Happy story for those in need
Hello fellow tonsil-less or almost tonsil-less people
I 28F wanted to share my success story to those about to get a tonsillectomy that not everyone lives in a horror movie for a month. I was so scared pre-surgery and something like this would have comforted me a lot, so I hope to help someone else <3
Long post incoming thanks for reading my rambling thoughts:
All of this started with mono in 2015. Ever since then I've dealt with chronic tonsillitis that has greatly affected my quality of life. School, work, and social life all took major hits constantly because I was always sick. Always sick. And it was always because of my tonsils, and they weren’t even classified as too large.
It was like every fucking week I could feel my tonsils swell and I would think here we go again. shortly after the first food of my day everyday I would spike a fever because my tonsils were irritated by the food.
I put off the surgery for years because I was horrified of the recovery process. But now I'll be starting a master's program in the fall that basically has a 100% attendance expectation, so I knew that I absolutely had to do a tonsillectomy before the program, couldn't get around it.
Let me also preface this with I'm a big cry baby when it comes to pain so I was terrified going into the OR. Sobbing so much that the surgeon had to talk to me for 5 minutes to make sure that I really wanted to go through with this lol.
Morning of Fri June 26 the surgery itself was quick, when I woke up I was uncomfortable, but they gave me a quick tylenol drip and then I was on my way home. Felt fine enough to go for a stroll and sit at a patio cafe outside my house.
The first few days were uncomfortable but it was moreso annoying than anything. The thing that bothered me the most was actually my tongue. Nobody warned me about the tongue pain. I assume it's from surgical clamps etc but ouch. Overall pain was like a 3-4
Time passed by and I was dreading days 4-8.
But every morning when I woke up, before even opening my eyes, I would swallow to test out the pain. To my complete disbelief every morning was virtually painless. And somehow I’ve been sleeping 8-10 hrs each night no problem.
Yesterday (day 7) I would say was peak pain. But I really wasn't in tooo much pain other than a burning for 20 or so minutes after eating. Otherwise I went about my day fine.
I'm on day 8 now. Still looks gross but I feel great! I'm eating normally with some pain, but also haven't taken any pain meds in almost a whole day (yay).
I know I'm not out of the woods yet and I really hope I'm not jinxing myself lol but I am so shocked how easy this has been for me. Like so shocked that I keep laughing to myself. This has been much much easier than most of the tonsillitis infections I had.
I'm really excited to see what my life will be like without daily fevers, strong fatigue, pain and random illnesses. It almost brings a tear to my eye eating food this whole week and not having the immediate consequential fevers and malaise. SO worth it.
I hope this post will be helpful to anyone in the future!
Tips:
Stay as active as you can. Don't push it, you don't want to raise your heart rate too much, but while you heal keep walking if you can tolerate it. I also rested a ton too of course, but moving your body helps healing.
Drink so much water. I'm pushing like 5L or more a day just constantly filling my bottle. Peeing every 20 mins
Chew chew chew and eat as soon as you can tolerate it. I decided that I don't want to let my throat muscles take too much of a break because that can delay healing even more. Super mushy foods and yes it's uncomfortable but I do think this made a huge difference in my recovery time.
What you eat directly affects how you feel daily. What you eat matters so much in normal life and post op life. High protein, high fiber, lots of fruits and veggies to give your body what it needs to heal.
Still sleeping elevated every night, and probably for the next few nights and then I'll go back to normal sleeping.
Humidifier in the room on around the clock.
Ice packs!!!! Huge help with immediate pain relief right after eating last week