Most adults have had many more years of infection than children, and their tonsils are bigger, leaving behind a bigger empty space that the body has to heal. But the good news is that the satisfaction rate after adult tonsillectomy is very high. By the time you have been through enough to want them removed, and have met surgical criteria, you will be very happy when they are gone!
For both children and adults, we prefer Coblation Technology , an alternative to traditional tonsillectomy techniques. Coblation Technology combines radiofrequency energy and saline to create a plasma field which then dissolves tonsil tissue at a cooler temperature than technologies like electrocautery which is the traditional method. Because the Coblation Wand is exact it dissolves tonsil tissue molecule by molecule and we use cooler temperatures, damage to surrounding tissue is minimized.
When you wake up in recovery, your throat will be sore. Pain medicine is given during the procedure and you will get a prescription for pain medicine to take at home. Both the pain medicine and the anesthesia can make you a little nauseous, but medicine to prevent this is routinely given during a tonsillectomy. We may provide you with a prescription for anti-nausea medication oral or suppository to take home, especially if you are a woman, because the incidence of nausea after tonsillectomy is higher in young women.
If the pain medicine gives you side effects, you may want to take the nausea medicine before taking the pain medicine. It also helps to try to take a little soft food with your pills. Adults who have the surgery typically have had several sore throats over the past 1 to 3 years or have had a sore throat and swollen tonsils caused by infection for at least 3 months. The procedure takes about 30 to 45 minutes.
The surgeon will use a small knife called a scalpel to gently remove your tonsils. You may also have your adenoids taken out at the same time. This part of the surgery is called an adenoidectomy.
After surgery, your health care team will watch vital signs such as heart rate and breathing and check to make sure nothing goes wrong. A tonsillectomy is considered a safe procedure for adults.
However, all surgery comes with risks. A report found that 1 in 5 adults who had their tonsils taken out had some kind of problem afterward.
These included:. Kids tend to recover much faster after tonsil surgery than adults. I decided my throat was uncomfortable, for sure, but not agonisingly sore. Those doctors were such alarmists.
I was going to be fine. The next morning, Tom the surgeon appeared in my doorway, next to the sanguine giraffe that was almost certainly a hallucination. The giraffe stayed silent. He smiled at me sadly, like we smile at utter fools who think an adult tonsillectomy is no big deal. For the next few days, I had a raging sore throat, but really, it wasn't too bad. I could still nap, eat ice blocks, and sprawl in bed watching Netflix as my blessed mother tended to my kids.
But suddenly, on Day Four, I was in horrible pain. Peering into a mirror, I saw thick white scabs where my tonsils used to be. Even more alarmingly, my uvula — a tiny organ I'd barely ever noticed — had swollen to the size of a small rockmelon. I fell back on the bed, counting the minutes until medication time.
Even sipping water was agony. My neck felt engulfed by a ring of fire. A sour taste raged in the back of my throat. I spat into a tissue to avoid the fiery hell of swallowing, and wiped tears from my eyes with the same tissue.
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