Pre-School and Daycare
adenoidectomy and tonsillectomy
My son is having his adenoids and tonsils out this friday, and tubes put in his ears. He has already had tubes in his ears once before, and the procedure was quick and painless. He is 3 years old. Does anyone have any experience with this surgery.. what will the recovery be like? I have heard that it can take up to 2 weeks! Thanks so much.
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Re: adenoidectomy and tonsillectomy
Found this for you (don't worry about not having found it -- search feature is crap and it was easy to find in my old posts):
https://community.thenest.com/cs/ks/forums/thread/63147369.aspx
It links also to another post about it and I think you'll get all the info you need there. It's not fun but you'll be glad you did so in the long run.
DD -- 5YO
DS -- 3YO
My son had his tonsils and adnoids removed last September when he was 3y8m. I was expecting for the surgery and recovery to be much worse than what it was. I am sure this is different for every child but this is what we expereinced. He had the surgery on a Monday morning and it only took about 30 minutes for the whole procedure. The worst part for me was when they took him off to the OR and the waiting. They did give him giggle juice so he wouldn't get upset when they took him. Once out of recovery he was very upset and coughing alot, which is normal. We had ours done at the Hospital so they put us in a room until they discharged us later that afternoon. Right away he ate 2 purple popsicles with a spoon that were crushed up in a cup. They didn't give him red b/c they wouldn't be able to tell if it was blood or the popsicle. They gave him pain meds and antibiotics while there..he did not like the pain meds at all. For lunch they brought him chicken broth, jello, applesauce, juice and more popsicles. he ate every bit of it. Later that afternoon I put his pj's back on him and he was literally running around the room. The nurses were shocked at how well he was doing. For the first few nights one of us slept with him and had his humidifier on full blast. He would wake every couple of hours the first night wanting water, which was great that he could swallow. It was hard for us to keep his pain meds in him b/c he hated the taste. We tried to hide it in applesauce, crushed up popsicles, juice, anything that we could think of. After the 3rd day of trying everything we stopped giving the pain meds to him and just kept him on tylenol and motrin every 3 hrs. We gave him the chewable tabs that were easier on his throat. I would give those to him when he woke in the middle of the night too. He did excellant on just taking those. I'm not sure if his tolerance for pain is high or if that did the trick but he didn't take any more pain meds after then. He didn't have that much of an appetite until about the 4th day. By the 5th day he was eating a cheeseburger from McDonald's. The foods he ate most of were ramen noodles (with just a little butter, no seasoning), instant mashed potatoes, popsicles of course, jello, rice with a little butter, blueberry muffins and just soft bland foods. He drank mostly watered down gatoraide.We didn't let him drink any milk or have dairy products until after the 1st week b/c that causes mucus buildup in the throat. We kept him out of daycare for 2 weeks b/c I wanted to keep him as inactive as i could during that time. He did have really bad breath after about the 1st week, but that is just from the scabbing. His scabs started falling off gradually at about 2 weeks but he never complained about it (I've heard that that can be painful b/c your throat gets raw again) But I would just make sure he stays hydrated, have lots of tylenol / motrin handy, lots of movies or books to keep him from wanting to play to hard. Also, he is sleeping much better, hasn't gotten sick other that a cold since then. And he was a child that woke up at least 2 - 3 times a night. Now he is sleeping all night without any interuptions.
Sorry for the book I wrote, I just wish I would have known someone that went through this when we did. HTH.
I'm a lurker, but wanted to give you my experience with my DD. She has this surgery in the beginning of November and had a rough few weeks after. She was discharged a few hours after the surgery and ended up being readmitted to the hospital the following day due to swelling in her throat and her not eating or drinking anything (even drooling because she wouldn't swallow her saliva.) She stayed in the hospital for 24 hours with i.v. steroids, fluids, antibiotics. The steroids made a HUGE difference and really helped with her recovery.
I am not telling you this story to scare you, but to let you know that according to the nurses in Children's Hospital, it is quite common to have children readmitted for follow up care after this procedure. As terrible as it was at the time, I don't regret DD having the surgery at all. She has not been sick once since the procedure (which is a huge deal for a child that was on antibiotics at least once a month for 8 months straight).
This. We had all this done last August and it was seriously almost 2 weeks recovery exactly. It was rough, but now I am SO glad we had it done.