adult tonsillectomy experience and tips

If you are facing an adult tonsillectomy and fearing the worst from reading these boards, please bear in my mind that it is likely only those people with the most suffering post messages.

I am a 43 year old man on Day 8 of recovery from an adult tonsillectomy to remove a tumour and my left tonsil. It has been very painful but not quite as horrific as I had imagined after reading these boards. The stories here prepared me well.

I'd never had surgery of any kind before this so was apprehensive. In fact, the surgery part is straightforward. One minute I was chatting to the anaesthatist, the next I was coming round in a recovery room. I found the anaesthetic made me rather emotional but there was no physical pain. I was pumped full of morphine and within a few hours of surgery, surprisngly, sat up in my hospital bed eating Japanese noodles. There was discomfort and it took me ages to eat them but no agonising pain. The after effects of the anaesthetic and the morphine last about 48 hours. The hospital made sure I was able to drink water, gave me paracetamol, codeine, Ibuprofen and a mouth wash to take home with me and discharged me.

I came home feeling spaced out, in some pain, slightly shaky on my feet but basically OK. It is once the morphine wears off and the healing begins that the real pain starts. Mine started around day 3 and has continued to today (Day 8). Imagine toothache and ear ache multiplied by three. Sorry, there's no getting away from it, it hurts but the pain killers do take the edge off. The doctors advise you not to miss a dose but trust me, you won't. They become your best friend.

I have managed to eat and drink throughout my recovery. I've tried to stick to my regular diet, sort of (chewing meat, whilst technically possible, just doesn't feel worth the effort). It is painful to swallow and takes me about four times as long to clear my plate as it would normally do l but was advised sticky to a normal diet as is the best way to speed the healing process.

I thought I would use the time off work to work on a little creative project of my own. Forget about that. All you'll want to do is sleep and lay on the sofa.

My top tips

1. You will definitely need someone to take you home from hospital.
2. Make sure you have someone at home to care for you for at least a week. You will need it. Maybe it doesn't require full time care but certainly things like doing your own shopping is out of the question.
3. Take your pain killers 45 minutes before attempting to eat
4. Keep a note of what and when you take your pain relief. Sounds daft, I know, but you'll be spaced out and its easy to forget to take a dose or remember exactly which pills you took last time.
5. Keep pain killers by your bed as you will likely be woken up either in the night or first thing in the morning by pain
6. Allow 14 days off work from the day of surgery. I thought this sounded a ridiculously long time but only today (Day 8) am I feeling even vaguely human.
7. Space your pain killers out so you are never more than a couple of waking hours away from a dose. (see below).
8. Ask your doctor for a sleeping pill to help get you through the night (I think Zopiclone is the Rolls Royce of sleeping pills)


How I spaced my meds

6.00 Parectomol + Coedine
(then back to sleep)
10.00 Ibuprofen (with breakfast)
12.00 Paracetomol
14.00 Coedine
16.00 Parecetmol
18.00 Coedine
20.00 Ibupofen (with dinner)
22.00 Paracetomol + Coedine + Zopiclone (sleeping pill)


It is horrid but with a bit of planning and pain killers, you WILL get through it.

My tumour turned out to be cancerous so I'm now facing chemo and radiotherapy which, after reading the side effects of that, makes my tonsillectomy seem like a walk in the park!! Good luck with yours

jeez, I had one too, when I was 27 & I thought the guy was spot-on with his description! It was terrible, the most painful thing I've ever gone thru, to this day still. But yeah, wasn't clear as to the UC connection myself...

Just on the off chance that London Brick logs on again... Thank you for your post- I'm day 6 post tonsillectomy and reading your post has given me hope that this nightmare will soon be over. Thank you

huh ? again with the bizzaro tonsil posting here ? flickin weird !

then again, we are the most popular forum on hw, so if you want to be heard, please don't let uc get in your way

As a grown 44 year old adult and reading horror stories online about this surgery, I was scared to death! Two weeks ago I had a tonsillectomy , synoplasty to repair a deviated septum and my adenoids removed. ALL AT ONCE! I was down for 10 days, honestly it was not as bad as I had geared it up to be. It's definitely not easy, but I think the medications I was given had a huge part in helping out! I was NOT given any pain narcotics just a never blocker medication called Gabapentin and two rounds of steroid medication. The Gabapentin was a miracle drug! it would make me tired buy had very minimal pain, mostly ear aches/ fever/head pressure. On day 2 I started the steroid , it helped so much with the swelling and overall help of feeling better. Day's 1 and 2 along with 5-7 were the worst. about day 5 I requested another round of steroids , that helped a lot! the hardest thing for me is not being able to swallow and eat properly and when you drink the fluid comes out your nose. Today is day 13 , finally able to swallow somewhat normal and starting to be able to eat solid harder foods. Get lots of rest! plan on a min of 10 days home, use a cold humidifier! get ice packs and a heating pad for neck and ear pain. TWO WORDS TO TELL YOUR DOC, GABAPENTIN FOR AT LEAST 10 DAYS, AND TWO ROUNDS OF STEROIDS! supplement over the counter ibuprofen / aleve during recovery to help with ear/head pain. They started me on the Gabapentin an hour before surgery! I have dissolving stitches so did not have scabs, I think that helped also. Talk to your DOC about this method and see if it will work for you! Good luck, life is SO much better after! Well worth the sacrifice of a couple of weeks.