u/DiligentPriority5477

Hey, I’m 30 days post tonsillectomy and my tonsil pillars are still clearly red, irritated, and look more prominent than before surgery. My throat feels dry and scratchy most of the time and I think it might be related to that.

Did anyone else have still red, irritated and more prominent tonsil pillars at 4–5 weeks post-op? If so, did it also cause a dry/scratchy feeling, and when did it start calming down?

I’m currently about 3.5 weeks post-tonsillectomy and I’m wondering if this still sounds within the normal healing range.

I still have a pretty scratchy/dry throat feeling, especially when talking. It almost feels like speaking dries my throat out more and makes the irritation more noticeable. I also have some redness in the back of my throat, kind of foamy/thick saliva, and my tonsil pillars/arches still look pretty red too.

The severe pain phase has been gone for 10 days now and I can eat/drink normally, but my throat still feels “off” and irritated instead of normal.

What’s making me anxious is that I actually had this scratchy throat feeling for about 11 months before surgery too, and my ENT thought chronic tonsillitis could’ve been causing it. During those 11 months I also had fatigue and often felt kind of unwell or ”cold sweaty” after physical activity/exertion, and I still notice some of that now too.

So now I’m worried whether this is still just recovery healing irritation from the tonsillectomy, or if maybe the surgery didn’t fix whatever was causing it.

Did anyone else still have symptoms like this around week 3–4? And if you had chronic throat irritation before surgery, did it take longer to improve afterward?

I had a tonsillectomy 22 days ago due to chronic tonsillitis, and 16 days ago I needed a small recauterization (done without anesthesia). Recovery has felt a bit unusual since then.

Around 2.5 weeks after surgery, things actually started to improve for a few days. But when I started moving more again (even just light activity like 40-minute walks), I began getting these next-day “crash” symptoms again.

The main issue is that after activity I feel noticeably worse the next day: scratchy throat again, fatigue, and a general unwell feeling. I also have pretty unrefreshing sleep.

During walks I sometimes get strange cold sensations in my legs (almost circulation-like), muscle twitching, and my hands and feet get cold easily. I also often feel “off,” like my body isn’t properly warming up from the inside.

One important thing is that I had very similar symptoms for about 11 months before the tonsillectomy as well, with no real improvement. All my blood tests, including iron, have been normal.

Because of this, I’m starting to worry that my chronic tonsillitis may not have been the cause of these symptoms, and that something like CFS might have been present all along.

Has anyone experienced similar symptoms 3–4 weeks after tonsillectomy or recauterization? Could this still be part of normal recovery, or does this pattern suggest something that was already going on before surgery?