Not nearly as bad as I expected!
This is going to be a really long post! But if you don't want to read a novel, this is basically my experience with tonsillectomy/ adenoidectomy. It wasn't as painful as expected and the few items I feel were a credit to that.
I honestly feel so grateful for everything I read on here to prepare myself for my tonsillectomy. But I can say that it definitely terrified me for months before my actual surgery. I would literally wake up in the middle of the night and say "nope... I'm not doing it. That one guy said his nose was so congested he could only breathe through his mouth but you're not supposed to do that! "
This was the cycle for me and I actually chickened out and rescheduled 😅 But I'm glad I was prepared, even though I was way overprepared. I wanted to share the good and bad from my experience.
I am 43, about 6 yrs ago an ENT told me I really needed them out. So I told my PCP since he's the one who referred me, and his response was "Oof, yeah when I worked at the ER that was the most common post op pain we'd see adults come in for!" So, yeah I never scheduled it. Then last Thanksgiving I had a tonsillar abscess and it was so painful, it went away and came back on New Year's Eve so I'm thinking great its a holiday tradition. But decided it was time.
Today is 14 days post op. I go back to work tomorrow (I'm a corporate medical billing receptionist so I have to be super friendly and talk a LOT) but I think I'll be okay. I still have some soreness but it feels like the early signs of tonsillitis where you think "am I getting sick?" My throat still looks a bit raw and some white spots but pretty good over all.
I had bought a wedge pillow on Amazon even though I have an adjustable bed, I didnt want my husband to have to sleep like that. I bought a humidifier that has a little spout that directs the mist towards your face and I think that was a huge advantage for me. I also had a travel neck pillow to help keep my jaw closed while sleeping, I wore it sideways like where the opening was on the side of my neck because wearing it backwards just made it slip out from under my chin. Those 3 things were the best purchases in my opinion. A couple times I fell asleep laying down on my side and when I woke up, my jaw and ear on that side was in so much pain it was unreal. I also fell asleep once without the neck pillow and my head kind of fell forward and it must have had my throat in a weird position because it hurt so bad and a huge amount of scabs ended up in my mouth when I woke up and I thought for sure I was bleeding out lol. I never ended up bleeding which was really great.
I bought an ice pack, but honestly never needed it. We have a nugget ice maker and I had a cup full of that with a spoon for the first few days and it helped tremendously. By day 10, excessive cold seemed to hurt more, though. I have also read that some people couldn't tolerate cold at all, so there's that. I bought lots of pudding, Italian ice, broth, yogurt and protein drinks. (I had a gastric sleeve surgery in 2024 so my dietbis already modified) I have TONS of all of it left because everything tastes like absolute trash so I ended up wanting more salty than sweet. Nothing quite as disappointing as eating an ice cream sandwich that tastes like ramen seasoning 🤣
So the first couple days weren't too bad. The swelling was a little scary. I took Tylenol and advil on rotation every 3 hours without fail for the first 9 days. I set alarms on my phone with the name of the med because I couldn't remember what I took last. I added in the stronger RX meds on day 3 at night and then each day from there got worse. Not nearly as bad as I expected, though. Oh and bought powdered Tylenol that you just pour on your tongue, amazing.
Eating was uncomfortable, I didn't find more substantial food hard to swallow, it was just hard to chew because your tongue wants to move the food around and be helpful but it hurt the back sides of my tongue really bad if I moved it to the sides at all. It still hurts if I try to like clear food from my bottom teeth. It was about 10 minutes after eating that the pain would ramp up, in my ears and jaw especially, I assumed it was from the muscles it takes to eat. So I learned to time my eating with my meds. On day 7 I ate a cheeseburger with lettuce and onion but I took my liquid oxycodone an hour before so it wasn't too bad, I just chewed (like a robot without moving my tongue much) really well before swallowing.
My son had a major foot reconstruction surgery on my day 6. I was terrified of this because thats like peak pain day apparently. But it wasn't too bad. I kept ice water with me, took my meds on schedule. The worst part was having to talk more than normal.
I want to say that I think the worst part of this surgery is that we almost seem to heal backwards. As adults who have had surgeries, injuries and illnesses we expect to start out at the peak and gradually get better every day. This is what our brains anticipate because that's how its always been. But tonsillectomy is the opposite, it really starts out mild and ramps up each day and I think that is really scary because we don't know when it's going to end. The pattern is not normal, we don't know how to process it. At least that's how I felt. The other hard part is that everyone around us feels and expects the same. My husband kept saying he thought I'd be feeling better by now. And even though I knew about the pain spike with scabs, my brain still kept telling me the same thing, I thought I'd feel better by now.
But I can tell you that by day 11 I could tell it was getting better. And it was quick, it got better a lot faster than it got worse. When the scabs came off it was disgusting and I've decided that I won't eat scrambled eggs or cottage cheese for quite some time. I do still have altered sense of taste, yesterday I discovered raisins taste like dill pickles and that was sad lol. Anything sweet tastes bitter or sour and I never know which one it'll be.
We all have different experiences and pain levels, but I found it helpful to read the stories of people who didnt have it quite so bad. I also think my experience would have been a lot worse without the wedge pillow, humidifier and neck pillow.
Good luck to anyone who has their surgery scheduled and has fallen down the Reddit rabbit hole like I did! I hope your experience goes better than you expect!