My six year old is getting her tonsils removed this Thursday. How much pain will she be in after the procedure assuming everything goes well?
Its been nearly 30 years since I had mine removed. But I seem to remember about a month of the worst sore throat I’ve ever had. A pretty nasty constant dull ache and sharp pain anytime I swallowed. A constant 2-3 with a 7 or so when swallowing, on the 1-10 pain scale.
Basically you have these two HUGE scabs on your throat. Since it’s a wet area and one which gets a lot of movement whether you want it to or not, the scabs tend to break and bleed and be a general pain in the… throat. At 6 I don’t imagine a small whiteboard will be too useful, but if you can come up with some sort of codes beforehand that will minimize the need to speak, that will be great. I disdained Grandma’s little whiteboard until I realized that my throat was a lot more likely to start bleeding and hurting again if I tried to speak than when I used the board. I also had a small bell (the classical “hotel bellhop” bell) I could ring if I needed someone to come over.
More than the pain, which was occasionally sharp but not much of a big deal so long as I kept my mouth shut, what I remember is being tired for the first few days, and then 10 or so days of being tired of being in bed. Heck, I even got tired of flan and ice cream, but then, there were only three possible ice cream flavors in the market and I hated two of them 
It hurt! I remember that dark grape juice was the most soothing of all the things I was offered.
I had them a bit older - didnt feel good for the first few days but wasnt the end of the world, was more the initial shock. If they’ve had tons of tonsillitis as the reason they were removed like for me, its didnt feel that much worse than a bad bout of that to me and then afterwards no more tonsillitis, yay.
Otara
My kids had their tonsils out on the same day. My oldest, around 7 or 8 at the time (a couple years ago), had pockets in his tonsils that would trap food where it would rot and give him the worst breath imaginable even seconds after brushing his teeth and tongue. He would also get sick quite often.
My youngest, 2 years younger, had tonsils that were millimeters apart and impeded his breathing when he got sick and his lymph nodes swelled.
My oldest got through it fairly well. We told them they could have all the ice cream, pudding and Jell-o they wanted. My youngest refused to eat or drink, which is bad. The scabs dried up and cracked. Since he refused to swallow, the blood would start coming out of his mouth. He ended up back in the hospital for a night or two.
All in all, they were basically back to normal activities within a week or so and didn’t comment on it at all after two or three weeks.
So yeah, it is going to hurt. Pretty bad. But keep them hydrated and swallowing and they will pull through it quickly enough.
My wife had her tonsils out when she was 32. Supposedly it hurts more the older you are. She was on liquid codine to the point of hallucinating and was still crying from the pain. The moral of the story is if the ENT Dr. recommends it, it is better to do it earlier than later.
I still have my tonsils, so I can’t give you any personal insight.
I had my tonsils removed when I was 29, and it was miserable. MISERABLE. All the stories I’d heard about it being “not so bad” were way off! Vicodin only dulled the pain enough for me to sleep maybe 20 minutes at a stretch. That lasted about 2 weeks and then it slowly got better. All in all, the pain was worth it, since I used to get horrible sore throats at least monthly and I’ve been relatively sore throat-free for the past 5 years.
All that said, I’ve heard it is much less painful for kids, so I would definitely recommend getting it addressed earlier rather than later!
My four year old had his out on May 28th. We kept him on the hydrocodone(sp?) for four days and decided to try just using Tylenol – big mistake, BIG mistake. Went promptly back to the heavy drugs. It took him until nearly the two week mark to not need pain meds every four hours, even waking him up to administer them. We’re still on the heavy stuff, but we’ve stretched out to the 6 hour dosing increment and no longer need to wake him at night to get a dose. It was rougher on him from a pain standpoint than I would have thought.
Both of my kids just had their’s removed in March on the same day, ages 9 and 7. This will be one experience that will very quite a bit from person to person. Both of them were fairly miserable immediately after the procedure but after 3-4 hrs they began to act normal again. The 7 yr old was off the pain meds by day 3 and was completely normal by day 5. The 9 yr old it took a little longer but was fine by day 7. Our doctor told us day 3-6 would be the worst and their pain would increase but we never saw any indication of that. Also a lot of the post op symptoms the doctor told us to expect never occurred ( vomiting, minor bleeding, increased pain…etc). I would recommend giving them plenty of fluids, I made sure both of them had plenty liquids, along with giving them Popsicle “slushies”. I also believe that the older the patient the harder it is to recover.
I was around 6 when I had mine out (adenoids at the same time, they were the real problem but the doc thought taking the tonsils out was a good idea too) and other than having to be put back under after my nose wouldn’t stop bleeding in the recovery room, it wasn’t too bad. I’m sure there was some throat pain, but nothing so bad it traumatized me or even sticks out as memorable to me.
One day my Russian co-worker told me a harrowing story from her childhood…
…when she was six and living in Moscow, she was taken to the doctor to get her tonsils out, just like everyone else in the Seventies did.
But they did not give her any anesthetic. They had a couple of burly guys hold her down as the doctor removed her tonsils forcefully :eek:
She said that was what they did with all of the children.
And yes she said it has scarred her for life (no pun intended)
I had my tonsils and adenoids removed 57 years ago, and I can still remember the pain. I can also remember the smell of ether, which was the anesthetic used.
I had mine out when I was around that age- can’t remember if it was 6 or 7. I remember throwing up a couple times and having the worst sore throat of my life. Hurt to swallow, and even given the opportunity to have ice cream for breakfast(!!) I turned it down. Still, I was back in school a week later and I don’t recall having much pain after that. It wasn’t a traumatizing experience for me at all. I’m glad I wasn’t living in Russia in the 70s.
Had my tonsils and adenoids out at 13. I spat up blood into a dish for a week. Hated every minute of it. I was looking forward to eating ice cream but even that was not pleasant.
But hey, I lived. Pain gets forgotten.
Oh yeah, they always promised ice cream, but even that hurt.
And I assume it’s done on an outpatient basis now, right? Back in the 50s, I had to stay overnight.
My son had his ear tubes put in and adenoids and tonsils out at the same time when he turned 7. Coming out of the anasthetic was unpleasant as he threw up the blood that had trickled down his throat during the procedure. He had a half a freezie at the hospital. We went home that day and he was not particularly bouncy… I don’t think he ate or drank anything for 3 days after the procedure (from Thursday supper to Monday supper). It was a fight just to get some water in him. He lost a bunch of weight. We couldn’t convince him that his throat will feel better if he is hydrated rather than the dry sticky throat. He bounced back after about day 5. During this whole time, he was still his smiley self but a whole lot quieter.
I’ll ask him what he remembers about it, 2 years ago now.
Take pictures before, during and after. You might be surprised at the difference!
As you have seen, pain levels vary from person to person. A good idea to keep them on pain medication every 4 hours (waking them up to give it so the pain level doesn’t get too bad) until the 2nd morning after surgery, then adjust the dose as needed. You have to tell them before hand that it will hurt, and they will have medicine for the pain, and that they HAVE TO DRINK LIQUIDS EVEN THOUGH IT HURTS. My son’s doctor called it “Tough Love”: wake them up and make them drink liquids, whatever will go down.
My son was 9 when he had his out. (he stopped growing because of his chronically infected tonsils-we figured it out when he was starting school and the school clothes we were buying were the same size he had worn the previous year) A week after the surgery, he said “Mom, I did not know I could feel so good” and he was trying to sneak out of the house to play roller hockey with his friends.
I was about 7. Pain mild, if I remember. Ice cream, yes. Flan? Eres tu de Espana?
My strongest memory is my father telling me the following when I was scared out of my mind before surgery:
What did one tonsil say to the other?
Get dressed, we’re going out tonight.
Update: She was a trooper yesterday and did well. She is in a lot of pain today. The meds last for about 1/2 hour and we can only give them to her every 4 hours.
If ever there was a reason for violence against one’s father, that joke would be near the top of the list 