Tonsillectomy

I'm gonna have mine removed by the end of the week and i'm a little scared

Mine came out shortly after I turned 6, I still remember the date, January 29, 1959. Remember very little other than they used ether to put me out back then. Spent one night in the hospital. Don't know how long before I got soft or solid food. However I do know that was when I got to know crushed ice. And I've been chomping ice cubes ever since.

Had mine out in 2006, along with my adenoids. Depending on the situation the surgeon may do a T&A.

Surgery was at an same-day surgery place, was in at 7am, and out by noon.

Gave me the good drugs, and I was out quickly. Woke up in recovery, didn't need more pain meds.

I think the week following was the worst, pain and just not wanting to eat, but needing to eat because of the meds.

It's a pretty routine procedure.

I had mine out in the 60's. Not because it was routine in those days although it was but because I had chronic tonsillitis with very high temps. I know they had to postpone surgery several times because I was too sick to take them out. I remember the ether making me sick and vomiting as they were trying to put me to sleep. When I woke up I remember having a sore throat and hoarse voice. I ended up staying in the hospital for a couple days because I woke up during the night coughing up blood, that was very scary because they had sent my parents home earlier.

When I got home I was told I could have all the sherbet and Popsicles that I wanted, too bad my throat hurt too bad to enjoy them.

None of my sons have had their tonsils out even though my youngest has had frequent strep throat, some strains drug resistant . When I took him to the ENT with a particularly difficult strain to treat he said that because my son has NOT received most of the routine immunizations people receive that he would not take them out. My son is violently allergic to one of the components in most vaccinations. The ENT said that his tonsils were a vital component of his immune system and in his case unless there was no choice he should keep them.

Good luck to all who are having this done as adults. I wish you a speedy uneventful recovery.

@Rolereversal - I know what you mean about the allergy - my nine-year-old has an egg allergy, which precludes him getting most immunizations (except varicella, which he got despite the imminization!).

@Rolereversal, I grew up in the 50's and early 60's. My family doctor told my parents a similar story to what your ENT said. I never had a T&A and never plan to.

My T and A was at 14 and I hated it. I did see carcinoma of the tonsil once as a student and the patient waited so long it was inoperable. He got a trach and died.

I have gotten mine out now and i'm still in a lot pain and i was so nervous before the surgery but my sweet heart doctor came and told about when he got it done and it actually made me calm.

I was 5 having my tonsils out. I was given a gown and told to take off everything but my socks and underwear, put on the gown open in the back. I got changed and in bed. I was one of the later operations that morning and some kids were already being sent to the OR. I could see the nurses walking by with needles and pulling curtains and hearing the other kids cry when they got their needles.

Shortly after the nurse pulled the curtain around my bed. I instantly became struck with fear thinking i was going to get another one of those horribly painful needles. I was on the verge of tears and told the nurse, "NO NEEDLES!" She was holding a thermometer that had the bulb covered in vaseline, and she told me she was just going to take my temperature and to turn over. I turned over and was lying on my belly with my white underwear sticking through the back of my hospital gown when the nurse pulled down my underwear and put in the thermometer. I told the nurse I didn't want the needle they gave me to make me "woozy" prior to my operation, she simply said "ok" and when she was done she pulled up my underwear, opened the curtain and walked away.

Thinking I had gotten away with something, I relaxed in the hospital bed secure in the thought that I would be saved from the needle. When it came time to go to the OR, a different nurse came with the gurney but didn't pull the curtain back first (to give me the pre-op needle) so I thought I pulled it off. I didn't pay much attention there was a different nurse standing by the gurney as she instructed me to "climb on up" at which time i climbed onto the gurney and as I was climbing up, the nurse pressed me down to the gurney while my regular nurse came up from behind, pulled down my underwear and gave me the needle! I remember being shocked, scared, angry, embarrassed and crying as this unfolded in full view of everyone in the ward.

Once on the Gurney I was wheeled into the OR. I was lifted on the table and I remember feeling groggy as the sedation took effect when the nurse asked me my name. I remember how scary it was in there, the OR table looked like an ironing board and everyone had green scrubs and masks. I was covered with green sheets and a mask that looked like a strainer covered in cotton was put on my face. Another nurse covered my eyes with a towel and I was told to count to 25, taking a deep breath between numbers.

As soon as i started counting I could smell the ether as it was being dripped on the mask. by the time I got to 13 the ether had been burning my nose and throat I started crying as she kept urging to keep counting, she counted with me all the way to 25 then I felt like I was falling in a spin as the ether knocked me out. I remember waking up in the recovery room nauseous and with a very sore throat. The nurse on duty there noticed my stirring and put down the book she was reading and came to my gurney. She asked if i was ok and i just nodded because my throat hurt so much.

She walked to her station and picked up a thermometer and shook it down, dipping it into a jar of vaseline and coming back in my direction. and ordering me to roll over. Again I started crying pleading with her "please no more". She gently tugged at my waist and said she needed to take my temperature to make sure I didnt have an infection before they sent me home and that there would be no more needles.

I did roll over and felt her fingers under my waistband as she pulled my underwear down and put in the thermometer. After the 3 minutes she took out the thermometer and pulled up my underwear, saying she would have me sent back to the ward so i could get dressed and go home. The fear was so bad I was scared of nurses and even to this day I still get butterflies when i see one.

Nice story mr nobody

I had adenotonsillectomy last year and it was a very good decision. I was diagnosed with Epstein Barr a few years ago and I started getting sick very often after that. Every 5-6 weeks I would have sore throat, then every 3-4 weeks, every couple of weeks, then a 2 months in a row not getting better at all. After trying several antibiotics, prednisone, finally my ENT and I made the call to get rid of tonsils. I don't know if I've ever been happier to have a surgery. I was sick and tired of being sick and tired.

I was scheduled in the morning, and around 10am I was waking up in the recovery. It felt a little weird, but not so much pain. After I was discharged a few hours later, I went with my husband to Einsteins Bagels and I had a whole bagel. I was probably still numb...I kept drinking water and taking Roxicet and antibiotics as prescribed, slept on and off all day long. One of the worst parts about recovery was the taste of Roxicet? I get nausea even now, just by remembering. Thanks God again for Zofran!!! My ENT prescribed it to me along with pain mends and antibiotics because I have a bad reputation of vomiting after a surgery... and you don't want to do that after tonsillectomy.

I think first couple of days were OK form the pain perspective, then it started to hurt more and more. Sometimes I was able to talk, sometimes I could not even whisper (my hubby must have been very happy, finally silence?) Pain felt as if someone would stick a knife in my throat and push it out through the ear. I could not eat anymore because of pain and nausea, but I drank a lot of water. I think by the end of 2 weeks I've lost 10 pounds...

Before being rolled to the OR I asked doc when can I have a steak. I have no idea what his answer was but 10 days after the surgery I was having a rib eye steak that took me 2 hours to finish?

Anyone contemplating this surgery...it hurts like hell days after and DRINK A LOT OF WATER to keep throat moist. It hurts the most when you wake up after a long sleep and haven't had any fluids!

As a child in the 70s- I had general anesthesia and stayed overnight in the hospital. Had lots of ice cream at home :-)

I had mine out in 1972, I was four years old. I remember I had to go to the hospital the day before surgery and had to be there a day after the surgery. I remember having fun playing with the other kids on the floor and having wheel chair races. Since I was one of the younger kids, I was pushed in the chair. I remember not getting to eat any breakfast the next morning and being soooo hungry! I remember the breakfast that they served was the cereal in the little boxes, the kinds that my mom wouldn't buy me.

I remember going to a drinking fountain by the nurses station and trying to reach it to get a drink. Some lady saw me trying to reach it and came and picked me up. No one explained to me that I wasn't supposed to eat or drink anything. I didn't know. The lady clearly wasn't someone that worked there in the hospital, so to me, she was an angel, helping to make the growling in my stomach stop.

My mom came later, before the surgery and was reading to me. I remember them coming to get me and I remembered fighting and being tied down. I remember the nasty smelling ether they used on me and trying not to breathe it in. I remember them telling me to count to 10 and I didn't know how. I remember waking up on my belly and throwing up and crying.

A nice nurse was there and I think she soothed me and settled me down. I remember I had an i.v. in my arm and there was a board over it and my arm hurt if I accidentally bent it.. I can remember not being able to talk above a whisper. I don't remember it hurting and unfortunately, I don't remember getting to eat ice cream or Popsicle afterwards which should have been the best part of it all!

I had my tosils out in 1970.....in that time in Germany the nurses still had white rubberaprons

but not so much as in 1960 with my circumsation.....many nurses had white rubberaprons over her uniform nearly all day long...

I had my mine out in 1969 when I was 6. It wasn't due to persistent infections but doctor thought my adenoids and tonsils were causing my hearing loss. Had procedure in doctor's office. I had a bad reaction to the anesthesia and was vomiting and hemorrhaging quite badly. Spent one week in hospital where rectal temps given every 4 hours. I then had a major reaction to the antibiotics.

The doctors and most nurses chastised my mother for babying me-Turned out one nurse was on my side and recommended new antibiotic I found out later that almost all the doctors and nurses thought I was faking. I was out of school for 2 weeks. The result-my hearing did not improve with the operation-but the trauma and terror persisted for many years as a result.

The original question was what is it like? I'd say the answer is that these days it's tolerable, and isn't performed unless necessary (e.g., if the tonsils are so enlarged that they block the airway). Also, reportedly the pain isn't too bad if you're still a kid - it's reportedly worse for adults. But I had my tonsils and adenoids out in the days of ether, and that was horrible. (I've posted about it more than once on Zity.) Now here's a story about my good friend Ingrid, who is my age (advanced!). It has its amusing aspects.

Last night I got Ingrid to talk about her tonsillectomy. As a girl growing up in an Australian country town, she once had to take her younger brother to a nearby town, about an hour's drive away, to have HIS tonsils out. At the same time, she would get hers taken out too, even though she was quite healthy! They could do that (and did!) in those days! Ingrid was about 15 at the time. Some background: I gather that their mother, who couldn't speak much English, was separated from their father and often left it to Ingrid to be like another parent to her brother.

So Ingrid and her brother hopped on the bus (like going shopping, we joked). In hospital, the doctors did Ingrid's tonsillectomy first, then her brother's. Ingrid still doesn't know whether they also took her adenoids out - she sounded surprised when I asked her. I told her that it was probable that she'd had the full T&A procedure. (All the kids where I lived, including me, had.) She knew that she had been put to sleep with ether. But, unlike me, she doesn't remember much about it. Lucky Ingrid!

Even so, how bizarre (it seems to me) that they operated on her just 'on spec', as it were! Tonsillectomies carry risks.

We also joked last night about how Ingrid's younger sister stayed at home with their Mum, and otherwise would probably have had her tonsils out too! (Apparently Rosemary still has her tonsils to this day.) That idea is not altogether unique. Anyone know the original version of the film CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN?! Also, I once read of how a doctor was friends with a certain family who had three kids, all boys, I think. When one of them needed his tonsils out, the doctor offered the father cut rates (no pun!) to do all the boys together, The father accepted! And today someone on Zity has told me a story to even top that. The young son of a doctor attended a certain school - I'm not sure where - and his father offered tonsillectomies to the whole class! Again the offer was accepted. The good old days!

Oh, and the other thing Ingrid told me last night was that when she and her brother came back from hospital a few days later, they again took the bus. 'It had to be done, so we just went and did it.'

- Ken

P.S. I've started another Album that may appeal to some of you. It's called 'Mouths and related stuff - 2'.

I had my tonsillectomy at around seven. Back then the anesthetic used was ether. I remember being taken crying to the OR and then being told to sit on a stool to await the suregeon who caught in traffic. After a while I was told to get on the operating table and had the awful black mask pressed over my face and when the ether hit all I saw were spinning stars. They kept you in the hospital over night and when you got home you ate ice cream for a few days. The smell of the ether though left me scared of ever having to endure it again. Fortunately today’s anesthetic are nothing like it and today, I assume, a child would be sedated before ever being taken into the OR let alone left to wait for the doctor in the OR.

I still have mine, but my nephew had his taken out about five years ago to help with an ear problem. I don't believe he even stayed in the hospital.

I have had my tonsilectomy at the age of 15 in a hospital in Germany after World War II: No stay in the hospital, exclusively a local anesthesy, an uncertain young assistant doctor scrapping in my throat getting mad by the specialist, afterwards I had to lay for about two hours in the bed of another patient, a doctor's look in my throat and after the dismissal I had to go from the hospital to the point of departure of the overcrowded bus and stand there upright for one hour in order to come home.

I had mine out in 69 at age 6. I went in the day before and home the day after. I was in a ward with 2 others, one a girl about my age or a year or so older and the other, a male I think in his teens. He was in a coma and his mother was there all the time.

I seem to remember the other girl getting what I now know were suppositories a lot, but I only remember getting a couple - one was just before they took me to surgery. I don't remember how they put me out, but I don't think I was completely out. I remember hearing voices all through it and my mouth was open but my eyes were shut. I've never told anyone about that. At the time and for years after, I had no idea why I was remembering that, now I think the anesthesia didn't work on me.

I don't remember much pain, maybe a bit of a sore throat. I got to eat ice cream which was an occasional treat back then so it was great to get to eat more of it! Reading the stories of people who had their tonsils out as an adult, I'm glad mine were done when I was a child!

Some dramatic accounts of childhood tonsillectomies here recently! Speaking for myself, I appreciated them all!

For perspective, there's a disturbing video on the Web of a child in Belarus having his tonsils whipped out without anaesthetic.

- Ken

A few posts ago in this thread, I wrote:

> And today someone on Zity has told me a story [...]. The young son of a doctor attended a certain school - I'm not sure where - and his father offered tonsillectomies to the whole class! [T]he offer was accepted. The good old days!

They weren't that long ago. It was about 2010, somewhere in the USA. The story is even more bizarre than I thought. In the person's own words: 'I had a tonsillectomy done with all my classmates because everyone had tonsillitis multiple times a year so a couple of parents who were ENT surgeons decided to take everyone's tonsils out ...' The school even hired a bus to transport the class of students, aged 10-12, to hospital!

Well, that's what I was told. (I imagine that the Zity person who sent it to me was responding to my story about my friend Ingrid who had once taken her younger brother to hospital in a nearby country town where they both had their tonsils out. Coming and going, they travelled by the local bus line - a bit like going shopping!)

- Ken

Yes, had tonsillectomy done at a very young age.

Anything you remember about your tonsillectomy, physical68? How old were you, would you say? How did it go? Were you treated agreeably by nurses, doctors, your anaesthetist? (Some could be remote or seem indifferent to kids' feelings, especially back then!)

- Ken

I had my tonsils out when I was 6. That was 1958. I remember going to the hospital the evening before the surgery. I put on pajamas and got into bed. There were half a dozen other kids in the ward. The nurse came in and gave me an enema and then I went to sleep. They woke me up very early the next morning. They had me take off my pajamas and put on a gown. They put me on a gurney and took me to the operating room. They put an IV in my arm which really hurt. I fell asleep and the next thing I knew I was in a recovery room with a sore throat.

Yes at about the age of 10. I don't remember a whole lot other that I was able to eat popsicles. It was a much more common operation then and think I was in the hospital about two days. My brother who is younger also had his out but didn't need it. Probably a family discount.

I still have my tonsils. but when I was a youngster, many of my friends had their tonsils removed before they were ten. In those days ether was the usual anesthetic. And sometime before the operation they were all given an enema. But then, most of them already knew what an enema was all about. But for those few who did not that was another traumatic experience.

Herr doktor

As several posters to this thread have noted, tonsillectomy for kids isn't 'the done thing' that it used to be. And now there's further evidence that T&A is something to be avoided unless for a good reason. It may make the recipient susceptible to adult respiratory infections. (I can probably vouch for that. I've always been a bit of a wheezer. Anybody else here?)

Here's a link to a report on a recent international study: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-06-08/tonsil-surgery-might-put-kids-at-greater-risk-of-chest-bugs/9846394

- Ken

As I posted 6 six years ago, I was born in the early 60's and never had mine out even though many of my classmates did. My doctor was not too quick to have them removed.

Now my 80 year old mother had both her tonsils and adenoids out as a child. She has suffered from upper respiratory infections for ages. This article definitely makes sense in that regard.

My wife got both of her tonsils out as an adult, 28. Just with local anesthetic and one nurse as assistant.

Thanks both Uerate and Aardvark for interesting recent posts here.

Your wife was brave, Uerate! But pity kids in Belarus, a very poor country, where doctors apparently just whip the kids' tonsils out without anaesthetic! There's a YouTube video of one such operation.

- Ken