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How long does it take to recover after tonsillectomy?
Tonsillectomy recovery time is unique for each patient. The recovery timeline for children is much shorter than for adults, with seemingly less pain. My own eight year old son was back to his old self in less than a week after his tonsils taken out. This may have fanned the flames of my unreasonable expectations of my own recovery time as an adult. His was fairly typical of a child his age. Children’s bodies heal faster than adults’ do.
Tonsillectomy Recovery Time
What to expect after tonsil surgery
The timeline for recovery for an adult is a different story. Age matters. In fact, it appears that the older an adult is at the time of their tonsillectomy, the longer the recovery is, in general. Based on my own adult tonsillectomy recovery, and the stories of thousands of my readers, I’d put the average adult tonsillectomy recovery time at approximately 10.43 days. Yes, I’m that good!
Humor aside, ten days seems to be pretty typical. I added the .43 because so many people, myself included, thought they had it licked and went back to work around day ten, only to find they weren’t quite ready. As scabs slough off in second week of recovery, many adults experience a bit of a pain relapse, just as they thought they were almost recovered. This is a really tough period for many. They’ve spent almost two weeks with minimal sleep, minimal nourishment, minimal activity, and lots of pain medicine. It can be downright depressing for adults recovering in this second week.
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I do hear from many adults whose recovery times are closer to a week – perhaps due to my good advice, perhaps due to genetics. It’s hard to say why some adults’ recovery timelines are shorter, and their experiences less traumatic. There are also cases that drag out further. If you’re one of a small minority that requires re-cauterization for bleeding, or don’t take the proper precautions, (many of these are outlined here and in my book), your tonsillectomy recovery time may be as much as three or four weeks. I want to make an important point here- one that I cannot overemphasis: Stay hydrated! Keep drinking fluids! Dehydration is the worst enemy of the tonsillectomy patient.
My advice: ask your employer, your family, your friends, and the rest of the world to give you two weeks for your adult tonsillectomy. You may surprise them, hopefully for the better.
Recovery is unique to each individual- sure. We know that recovery time for adults is longer, and maybe harder, than for children. I remember my own son bouncing back in less than a week! My own experience taught me that ten days off from a job that required lots of talking was a bit light. I generally advise two weeks. As I’ve said, most employers will let you come back early. That’s easier than asking for more time after the fact. I’ve read the accounts of thousands of tonsillectomy patients- most of them adults. I’ve learned that the time required varies. I wonder though, how many tonsillectomy patients never really post about their experience.
Are you one of those quiet ones lying in the weeds? I’d like to get a better feel for the average adult tonsillectomy recovery time. Please take a moment and share your own experience in recovering from tonsillectomy surgery. You can help us all!I’ve put together a collection of items that I think would be helpful, if not essential, to making tonsillectomy recovery a little more pleasant. Check out the Tonsillectomy General Store.
-Greg Tooke My short bio
I had bilateral Tonsillectomy surgery 8 days ago. Initially day 1-3, as long as I took my pain medicine within the hour it was tolerable during the day. However, sleep at night was a different story!! Sleeping sitting up and my mouth being shut for to long caused extreme pain to radiate into my ears! Day 4 & 5 was still a lot like 1-3 but the pain started to become more persistent during the day, so I had to up the dosage to every four hours (from every 6 hours). Day 6-7, I thought I was getting some relief because the ear pain and sides of my mouths started to feel slightly less painful, but day 8….directly center of the throat the pain has returned at full throttle!! I’ve loss 6 pounds, minimal sleep, and get exhausted easily. Who would thought swallowing saliva would be so intense! Definitely the worse pain I’ve ever encountered in my life and I JUST HAD A BABY!!! No exaggeration! Hope this is helpful for someone out there….
I’m 17 years old and I had my tonsils removed 2 days ago. I could talk as soon as I woke up and had no bleeding aside from a glob of blood that was leftover from the surgery. I can eat solid foods now. I ate chicken noodle soup and mashed potatoes yesterday, and today I’m carefully eating french fries. I heard that for people my age, recovery time to start eating solids or even get out of bed takes about two weeks. It’s weird because I always experience the rare side effects but this has been problem-free so far! I’ve heard stories from friends of not being able to open their mouths for days, or vomiting up blood, but not of that has happened to me. I guess everyone’s different! I wish everyone here the best of luck in their recoveries and pray that your pain goes away soon!
I am 47 1/2 years old and had a bilateral tonsillectomy on the 27th of September. This for me is the worst surgery that I have ever had in my entire life. I would much rather go through child birth again than to have my tonsils taken out again. I am now into day 5 of recovery and I am still taking pain meds every 3 1/2 to 4 hours around the clock because of the pain. I am just barely able to swallow anything because of the pain, so any type of food is out of the question, I don’t have any type of an appetite anyways. I have lost almost 20 pounds and will probably lose more because I am unable to eat. Ice water does not help with the pain at all, anything going down my throat causes severe pain. I am trying to stay hydrated, although this is a problem because of the pain. I still have a tremendous amount of scabs in the back of my throat and my uvula is extremely swollen so no talking for me. I completely lost my voice yesterday so throwing things at people is how I have to get their attention…lol!!!! Hopefully this will get better over the next week or so and I will finally be able to sleep a full night.
I find sleep to be the enemy. When I sleep, I wake up in worse pain because my throat dried out. I know you’re exhausted beyond belief, but a full nights sleep will be the absolutely horrible when you wake up. I highly recommend a COLD air humidifier if you sleep with your mouth slightly open like I do.
I am 43 and had my tonsils and a bone spur from my sinus removed 3 weeks ago. The 2nd week was the worst. I was in bed for 2 weeks straight. I questioned why I had the surgery. My scabs did not fall off until day 12-13. I went back to work after 2 weeks and could not work a full day. I am still constantly tired but did manage to work a full day (day 20). My throat still hurts when I swallow and I do take a pain pill at night but it is manageable. I did have an excess amount of scar tissue that had to be removed from prior infections so that may be part of the problem. If you are going to have this done don’t spend 20 years of having strep 5-6 times a year before you have your tonsils removed.
Hi I am a 20 yr old female and I got my tonsils out 10 days ago because I got reoccurring peritonsular abscesses. Over all, the recovery has been very smooth and not nearly bad as expected. I got my tonsils out in the morning so the first day consisted of drinking water and sleeping. After that I slowly started eating soft stuff and I had no problem staying very hydrated. About 5 days into in the throat pain got worse but nothing the pain meds could not handle. I am now 10 days into recovery and I can still see the scabs in the back of my throat and I am wondering when they are going to fall off and I can get back to working out and being 100% back to normal. I can talk fine and eat anything except toast and chips and stuff. My uvula is a little swollen so I sound kinda funny when I talk. I put on some weight expecting to lose some during this surgery but I lose none since I was able to eat pretty adequately every day except for the day of surgery. Hoping to be 100% with in the next two days or so!