DD having tonsils and adenoids removed and tubes put in her ears

[momtolgd]

DD is having her tonsils and adenoids removed and tubes put in her ears in about a month. Anyone have any experience with this? What should we expect afterwards during the recovery?

 

A month is so long to be nervous about things like this.

Edited March 30, 2010 by momtolgd

[4kiddies]

My son had his tonsils and adnoids out just after Thanksgiving. I WAS NOT expecting the recovery length of time. It took a good 10 days at least for him to even get off the couch. He would cry about how much it hurt and ask us why we made him get surgery. It was tough but worth it. Prior to the surgery he had recurrent sinus infections and was on antibiotics every 5-6 weeks for almost two years. Since then he has been fine.

 

 

PM me if you have any specific questions.

[Emilylou]

I will post again in a week or so. My best friends daughter is having this done tomorrow. :(

[clarkacademy]

My daughter had this done when she was about 6 or so she was great to go the next day. Naturally she couldn't talk much but she was her bouncy happy self eating soft foods no biggie. I had it done at 11 and again other than the not talking I was good to go in a day or so. I have never seen a kid have a bad time with it and all my neices and my daughter all had it done.

[Dobela]

My son had this done when he was almost 5. Within 3 hours after the surgery he was at ToysR Us as if nothing happened. He ran fever off and on for the next couple of days. It is really important to follow dr orders though. My ds came out of surgery fighting (effects of the anesthesia) and until it wore off he was far from his usual easy going self. His first attempts at fluids after surgery made him vomit multiple times which led to bleeding and awful looking (scary looking) vomit. (My dh was holding him in recovery when this happened and we wished tht we had brought a change of clothing for him as well). Once he was done with that, we just had to watch what he ate for a couple of days. He was also on restricted activity levels for about 2 weeks to make certain he was healing. That was honestly the most difficult for us. No gymnastics, no swimming, no bikes... He was raring and ready to go.

 

My son's adnoids had been so big that they were blocking the back of his nasal passage. It caused some difficulty in surgery so his took over an hour where most kids in the facility took well under an hour. The biggest change however that I wasn't prepared for was a big change in his voice. He was hoarse at first and then his overall voice was different, not so deep.

 

The next big changes were that he simply felt better than he had in a very long time. His energy levels increased, he was sleeping at night without apnea, his attention span increased... Then he had a huge growth spurt - he went up 3 shoe sizes and grew 5 inches in the next 6 months.

 

Honestly, as nerve wracking as it was for me I ended up wishing that I had agreed to it sooner because he was just so much healthier. He has only had antibiotics once in the nearly 5 years since and prior to the surgery he had at least 4-5 rounds a year.

[k2bdeutmeyer]

DD had her first set of tubes put in at 9 months old. Her 2nd set (she was allergic to the first) and her adenoids removed at 19 months old. We're leaving in about 5 minutes to schedule her 3rd set, she's 3yr now. We've never done the tonsil part, which I would imagine is the hardest recovery, so take my answer with a grain of salt, but both times she bounced back by late afternoon (we had them done early in the morning). By the next day, you'd never even know anything happened.

[hsbaby]

Same experience for my ds as for many previous posters....totally fine the next day. We had to force him to take it easy for the next day or so:)

[jenn-]

DD was good after the first couple of days. About day 4 is one of the more painful parts of recovery (something about the scabs forming or falling off). I can't remember when she was able to eat solids again, but she was crawling out of her skin before the 2 wks of restricted activities were up.

[momtolgd]

Wow...thank you all for the encouraging thoughts...the ENT said to expect 10-14 days of recovery time. It sounds like for many it isn't that bad. I hope that our experience is similar.

[Leanna Tomlinson]

Adenoids and tubes....no big deal. I've had 3 dc get tubes and 1 get adenoids removed, and they were good to go in a few hours.

 

Tonsils?....dd (age 4 at the time) needed the full 10 day recovery. She was hoarse, her throat was sore, and she barely ate for 4 days. I would plan on a longer recovery and be thankful if it's shorter.

 

One thing that was extremely helpful was having a humidifier in her room. That made a huge difference in her comfort level.

 

HTH,

Leanna

[mcconnellboys]

We never had any problems with tubes (had two or three sets - its so long ago, I forget now, LOL). Tonsils can still be problematic, from all I've heard. The scabs still tend to fall off after about 5 days and the throat feels raw and sore again just like right after the surgery. Ages ago, when my oldest had to finally have his out, they gave a pain medication in liquid form. We made vanilla shakes with chocolate sauce AND cherries/cherry juice added. It was the only thing that covered up the bad taste of the med. That was a tip from our doc.

 

On the night his scabs fell off, we were up most of the night with him watching an old WWII movie (Flying Nickels, I think), while he drank his shake...... Other than that, no problems.

 

You just have to watch carefully when you bring them home to make sure they're not still bleeding (getting weak, wanting to just sleep when they should be over anesthesia, being cold, etc. might be signs) and then watch when the scabs come off (and you'll know when that happens)..... There's no problem with most tonsil surgeries.

 

No potato chips, LOL! My mom caught me eating them right after my own surgery and I caught my son trying that, too.....

[TengoFive]

We had to keep my kids seriously doped up for about 4 days. After that we tapered off to just ibuprofen. I had to force them to eat ice cream. Anything else was torture, and they weren't keen on eating anything at all. Ice cream was our compromise. We had 3 done at once. They were 11, 9, and 7 at the time. The 7 year old had the easiest time of it, but even she took a few days to get back to normal. We kept a humidifier in their room at all times and let them watch as many videos as they desired (big treat for us!)

The one thing I really wasn't prepared for was the stench. I had to go out and buy an automatic air freshener for the room they were all staying in. It was gross!

Anyway, I don't want to freak you out, but I do want you to be prepared for the other end of things too. Oops, forgot to say this was for tonsils and adenoids. When my oldest was about 9 months old she had tubes put in with no problems at all.

[Jamee]

My ds had this surgery just before he turned 4. I was SHOCKED at how well he came out of it. He hated being in the hospital and having the IV--he pulled that out himself. He had two does of the tylanol with codine and that was it. He was more mad at not being able to eat than anything else and was upset that all he could have was ice cream.:001_huh: When asked, he said it never hurt at all and his tonsils were huge according to the ENT. But what a difference the surgery made. He was a snorer and was so loud it was crazy. He even snored when he was just sitting relaxed. After surgery, he immediately stopped the snoring! Amazing. Wishing you all the best. I'm sure it'll go well. Might be a little rougher with her being older, but I'm sure there'll be nothing to worry about. The nurses had popsicles for him when he came out of anestisia and that helped a bit.

[Blueridge]

Years ago, our oldest was suffering from repeated bouts of tonsillitis. The doc's recommendation was the same procedure that is being discussed here. We sought a second opinion from a naturopath, and he suggested that her condition might be due to a milk allergy. So, we removed all dairy products from her diet. After a month or two, she experienced no more sore throats or swollen tonsils. We did not have the surgery. Just wanted to share the different path that we took, in case you would like to speak to your doctor about alternatives. Healthy tonsils are really a nice thing to have. :)

[hophr5]

Tubes, no sweat, very easy recovery. Tonsils is a bit more, just don't expect too much the first few days. Push fluids and stock up on ice cream, puddings, soft easy things that will be easy to eat and comforting to the throat. My kids ENT had her be continually on the pain meds for the first 2 days as to control the pain.