A collection of various experiences of adult tonsillectomy patients on their ninth 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. Below I share comments about tonsillectomy day 9. 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.
Many will experience depression toward the end of of their tonsillectomy recovery.
Depression After Tonsillectomy?
Please feel free to add your own experience with tonsillectomy day 9.
-Greg Tooke My short bio
Tonsillectomy Day 9 : Pain hasn’t changed, but something’s different. I’m going walking-So Day 9 was overall much better than any day so far of this recovery. But the pain came back tonight in force. Urgh. Back to the painkillers and junk TV.
Tonsillectomy Day 9 : My throat felt a lot better last night, it was moister and clearer than it has been in a few days. THANK YOU HUMIDIFIER!! The Tylenol I’m slowly easing off of, and the pain is almost gone in my throat. My ears still hurt, but definitely not that bad. I didn’t eat much today because of the panic attacks again, but I kept drinking through them because I know I need to keep a moist throat. I actually went out today!! I went to the mall with my mom which felt very liberating after spending so much time confined to my house. The only semi-new symptom is stinging in my throat. Every time I drink water it stings a lot and I’m not sure why. It could be because it’s healing and still raw; but I’m not really concerned. My dad looked in my throat today and he said almost all of the scabs are gone. He did see a few small red bumps in my throat, but I’m not quite sure what they are (another question to ask my doctor about)! Otherwise I’m feeling okay today.
Tonsillectomy Day 9 : day 9 and today I was able to talk a bit without pain. I haven’t napped at all today and am fading fast. It was nice to have friends visit me but also exhausting.
Tonsillectomy Day 9 : day 9 (today i feel better again)I had bled quite a bit last night before I went to bed which scared me a lot because it was more than a tablespoon, however I kept rinsing my mouth with ice water and sucking a piece of ice and after 5 minutes it stopped.
Tonsillectomy Day 9 : Day 9 – hallelujah… feeling so much better in myself. My throat still feels sore and im still on my meds., but I find I’m not willing for the 4th hour to come to pop more in. It’s also a little easier to talk today (something I have not done for the past 8 day’s and believe me it’s been hard having 2 son’s 5 & 2yrs) I went to the doctors yesterday to make sure thing’s where as they should and all is well.
Tonsillectomy Day 9 : Day 9/10 is slightly better than the last couple of days. The white in the back of my throat looks a bit more transparent, so I think it’s slowly sloughing off. There’s a red rim where it used to be. Everything is still sore, but not as bad. However, my right ear and the area behind my right jaw are KILLING me. It feels more like an ear infection than referred ear pain, but my temp is normal, so I’ll wait to bring it up at my post op on Monday
Tonsillectomy Day 9 : first day I’ve spent most of the day alone. No much to report, but that is a good thing. My appetite is returning a little bit. I had some chicken noodle soup last night, and tried some mac n’ cheese for dinner tonight. It was a little painful getting tonight’s dinner down, but not to bad. Pain levels are still about the same. I tried talking in a fairly normal voice for a little bit today, but didn’t maintain it very long, it did get a bit painful. In the interest of tracking my recovery and health i will share the following story. Had my first BM in a week yesterday, was fairly constipated.
Tonsillectomy Day 9 : Day 9 and I am waking with a bit more energy.
Tonsillectomy Day 9 :Day 9: The skies opened, and the angels sang! I felt good! (by good, I mean much better than the previous 8 days, but not “back to normal”) I could eat, with some pain, but actually consumed a breakfast, lunch and dinner. I stopped taking Lortab and haven’t been back. This helped get my head cleared up, and also helped with my extended absence from the bathroom, if ya know what I mean 😉 I was able to do some work (from home) and really started to feel like myself again.
Tonsillectomy Day 9 :Recovery Day 9 (post-op day 10):
I have lost the majority of the scabbing on my right tonsil bed but my left side still have massive scabs. my uvula was so huge it was resting on the back of my tongue but it seems to finally be starting to shrink a bit but when i do talk it makes me sound a bit slurred. Pain today is not nearly as bad as it was during the first 8 days. Was able to eat 2 over easy eggs today
Tonsillectomy
390 comments
Starting day 9, pain has almost completely gone so glad I have gotten through this, worst week of pain I have ever experienced!
It’s midnight at the start of Day9 and all I’ve got is a brain numbing cloud of pain. I had it easy the first 5 days and had some good sleep between 5/6 but that left me. I’m exhausted and miserable. I can’t sleep more than 30 minutes without waking up in agony unable to swallow. When will this be over? I tried to eat scrambled eggs last night and it was incredibly painful and I was able to eat them on the 5th day. Feels like I’m sliding backwards and I’m never going to get better.
Day 9 postop: I finally made it! I have been looking forward to day 9 since 2 days postop when I found this site. It seemed that most of the day 9 voices described feeling a bit better. I agree. I definitely feel better today. I am not even close to 100%, but I have not needed pain meds around the clock in order to function. I was in pain this morning, but last night was the first night that I have slept more than 1 hour in a row since surgery. I actually got 4 hours straight and I think I was pretty dry when I woke, even with the humidifier – hence the initial pain. I was able to eat more today as long as it was bland and had no spice or acid to it. The back of my tongue would feel like fire if it came into contact with anything acidic and then that would spread up to both my ears. Not worth it. I overdid it with supper and tried to eat some Chinese food (I was feeling that good) and now I am regretting it. I required pain meds and an ice pack to the neck to recover. Now looking forward to a good night of sleep and postop day 10!
This is the first day I have felt that I could sit at the computer and post info about my tonsillectomy recovery, so I am going to give you my background and how my recovery had gone. I do this in the hopes that I can share any helpful tips and give back to this community that provided me such comfort throughout this horrible process. I had no idea what I was getting myself into and I only wish that I had found this site before having surgery.
I am a 36 yo female with 2 small children (4 and 2) and a husband. We are both nurses and my husband works 12 hour night shifts, sleeping during the day, so he was not going to be around all that much during my recovery. My tonsils never gave me a problem as a child, only as an adult, and the last round of tonsillitis required 3 different antibiotics. This is the main reason I agreed to the tonsillectomy. I was more worried about some drug resistant bacteria taking up residence in my tonsils, or strep heading to my kidneys or heart. These would be much worse than just taking the silly things out.
A few pointers:
1) Someone needs to stay with you and take care of you, your family, your household, because you are not going to be able to. I thought it would be overkill to have my mother move in for two weeks, but I will forever be eternally grateful that she did. I was in more pain than I have ever experienced in my life and was physically and emotionally unable to take care of my children or my household.
2) Talk with your doc about pain control. Mine told me I would be “uncomfortable”. I was so far beyond uncomfortable, I cannot even put it into words. Now maybe you will be one of the lucky ones who does not have that much pain, but just be prepared. At the very least have a script for lortab/norco/vicodin. I also recommend perocet. If your doc tells you that you won’t be in that much pain – switch doctors because they obviously haven’t done many adult tonsillectomies!
3) Bowel program. I should have thought of this because I am a nurse, and we love our poop, but I failed to remember that with all the narcotics I was on my gut was going to slow way down. Combine that with not eating and little physical activity and surprise, no poop! At the very least have some colace and take it every day. I ended up on colace, bisacodyl, and miralax, and it still took me six days of treatment to have a bowel movement. I have continued with all three and will do so until off the pain meds.
4) Others have recommended a humidifier. I used one as well, but I am not sure it was that helpful. I don’t have the best one on the market, so that may have something to do with it, but can’t hurt to have one running.
5) Drink, drink, drink! If you do nothing else, drink water. Be it cold, hot, or luke-warm. Drink it. I found that I preferred different temperature at different times of my recovery. I also found it easier to take tiny sips rather than big ones.
August 19th – surgery @ 1130. I had a couple doses of Fentanyl in the recovery room, but the pain was not too bad after surgery. After getting up I had a dose of Zofran and Phenergan for nausea. I was able to drink without too much difficulty. Sent home and by the time I got there, I was in need of pain medication. My doc had given my Tylenol with Codeine. Completely inadequate!! It provided very little relief and I did not sleep that night.
POD 1: Called my MD office to get better pain meds and they called in Lortab elixir. This helped, initially, I was more comfortable this day. Sadly it was short lived. I had a lot of trouble sleeping overnight because I had so much swelling in my uvula. Every time I fell asleep, it would block my airway.
POD 2: I was in much more pain today. Unable to eat anything, barely able to drink water. I am taking the liquid Lortab as well as the Tylenol with Codeine. Again no sleep overnight.
POD 3: Called the MD again and asked about anything else I could use for pain, or any pointers. I was told there was nothing more they could give me for pain. I am a nurse and I knew this was BS. There are a ton of options for pain control out there that would be better than liquid Lortab, which burned every time I swallowed it. I told them I had not slept more than 6 hours since surgery, which was the truth, but they did not seem to care. The office told me it would probably be another rough 5-7 days. I was speechless and had I not been in such pain, I probably would have told them off. My husband however called back and left a nice message telling them that they were morally reprehensible individuals and that they should be ashamed of themselves. This was the worst night yet. I would sleep in 20 min increments and wake to drink water. If I slept any longer than I would wake in excruciating pain. I was also taking pain meds every 2 hours or so and coming dangerously close to exceeding the maximum Tylenol allowed.
POD 4: Called the MD and demanded Percocet. They complied and said it might be hard to take because it doesn’t come in liquid form. Now, this was the stupidest thing I had heard. They knew I was still taking my synthroid pill and that I took a cholesterol pill. So why would I be suddenly unable to take a pain pill? Idiots! So I filled the Percocet and it brought me a little relief, but negligible. Nothing would last more than a couple of hours and I was maxing out on Tylenol, if not going over. I didn’t even care at this point. Still unable to sleep or eat.
POD 5: More of the same. Things got pretty dark for me today. I was crying and depressed and ready for all the pain to stop. I can’t explain it, but I had reached my breaking point. It was a little scary really. I am not a religious person but I used the link on this site to send a prayer request on my behalf. I figured it couldn’t hurt. Had it not been the weekend, I would have called and begged my MD for more meds. I just kept going to this site and reading about day 9 and 10, knowing that the pain was going to come to an end.
POD 6: I continue to muddle though. The pain is becoming more intense in my ears and back of my tongue and less so in my actual throat. Chewing gum helps at times and I do my best to drink my water and eat what I can – mainly jello and mashed potatoes.
POD 7: I slept a couple hours the night before, which was a first since surgery. Woke with excruciating pain in my throat because it was so dried out. Even though I was still in pain this am, I felt that it was going to be a better day. The meds controlled my pain much better today and I continued to take them around the clock. I actually was able to eat more today and slept better this night than any previous nights.
POD 8: Woke with terrifying pain across the back of my throat. Took a Percocet and after 30 min of drinking water, the pain became manageable. I figured this was the backslide that lots of people had mentioned and I prepared myself for a bad day. The day actually went really well. I found that I did not need around the clock meds and I was able to start weaning down my usage.
I know I have left out things that may be helpful and I am sorry this was so long winded, but I hope that it helps someone and brings some peace. I am not sure that I would ever do this surgery again, and I hope the pros outweigh the cons. It sounds like they probably will. I thank you Greg for starting this site and it was truly a life saver!
Thank YOU Carrie for this great and detailed account. Comments like yours are a big part of why readers like to come to the site. I wish you all the best. Take care and stay in touch!
Hey gang. Well here I am at the start of day 9 (10 counting surgery) and i can say that this sight has been oh so helpful to me. It’s really comforting comparing yourself and seeing the similarities with other peoples cases. I’m probally the youngest you can be for this procedure to qualify as an “Adult tonsillectomy” as turned 18 less than 2 months ago. I can only be thankful of my youth as i feel like the healing’s been a lot more easy going for me than most of you. Mornings have been the worst through this with a pain that takes a good 30 minutes to subdue and can spike up to a 6 or 7, but that’s about the worst i’ve experienced. I should also mention that i’ve stayed totally narcotic free through all of this 😀 had to take em previously for a peritonsillar abscess and I just hated how they made me feel. But being this far through it i really hope i’m “over the hump” so to speak, it seems like by this point most of you were doing decently well. My only concern is that the whole time i’ve had a hard time moving my jaw and tongue, almost exclusively now because of a pain on the right side, like almost behind the jaw. I seem to be able to move my jaw a little more day after day but the pain is defianetly there. I guess what my concern might be is infection. I’m not running a fever but I have been alternating Tylenol and Ibuprofen over the last 8 days and I don’t know if the Tylenol would snuff out a fever brought on by infection completely. I should also note that the right tonsil bore all the burdens of my pre-surgery issues. I got mono and strep at the same time (From a new lady friend i suspectXD) which ended up filling my right tonsil with a large 4 cm Abscess that took 3 different kinds of antibiotics, a 10 cc needle, and a rupture to finally fix. all the while the left tonsil was pretty much unharmed and only swelled a bit with the strep. So now that i’ve riddled your mind with this long boring and informative autobiography, i need to end it with a question to get some opinions… do you think my jaw pain could be coming from a infection? or just from the vast amount of trauma that the right side has suffered? My followup is in 2 weeks and i can’t really afford to just prance in the doctors office whenever so i only really think i should go if there’s a good solid chance. I apologize for all the text… i had to crunch 8 days into one :/
I had the same thing, I don’t think it’s infection. It got back to normal finally within the third week. Once you are eating totally normally that kinda exercises the jaw muscles and it gets better.
Have no idea what happened! Yesterday I was finally starting to feel better! And today I wake up in pain again =(. Last night I coughed up a giant piece of scab, and ever since I’ve been in pan. It feels like last night I was swallowing glass in my sleep =(. It’s been 8 full days, I’m ready to be healed enough to eat some damn Mac and Cheese at least!
Starting day 9, pain has almost completely gone so glad I have gotten through this, worst week of pain I have ever experienced!
It’s midnight at the start of Day9 and all I’ve got is a brain numbing cloud of pain. I had it easy the first 5 days and had some good sleep between 5/6 but that left me. I’m exhausted and miserable. I can’t sleep more than 30 minutes without waking up in agony unable to swallow. When will this be over? I tried to eat scrambled eggs last night and it was incredibly painful and I was able to eat them on the 5th day. Feels like I’m sliding backwards and I’m never going to get better.
I am feeling the same. I fee like I am going backwards. I too was able to eat scrambled egg but now I can’t even manage soup!
Day 9 postop: I finally made it! I have been looking forward to day 9 since 2 days postop when I found this site. It seemed that most of the day 9 voices described feeling a bit better. I agree. I definitely feel better today. I am not even close to 100%, but I have not needed pain meds around the clock in order to function. I was in pain this morning, but last night was the first night that I have slept more than 1 hour in a row since surgery. I actually got 4 hours straight and I think I was pretty dry when I woke, even with the humidifier – hence the initial pain. I was able to eat more today as long as it was bland and had no spice or acid to it. The back of my tongue would feel like fire if it came into contact with anything acidic and then that would spread up to both my ears. Not worth it. I overdid it with supper and tried to eat some Chinese food (I was feeling that good) and now I am regretting it. I required pain meds and an ice pack to the neck to recover. Now looking forward to a good night of sleep and postop day 10!
This is the first day I have felt that I could sit at the computer and post info about my tonsillectomy recovery, so I am going to give you my background and how my recovery had gone. I do this in the hopes that I can share any helpful tips and give back to this community that provided me such comfort throughout this horrible process. I had no idea what I was getting myself into and I only wish that I had found this site before having surgery.
I am a 36 yo female with 2 small children (4 and 2) and a husband. We are both nurses and my husband works 12 hour night shifts, sleeping during the day, so he was not going to be around all that much during my recovery. My tonsils never gave me a problem as a child, only as an adult, and the last round of tonsillitis required 3 different antibiotics. This is the main reason I agreed to the tonsillectomy. I was more worried about some drug resistant bacteria taking up residence in my tonsils, or strep heading to my kidneys or heart. These would be much worse than just taking the silly things out.
A few pointers:
1) Someone needs to stay with you and take care of you, your family, your household, because you are not going to be able to. I thought it would be overkill to have my mother move in for two weeks, but I will forever be eternally grateful that she did. I was in more pain than I have ever experienced in my life and was physically and emotionally unable to take care of my children or my household.
2) Talk with your doc about pain control. Mine told me I would be “uncomfortable”. I was so far beyond uncomfortable, I cannot even put it into words. Now maybe you will be one of the lucky ones who does not have that much pain, but just be prepared. At the very least have a script for lortab/norco/vicodin. I also recommend perocet. If your doc tells you that you won’t be in that much pain – switch doctors because they obviously haven’t done many adult tonsillectomies!
3) Bowel program. I should have thought of this because I am a nurse, and we love our poop, but I failed to remember that with all the narcotics I was on my gut was going to slow way down. Combine that with not eating and little physical activity and surprise, no poop! At the very least have some colace and take it every day. I ended up on colace, bisacodyl, and miralax, and it still took me six days of treatment to have a bowel movement. I have continued with all three and will do so until off the pain meds.
4) Others have recommended a humidifier. I used one as well, but I am not sure it was that helpful. I don’t have the best one on the market, so that may have something to do with it, but can’t hurt to have one running.
5) Drink, drink, drink! If you do nothing else, drink water. Be it cold, hot, or luke-warm. Drink it. I found that I preferred different temperature at different times of my recovery. I also found it easier to take tiny sips rather than big ones.
August 19th – surgery @ 1130. I had a couple doses of Fentanyl in the recovery room, but the pain was not too bad after surgery. After getting up I had a dose of Zofran and Phenergan for nausea. I was able to drink without too much difficulty. Sent home and by the time I got there, I was in need of pain medication. My doc had given my Tylenol with Codeine. Completely inadequate!! It provided very little relief and I did not sleep that night.
POD 1: Called my MD office to get better pain meds and they called in Lortab elixir. This helped, initially, I was more comfortable this day. Sadly it was short lived. I had a lot of trouble sleeping overnight because I had so much swelling in my uvula. Every time I fell asleep, it would block my airway.
POD 2: I was in much more pain today. Unable to eat anything, barely able to drink water. I am taking the liquid Lortab as well as the Tylenol with Codeine. Again no sleep overnight.
POD 3: Called the MD again and asked about anything else I could use for pain, or any pointers. I was told there was nothing more they could give me for pain. I am a nurse and I knew this was BS. There are a ton of options for pain control out there that would be better than liquid Lortab, which burned every time I swallowed it. I told them I had not slept more than 6 hours since surgery, which was the truth, but they did not seem to care. The office told me it would probably be another rough 5-7 days. I was speechless and had I not been in such pain, I probably would have told them off. My husband however called back and left a nice message telling them that they were morally reprehensible individuals and that they should be ashamed of themselves. This was the worst night yet. I would sleep in 20 min increments and wake to drink water. If I slept any longer than I would wake in excruciating pain. I was also taking pain meds every 2 hours or so and coming dangerously close to exceeding the maximum Tylenol allowed.
POD 4: Called the MD and demanded Percocet. They complied and said it might be hard to take because it doesn’t come in liquid form. Now, this was the stupidest thing I had heard. They knew I was still taking my synthroid pill and that I took a cholesterol pill. So why would I be suddenly unable to take a pain pill? Idiots! So I filled the Percocet and it brought me a little relief, but negligible. Nothing would last more than a couple of hours and I was maxing out on Tylenol, if not going over. I didn’t even care at this point. Still unable to sleep or eat.
POD 5: More of the same. Things got pretty dark for me today. I was crying and depressed and ready for all the pain to stop. I can’t explain it, but I had reached my breaking point. It was a little scary really. I am not a religious person but I used the link on this site to send a prayer request on my behalf. I figured it couldn’t hurt. Had it not been the weekend, I would have called and begged my MD for more meds. I just kept going to this site and reading about day 9 and 10, knowing that the pain was going to come to an end.
POD 6: I continue to muddle though. The pain is becoming more intense in my ears and back of my tongue and less so in my actual throat. Chewing gum helps at times and I do my best to drink my water and eat what I can – mainly jello and mashed potatoes.
POD 7: I slept a couple hours the night before, which was a first since surgery. Woke with excruciating pain in my throat because it was so dried out. Even though I was still in pain this am, I felt that it was going to be a better day. The meds controlled my pain much better today and I continued to take them around the clock. I actually was able to eat more today and slept better this night than any previous nights.
POD 8: Woke with terrifying pain across the back of my throat. Took a Percocet and after 30 min of drinking water, the pain became manageable. I figured this was the backslide that lots of people had mentioned and I prepared myself for a bad day. The day actually went really well. I found that I did not need around the clock meds and I was able to start weaning down my usage.
I know I have left out things that may be helpful and I am sorry this was so long winded, but I hope that it helps someone and brings some peace. I am not sure that I would ever do this surgery again, and I hope the pros outweigh the cons. It sounds like they probably will. I thank you Greg for starting this site and it was truly a life saver!
Carrie
Thank YOU Carrie for this great and detailed account. Comments like yours are a big part of why readers like to come to the site. I wish you all the best. Take care and stay in touch!
Greg
Hey gang. Well here I am at the start of day 9 (10 counting surgery) and i can say that this sight has been oh so helpful to me. It’s really comforting comparing yourself and seeing the similarities with other peoples cases. I’m probally the youngest you can be for this procedure to qualify as an “Adult tonsillectomy” as turned 18 less than 2 months ago. I can only be thankful of my youth as i feel like the healing’s been a lot more easy going for me than most of you. Mornings have been the worst through this with a pain that takes a good 30 minutes to subdue and can spike up to a 6 or 7, but that’s about the worst i’ve experienced. I should also mention that i’ve stayed totally narcotic free through all of this 😀 had to take em previously for a peritonsillar abscess and I just hated how they made me feel. But being this far through it i really hope i’m “over the hump” so to speak, it seems like by this point most of you were doing decently well. My only concern is that the whole time i’ve had a hard time moving my jaw and tongue, almost exclusively now because of a pain on the right side, like almost behind the jaw. I seem to be able to move my jaw a little more day after day but the pain is defianetly there. I guess what my concern might be is infection. I’m not running a fever but I have been alternating Tylenol and Ibuprofen over the last 8 days and I don’t know if the Tylenol would snuff out a fever brought on by infection completely. I should also note that the right tonsil bore all the burdens of my pre-surgery issues. I got mono and strep at the same time (From a new lady friend i suspectXD) which ended up filling my right tonsil with a large 4 cm Abscess that took 3 different kinds of antibiotics, a 10 cc needle, and a rupture to finally fix. all the while the left tonsil was pretty much unharmed and only swelled a bit with the strep. So now that i’ve riddled your mind with this long boring and informative autobiography, i need to end it with a question to get some opinions… do you think my jaw pain could be coming from a infection? or just from the vast amount of trauma that the right side has suffered? My followup is in 2 weeks and i can’t really afford to just prance in the doctors office whenever so i only really think i should go if there’s a good solid chance. I apologize for all the text… i had to crunch 8 days into one :/
I had the same thing, I don’t think it’s infection. It got back to normal finally within the third week. Once you are eating totally normally that kinda exercises the jaw muscles and it gets better.
thanks bunches! I tried working the muscles and sure enough they gradually got better. I’m on day 13 now and feeling almost as good as new:)
Have no idea what happened! Yesterday I was finally starting to feel better! And today I wake up in pain again =(. Last night I coughed up a giant piece of scab, and ever since I’ve been in pan. It feels like last night I was swallowing glass in my sleep =(. It’s been 8 full days, I’m ready to be healed enough to eat some damn Mac and Cheese at least!