a humidifier which has helped a lot, and I take a drink of water every time I wake up from dozing. It’s ironic that I did this for sleep apnea and I can’t sleep! Oh, I am 43 years old by the way. I have always had a high threshold for pain, but this is awful.
Hope you are doing better.
Becki
I had my tonsillectomy on 1/25/13. It’s the night of day 7 for me and today has been more painful than all others. Actually, things weren’t too bad right after the surgery, but things have progressively become worse with each day. I’ve been able to eat pretty well. Lots of jello and popsicles the first 3 days. Then began eating more regular foods like soup, cream of wheat, and scrambled eggs (once). KFC mashed potatoes tasted like heaven and felt awesome too. The advice I found on here about rinsing with salt water is a God Send. I wish I had started doing that much earlier on. It’s great at getting all the gross gunk out of the back of my throat. I have had the typical severe throat pain and ear pain. What surprised me were the headaches and the disgusting feeling I constantly have in my mouth – a film that coats the entire inside of my mouth. My pain meds wear off after 2 hours, now, making the 2nd two hours pretty excrutiating. I spend it with an ice pack held to my throat. White scabs are finally starting to come off, but only on one side and very slowly. Hoping day 10 is the miracle turning point I’ve been told it is.
Day 7 was definitely the worst for me. I woke up around four in the morning with extreme pain. When I swallowed, I felt something break off and suddenly blood came pouring out of my mouth and down my throat. I spit up about a half a cup of blood in just a few minutes and ended up throwing up from the large amount of blood that had accumulated in my stomach. Even though the bleeding had stopped not long after, my mom rushed me to urgent care. I spent a few hours there while waiting for the ENT office to open. My pain level at that point was a 9. Once the ENT office opened at 8 am, my doctor looked at me and said I needed to be cauterized or I would continue to bleed. They squeezed me into the OR for later that day and I was on the table by 10 am. While in pre-op, they stuck 50 ccs of some pain meds into my IV, which helped a lot with the pain, but made me extremely woozy (so much I had to be wheeled into the OR). The effects after my second surgery weren’t as bad as on the original (1/17), but that’s because not nearly as much was done. I got home around 1 pm and tried to sleep the rest of the day off. Up until my second surgery, I was on Roxicet, which did absolutely nothing for me and was completely disgusting. My mom managed to convince my doctor to give me the pill version, which made a big difference. I take them ground up and mixed into a couple spoonfuls of pudding.