Any one had there tonsils out as an adult? I am having it done the 30th and am quite nervous any tips for afterwords
My son did it at age 32. Went fine. He took the pain killers for a couple of days, stuck to liquids and soft food for a week. That was about it.
Had mine out at age 21. Also over Winter break. Like Tripolar son, took pain killers for a few days, drank liquids, ate soft foods for a week. So glad to get rid of the “tonsil stones” - nasty, nasty buggers.
The one story I’ve heard that wasn’t a nightmare for at least the first several days was a young woman for whom the operation was less painful than the condition it was relieving, which is really the only reason for doing it in the first place.
Avoid ice cream and other dairy products, because they can thicken your saliva, unless you really can’t eat anything else.
This has been widely debunked repeatedly by science.
I had it done a few years ago, so early forties. As said, good painkillers go a long way and after a few days the scratchiness goes away.
I had it done at age 34.
Very painful, I’m not going to lie.
I would do it again in a minute.
I used to get very bad colds several times a year that lingered for over a week. I have not had a really bad cold since, and it’s been 20 years. I have had a few cases of the sniffles with a cough that lasted for a couple of days, one weird case of laryngitis with no fever, and I had something last February that might or might not have been COVID.
I am so glad not to get those colds anymore. They were miserable, and I couldn’t function well for several days. My ears would stop up, and the pressure in my head was awful.
I had my adenoids out at the same time. Check and see if this will be done for you as well.
For the first two days, all I could eat were Popsicles and Ensure over ice, so it was really, really cold. Starting the third day, I could eat baby food fruits and vegetables, and Snack Pak pudding.
Here are a few things to make sure you have: a white board, pens and an eraser; some of the foods I listed above; LIQUID painkiller. My doctor sent me home with pills (!!?) I had to crush them. If you get pills anyway, have a pill crusher.
Be prepared for the fact that the pills take the edge off, but don’t kill the pain entirely. Be prepared for the fact that because your tongue is very swollen at the base, you can’t move it properly to clear food around your teeth and cheeks when you chew, so it’s just as well that all you can have for a couple of days are liquids and very soft things.
It’s not going to be fun, but you will get through it, and life will be such a relief afterwards.
Mr VOW had his removed when he was about 35. He was miserable, and let the whole world know.
Several years afterward, The Daughter needed her tonsils removed. He was so sympathetic, he practically carried her around on a pillow following her surgery.
~VOW
You don’t want the pain to be completely relieved, especially for something like this. If the clot is disturbed, the results can be disastrous.
Since the thread is already here, can I sort of semi-hijack to ask how many people got adenoids out along with tonsils?
My original complaint was that my ears stopped up a lot. They stopped up any time I go an upper respiratory infection, viral or bacterial, and remained stopped up for several days. They also stopped up any time I rode up or down more than 3 floors on an elevator, or drove around a very hilly, or mountainous area. If I flew (on a plane) my ears stopped up on take-off, and usually stayed that way the whole flight, often for a few hours afterward, and led to a bad headache.
Sometimes they would stop up at a random time for no apparent reason. I’m sure there were people who thought I had a weird tic, because I was always opening my mouth or plugging my nose to pop my ears.
The ENT I saw said I needed my adenoids out, and my Eustachian tubes inflated. I don’t know exactly what he did, but it totally worked. Ears don’t stop up anymore.
The ENT also said that my tonsils didn’t look great. One was somewhat enlarged, and the other was undersized, so it probably was non-functional. He said that as long as I was going under anesthesia, and the discomfort of recovery, it wouldn’t add much to take my tonsils out as well, and there was a good chance I’d need them out anyway in the next ten years or so.
So I had both done.
Who else had both?
I had mine out when I was 50. It hurt but it wasn’t unbearable. I was given liquid codeine for pain and took it for about 10 days.
I was diagnosed with mono about 3 weeks after I had my tonsils out. I’ve since spoken to a couple of people who had the same experience. I don’t know if it’s a ‘thing’, but, apparently, it does happen. I was unable to get an appointment with my ENT (long story there) so went to my GP and found I had mono. So if you continue to feel crappy rather than recovering, keep that in mind.
Good luck!
However unpleasant adult tonsil removal may be, patients are unlikely to duplicate the experience of Ty Cobb. According to Cobb’s biographer Charles Alexander:
“Without anesthetic, proper surgical equipment or much of anything else, the (hotel doctor) went ahead anyway, cheerfully cutting away at Cobb’s grossly swollen tonsils. Periodically, when the hemorrhaging in his throat threatened to suffocate him, Cobb would ask to be let up to rest awhile."
“The next morning, though, he was in the physician’s chair for more unanesthetized cutting and bleeding. A gory third session took place the morning after that, following which Cobb caught a train to Columbus, where he played seven innings and got a hit as the Tigers beat the American Assn. team."
“About a year later, he learned that the physician had been committed to an asylum for the insane.”
I had my adenoids out in second grade. Still have my tonsils.
I had frequent colds (I also had tubes in my ears)
I still get allergies and very low level runny nose, but nothing serious in recent memory.
(as of Dec 23, no COVID antibodies)
Brian