Tonsillectomy Recovery Day 11 and Beyond

Tonsillectomy Recovery after Day Eleven

 

At some point I hope to add pages for day 12, day 13, day 14, day 15, day 16, and another page for days 17,18,19, and 20.  For now, please share your tonsillectomy recovery experiences here.  I wish you the very best of health!



  1. ty
    Hey. Its me again. Had the surgery last week and OMG! The worst days of my life. I will make it but geeze!! This sucks bad. I had to read your comments again because I began to get depressed, lol. Im driving my husband and doctor crazy by keep asking them how long will this last. Its good hearing from someone that understands the process and pain. Your experiences are helping me through girl. Thanks again:)

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    1. Kate
      Horrible flashbacks reading your message Ty! I have just returned from a business trip, meeting lots of new people, and I didn’t have to worry about my breath: so liberating and confidence building. I discovered that one of my colleagues had her tonsils removed 2 years ago – when I happened to mention that I was just a few weeks on from my operation, she gave me a big bear hug because she could empathise with my more recent experience. You WILL eat, sleep and enjoy life again – I promise! Stay positive: you made the right decision.

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  2. Kate
    I am now four weeks post surgery (in the UK), and life is good! I had a tonsillectomy due to tonsil stones (I had small, pitted tonsils, and was unable to remove the stones myself, whatever method I tried) – private medical insurance and a past history of throat infections helped get me the surgery. I knew it was a drastic option, but I was prepared to do ANYTHING to solve my bad breath problems. I did nearly cancel when I read this forum the day before surgery though! But I didn’t, and I survived, and my tonsil stones and bad breath are finally GONE!Having found this forum so much help during the dark days post-surgery, I wanted to share my experience/what helped me. If you are about to have surgery, or are still in recovery, I can promise you it will get SO much better in a few days – hang in there!1. Don’t plan ANYTHING for the two weeks post surgery – and make sure you book at least two weeks off work. Days 5 – 8 were the worst for me, although in total I had about 10 days of constant pain/medication and sleep deprivation.
    2. I cried A LOT on day one – a mixture of the anesthesia/trauma, relief at getting through surgery, and pain! I had one night in hospital.
    3. Sucking on crushed ice helps a lot – make sure you have some in stock. I did not use a humidifier – we didn’t want to pump damp air into our bedroom!
    4. Take as much pain medication as you can – I used Tramadol, ibuprofen and paracetamol – you will not get addicted, and you WILL need them. But keep a drug diary so you can recall what drugs you took and when – you will not remember!
    5. Sleeping with my face/throat on a hot water bottle helped me a lot in days 5+: your throat muscles tighten up in response to the surgery, and I think this helped relax me a little
    6. The nights were the worst, as I would wake up in a lot of pain and then struggle to swallow more medication/get back to sleep. Listening to the radio really helped get me through the dark, lonely hours. My husband moved into the spare bed for the first 10 days, to ensure he could get some sleep and I could thrash around the bed as much as I needed to get comfortable!
    7. In the UK we are advised to eat rough food e.g. toast when we can. I did manage this a couple of times, but I mostly lived on soup (no bread!), fish in sauce (you can buy this frozen in handy microwaveable pouches), yogurt, porridge and hot chocolate. I tried making smoothies but the fruit was too acidic and hurt my throat. There were a couple of days when I could not face eating anything due to the pain. I did not get constipated, and I did not lose much weight – because I spent two weeks resting, and most of what I DID eat was high calorie!
    8. You will be too tired to read much – have a good set of DVDs on standby
    9. I did not have any bleeding. I felt so ill that completely resting in the first week was an easy option – and I made sure I had someone on call in the first few days, just in case
    10. I was able to speak on all days, although about half an hour of conversation was enough
    11. I went for my first short walk one week after surgery. Four weeks on, I am now exercising as normal – running, swimming and pilates.
    12. I stopped regular pain relief on about day 15, having gradually cut down on what I was taking.
    13. I gradually re-introduced different types of food after two weeks. I still have a sticky feeling in the back of my throat, which I expect to disappear over the coming weeks.My tonsillectomy recovery was the worst 10 days of my life. But ridding myself of tonsil stones is one of the best things I ever did!

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    1. Ty
      Thank you for sharing. I also have tonsil stones and thought I may be going to far getting surgery to remove them. I’m a married woman and nothing’s is more damaging to a marriage than insecurity. TMI, I know just wanted to say thanks for sharing your experience. I’m going forwadr with the surgery.

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      1. Kate
        I am also married (and 47 – forgot that bit!) and would not even discuss the problem with my husband. So I feel your insecurity! It will hurt a lot – stay focused on the goal and remember that in a few days you will be much better, and also liberated!

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  3. Ellen Howard
    Day 9 of my recovery.I’m not sure how relevant this will be to anyone because I’m not entirely sure how common it is. I’m just turned 18 and have been having a lot of problems with my tonsils for the best part of three years. One thing I always found when digging out those god awful tonsil stones was that my tonsils were extremely prone to bleeding – something my ENT surgeon also found out on the day of the op!He said no one in his experience had bled that much in a tonsillectomy procedure in years. I had to be stitched right up on my right side and let me tell you, we all know how sore recovery is without stitches right? Imagine being wheeled out of theatre with those bad boys in you. It’s been sore, for the first few days it was the actual space at the top of the back of my throat that was painful and white and scabby. I was throwing up old blood so frequently (and a lot of it might I add) that I couldnt keep anything down; not food, not painkillers. It was awful.But I powered through and ate as much as I could, despite the pain, because I thought ‘you know what I’ve put up with enough sh*t from my tonsils this time I’m gonna show ‘em what I’m made of!’ And after about day three or four the pain subsided from my tonsil bed area and is now a horrible stingy/achy feeling further down my throat, which apparently is due to the whole stitching procedure, I guess a lot of tubes were bumped around in this process and it’s seriously bruised me inside. I find the pain really hits me at night and I’m starting to get severe earaches to accompany that, which is nice! My co-codamol painkillers ran out days ago so I’m going strong on paracetamol and Diclofenac.

    I hope everyone else is managing to power through! Just think of all the tonsillitus and nasty tonsil stones that you’re gonna get to avoid for the rest of your life! Remember, at most this recovery process is going to take 17-20 days, which in perspective, is more than worth it to be tonsil free!

    Stay safe xxx

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  4. Lindsey
    I am a 24 year old female, I had my tonsils removed on July 23. I had my tonsils removed due to horrid tonsil stones. Let me start off by saying DRINK WATER NO MATTER HOW BAD IT HURTS!!!! Day 1: after procedure you’re so loopy from meds it flys by. I was offered a blue slushing and teddy Graham’s. 8 bags of teddy Graham’s later I am ready to keave!! After surgery I even had McDonald’s I don’t even remember eating it. Throat was numb all day long. I received percocet 5mg. All you will want to do is sleep. Have someone wake you up to drink and take meds!!Day 2: pain was still tolerable I started taking the pain medication every 4 hours so the pain doesn’t get out of control. I was eating mash potatoes ( the pre made bob Evans kind was the smoothest), I noticed ice cold water stung my throat so room temperature worked. I was drinking every 20 mins to keep the throat moist. Sleeping was horrible, I ended up sleeping on couch so my head would be propped up. Waking up every 45 mins to sip water, you get no sleep at all. I didn’t want my throat to dry out because it is so painful. I set my alarm every 4 hours so I would take my medicine.Day 3,4,5: Worst days ever! Extreme pain 10/10, that pain medicine didn’t help! Ear pain started kicking in. I had ice constantly on my throat to keep swelling down. Scabs were formed in back of throat very thick. Drinking water was a task. Everytime I swallowed felt like razorblades. I had to force myself to eat. Ended up getting a blood clot on my left tonsil on day5 and started bleeding. On call dr told me to drink ice cold water and it helped. Woke up after and blood clot resolved on its own. I was having mini hot flashes all day.Day 6: I felt like a new person. Pain was a 6/10. I was eating drinking taking my neds around the clock

    Day 7,8,9: scabs started falling off day 7. It feels like something is caught in back of throat when them fall off. Throat is very sensitive after they fall off that any liquid or food stings the throat. I have bumped my meds down to 1 pill every 4 hours instead of 2 pills. Sleeping longer through the night.

    Day 10 and on: pain has started to be controlled with Motrin. I feel 100% better!! I am starting to eat solid foods. I had PBJ sandwhich and it was easy to go down. I feel back to my normal self. Throat still hurts but just like it would as a sore throat.

    I think keeping myself hydrated non stopped helped with my speedy recovery. I go back to wk in a few days and feel comfortable going back. I still have to drink water so throat doesn’t get dry. My scabs are 75% gone. I’ve had someone with me the whole time and you DO need that. Milk never seemed to cause the phlegm in my throat as others posted. It soothed the burning. I lived off mash potatoes and chick n star soup mix for the first days. Keep taking medication when it’s due so pain stays under control!! Take the full two weeks off dr reccomends because you will need it. I would do this surgery again knowing it is going to cure my tonsil stones and stinky breath! Sorry this blog is all over the place my mind is going crazy! I hope everyone as a good recovery as well as I’ve had!

Check out our new tonsillectomy recovery video- Caution: Not always pretty

A collection of various experiences of adult tonsillectomy patients after their tenth day of tonsillectomy recovery
From thousands of post comments to the tonsillectomy recovery forum, I am assembling a sampling of various accounts and impressions of tonsillectomy recovery for each day. Below I share comments about tonsillectomy recovery after day 11. These comments are 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
Depression After Tonsillectomy?

-Greg Tooke 

343 comments

  1. Day 11
    At about 6 am I took 800 mg of ibuprofen and decided to try a sleep laying down for the first time since my surgery. I woke up around 8 thinking I couldn’t breathe in through my nose and I kept having to swallow non-stop. I’d swallow and moments later I’d have to swallow again. I got up, used the restroom (still having to keep swallowing) and spit in the sink to see what I was swallowing. It was straight up, thick bright red blood. I swished water to see how much blood I was dealing with and it just kept coming and coming. I really started getting nervous so I called for my husband to call the doctor. Of course he picked that night to sleep with ear plugs so there I am screaming and crying like a lunatic in the bathroom. I grabbed a towel and ran to wake him up. He jumps up and gets the kids dressed so we can go to the ER. Halfway there the bleeding stops so we pulled over to call my Dr. I have an appointment this afternoon but was instructed to go to the ER if the bleeding starts again. I’ll update this evening. I’m fairly sure I have scared the hell out of my kids with all my carrying on and blood from this morning.

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  2. Im on day 10 of my recovery and had a rough ride with a few visits to the public hospital emergency department!! I found that days 4-7 were the worst! I lost my whole apitetit and because i didnt want to eat i couldnt take my medication! I developed a infection on day 9 and was prescribed with anibiotics. The antibiotics made my stomach terrible and i ended up back in hospital. I was vomiting blood and felt nausues constantly. I managed to get some ant nasua pills and they helped alot. I also started usinf difflam spray 10mins before eating and this helped alot!!!! My apetit started returning on day 8 and i started to feel normal again. I managed to sleep throughout the night and on day 10 stoped taking my inflamation pills. And can i just say until day 8 my ulva was massive and swolen! I always felt it when i talked and it made it harder to recover. Im at day 10 now and i see the light at the end of the tunnel. Im still yet to decide if the 10 days of torture are worth it. Im glad its nearly over!!!

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  3. I’m 46yrs old and had my tonsillectomy on May 2nd (1 1/2 months almost) and am still feeling the effects horribly from my surgery. Mostly its my soft palate area that feels extremely inflamed or feel like it has dropped because everytime I swallow I can feel it, which is so horribly uncomfortable & sometimes even painful at the same time. I asked my ENT about this the last time I visited him a week ago and he said my the skin at the roof of my mouth has stretched due to my tonsils being removed and he showed me clearly how my uvula has pulled up much higher as a result of my upper mouth skin stretching. So now it looks like I have a nub of a uvula there, and the top of my mouth where my soft palate is feels inflamed & extremely uncomfortable on a daily, and makes it extremely difficult for me to eat even soft foods, so I’m still on eggs and mushed potatoes diet, and high calorie count ice cream since I can’t eat much and am either still losing weight or finding it hard to hold the 127 lbs I’m now at. Every other day or so my right side where my tonsil once was & my throat still causes me pain from time to time on top of this horrible soft palate issue I’m wrestling with on a daily. My ENT said all of this stuff I’m still experiencing is normal for patients my age and that it sometimes takes longer to heal for ppl my age, but says it will get better over time. I, like a few others, have fallen into a depression as a result of waking up like this every day, thinking I’m now just stuck like this and have a hard time seeing any light at the end of the tunnel. I’ve searched around to see if anyone else experiences these issues with their soft palate area & swallowing difficulty and I didn’t see much on it. I try to keep my faith up by listening to Dr. Charles Stanley and reading the Bible but its really really hard dealing with this on a daily. I really hope no one has to experience this like I am.

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  4. Hi all. I’m a 23 year old female and got my tonsils removed on April 24th, so about 10 days ago if you count surgery day. Let me just start off by saying that this recovery has been HELL. I have never expirenced pain like this in my entire life. My first two days seemed okay and I was pleasantly surprised. I was eating soft foods and drinking with little pain. Once days 3-6 came…. I felt like I was hit with a ton of bricks. Nothing helped the pain, I could not stand to swallow anything and ended up getting dehydrated and had to get fluids pumped in me at the ER. However once I got through that hump things started to get better and have been consistently since. I still do have pain and the referred pain in the ears, mostly at night and in the morning. I feel as though the scabs are starting to come off- I hope. I mostly just feel like I have a case of strep throat, which is tolerable given what I had just gone through.

    Anyways this website realllllllllllyyy helped me through this recovery. Reading everyone else’s stories made me feel like I wasn’t alone because during those painful days, it was easy to get depressed, and I did. I hope anyone reading this before surgery doesn’t get discouraged but deffinetly be prepared. Don’t make the same mistakes I did and DRINK WATER!!!

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  5. I’m on day 11 post tonsillectomy. I read a few of the horror stories/posts before I went in. To be honest I dismissed them, naively thinking “we’ll only the worst experiences will be online- i’m Sure it’ll be fine”. HOW WRONG I WAS. This has been, without a doubt, the most horrendous painful experience of my life. The only thing that saved me was religiously drinking water at every hour of the day and setting alarms for painkillers. Here in the UK we are forced to eat toast or a sandwich before being discharged from hospital. I choked and threw up over twice whilst the nurse forced me. In the the end, my mum had to step in (she’s a former nurse) and say enough, clearly I was not ready to eat. Everyone going through this hell, keep your head up and your water bottle filled. You’ll come through the other side. I lost a stone in 9 days despite eating here and there – i think forcing yourself to eat proper food even though it hurts is excellent advice. It’s meant that I didn’t lose my sense of taste and has also helped healed my throat.

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    1. I’m im a 21 F about to be on day 13 status post tonsillectomy, and I’m still not doing very well. I was sent home with lots of prescriptions for liquid/pill pain meds as well as antifungal, sleeping pill, and steroid. Honestly the first few days I had been sleeping so much everything was a blur but I do remember being so hungry because the pain meds gave me massive cravings. I also woke up super sweaty and my face would be super read for some reason. An ice pack around my neck was my savior. I finally had 5 spoonfuls Of cream of wheat on the 4th day, otherwise I was only eat eatomg popsicles and jello!!! On the 7th or 8th day is when the pain really started to kick in. I also developed fever and horrible chills, so I went back and got some antibiotics. Only had 10 days off work and actually had to call in an extra two days to recover but i feel very improved from that state. Tomorrow will be day 13 and I’m still having a lot of pain swallowing and severe ear pain. It feels like someone is sticking a hot needle in my left ear (where the pain is the worst). I’m back to work now and still mainly only eating soft things like jello and applesauce but I have been powering through solid foods just so I can have some energy. I accidentally ate spicy lettuce wraps and almost wanted to kill myself lol. Also I want to say to GRADUALLY decrease your pain meds. I completely stopped taking them on day 8 because I didn’t want to be all messed up and drowsy/dizzy/nauseous at work. BIG MISTAKE. I feel like partly why i had such bad chills was because i was probably going through some withdrawal from stopping oxycodone cold turkey. Now I’m just doing Tylenol and ibuprofen and i really wish I could go back to taking the Percocet because man I’m still in a ton of pain!!! But alas I won’t do that to my body and I finally am not constipated (TMI? LOL). I’m SO ready for this to be over. But I know once I conquer this I can do anything!!! Wishing everyone the best with their recovery!! Ps every day of my recovery I went on here to see if others were feeling the same and it really helped me out knowing I’m not alone in this :’)

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      1. Thank you all so much for sharing! This has helped me through so much! I’m on day 10 and I still have white in the back and horrible breath! Taking 5mg of Percocet every 3-4 hrs at night because the throat and ear pain are bad when you wake up. During the day is so much better! I’m still relying on water ice, jello, soup, cream of wheat and eggs to get me through the days. But I am starting to see the light, just not sure if I should try to go back to work on Day 14. Every day seems to be different. I did also hemorrhage in Day 5/6 when one of the scabs prematurely came off in my sleep. So. Much. Blood.! I’ve never been so scared in my life. My body had a Vagel response and I needed to be wheeled in to the ER, Bp was 83/60 I think. So far the pain has been equivalent to Ulcerative Tonsilitis. I’ve had strep so many times that the pain was expected. Not sure if anyone else had this but the back sides of my tongue are in the worst pain and that’s been he worst part for me thus far. It feels raw like someone burned the back of it and it’s not healing. It makes my throat pain feel like a walk in the park! If you’ve read this, can you let me know if you’ve had the same tongue thing and did you ever find out why it’s like that?

        TIA!

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        1. My tongue feels the same way. Hopefully this has passed for you. I’m at day 9 post op and struggling to stay positive.

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