Someone commented on my older tonsillectomy entry and it reminded me I should write a brief update on how everything turned out.
The picture taken a few days after my surgery still had a small portion of my uvula attached. After healing, I have no uvula left at all. I guess it was just swollen.
I don’t snore anymore, but I also can’t oink like a pig. I’ve had some issues with drinks and/or saliva going up my nose accidentally but I’m much more comfortable breathing (a good trade-off). I can’t gargle because it drips down the back of my throat. I’m not sure if I’ll ever be able to do that again. I’ve searched the internet for some answers but I guess people don’t like talking about gargling too much.
The day of surgery I felt great. Day after was another story. I bled for the first two weeks but after they cauterized the wounds bleeding stopped. It was extremely painful for the first 19 days. I took liquid hydrocodone every 3-4 hours on the dot. Needless to say I slept a lot. After the pain died down, regular old tylenol did the trick. It took me just over 3 weeks to eat normally. Yawning still hurts a little and my throat has a general sensation of being tight. Drinking water helps and I’m sure this will go away in time. I lost 12lbs, ate 4 boxes of jello, went through 2 boxes of Quaker apples and cinnamon oatmeal, and used about 38 ounces of liquid hydrocodone.
Lol. Reminds me of my surgeon. Moral support is above their pay grade.
Pstar… Too funny! You’re right. Not exactly the cheerleader type, is he? Bedside manner of a turnip…
Well, 16 days post surgery, and things are pretty good. No more pain at all, but I still have a damned tender lump on my throat where the incision for myoid suspension was… Most of the tissues inside my throat have healed and started shrinking / tightening up. My nasal breathing is improving. Will try to sleep without the CPAP tonight and see how it goes.
Someone mentioned they weren’t able to swallow tramadol. I prefer tramadol as the others make me so sick and pass-out-sleepy. My Dr. said tramadol is no good as it makes you bleed(must thin your blood). My UPPP is scheduled for Aug. 19, 2010. Veryyyy nervous…………..
24 days post surgery. Sleeping through the night now without the CPAP machine. I’m still opening my mouth while sleeping, and I wake up with a bit of a dry mouth and throat, but it’s a small price to pay… much less annoying than sleeping with a mask and chin strap.
Wife says my thunderous snoring is now just a tolerable medium-to-heavy breathing noise, one which she can easily sleep next to. So… looks like I can declare “problem solved.”
I still have some swelling in my neck from the incision site, but it is about half what it was… I have my first post-op appointment with my doctor in two days…
All the tissues inside my throat are about 95% healed. There is some very minor residual pain from swallowing that oddly didn’t start until my third week, probably a 1 on a 10 scale. I also have very minor swallowing issues if I try to drink something too fast or if my head is tilted back while drinking. It’s a petty annoyance at worst…
No changes to voice, and no more reflux incidences.
Had my first post-op visit yesterday. All pain is 100% gone, and the healing is nearly done. The exterior incision from the hyoid suspension is tightening up.
I told the doctor that I’m still opening my mouth at night and breathing through my mouth instead of my nose. He examined my nose again, and said my septum was straight and non-deviated, but that my turbinates were a little bit puffy. He couldn’t say if it was from a temporary allergy or cold condition, or something permanent, so he prescribed me some fluticasone steroid nose spray and said if that didn’t make nose breathing easier, I could come back to his office and he’d numb the turbinates and ablate them permanently is a quick office procedure.
Tammys~~~Liquid Lortab or “liquid gold” as I called it worked very well for me. It’s highly regarded on the tonsillectomy forums as well. I suggest you talk to your Dr. about it. Feel free to ask any questions and I’l try to help.
James~~~I had my tubinates reduced and a slight deviation in my septum fixed before my UPPP. If I were you I’d push to have the ablation done asap. I’ve never heard of being done in a regular office visit but if that’s the case, wow, go for it. Try nasal strips in the mean time, they help alot.
Pstar, here’s a website I found about the procedure he mentioned. Go about halfway down the page and look at the section titled “Method 1.”
http://www.turbinatereduction.com/
’bout had a heart attack today! Not from the procedure, but from my insurance company. The insurance company pre-approved having the procedure done, working with the hospital’s financial counseling office, etc. So I got a letter from them saying I was authorized to proceed and it would be covered.
Then I get a statement from them over the weekend informing me that I failed to get the HOSPITAL STAY associated with the procedure pre-approved, so my portion of the bill is now $22,400! It wasn’t enough for them to say yes to the procedure, apparently… I also had to ask them to approve staying overnight in the hospital AFTER the procedure, in a separate permission…
Can you believe that shit? I called and raised holy hell, and they promised to get back in touch with the hospital’s financial counselor and try to work it out. Won’t know until tomorrow or later.
And you thought there’d be no pain from this surgery.
Seriously, that sounds like the whole bill. If your insured through work I’d talk to your health plan administrator.
My company kept charging me for co-pays I didn’t owe, I thought that was bad. This is ridiculous.
Btw, that nose procedure looks like a piece of cake compared to what I went through. I had the septum work though too.
Hi All, Going to have the laser zap tomorrow to cure snoring and starting to get cold feet. Any advice here? Am I relly going to have to re-learn how to swallow?
Here we are a month and 9 days past the surgery. All the swelling is gone… pain? gone…
Insurance company is still working on a fix for the billing problem but it should go my way.
CPAP machine has been packed up and put away. Surgery was successful. I’m sleeping through the night, without waking up my wife, and I feel rested. No lingering complications or side effects worth noting.
Good luck to all who follow in this journey. The number one piece of advice I would offer is this:
GET A FANASTIC SURGEON, and make sure he or she gives you a thorough nasal endoscopic exam in both an awake and a sleeping state to determine exactly where your blockages are… If anyone wants to email me about my experiences, you can reach me at aicpjim @ hotmail.com
Hey Jason!
Just wondered how you are doing. Is your sense of taste back to normal?
Greg -www.tonsillectomyrecovery.com
Hey guys – I’d just like to get some thoughts from anyone here. I’ve had a big (long) uvula for as long as I can remember, though I never even noticed it until I was 21 and started snoring terribly and didn’t know why. Then one morning woke up with my uvula so swollen I thought I was choking to death and went to the ER. It’s only happened a handful of times since then (it’s been about 12 years), anytime I happen to sleep on my back, but never as severe as that first time when I didn’t realize what was happening. Now, if it happens, I just sip some cool water for 30 min – 1 hour and the swelling goes down, and I go back to bed, just making sure I lay on my side (as far as I know, I don’t snore on my side).
I tend to be a bit hypochondriac-ish about it, though. It’s a big uvula, but from what I can tell, it’s not dangerous or life-threatening. Just big and slightly annoying (I can easily touch it with the back of my tongue, sometimes it makes me cough or swallow a lot). I am so envious of people who just have normal little uvulas and never have to deal with these things.
Do you guys think I should do anything medically about it? If it were a simple little procedure to have it removed, I’d do it. But I know the after-affects can be serious and long-term, and with my tendency to flip out over health issues, I don’t want to go spastic over pain or discomfort in my throat post surgery. Are there any other ways to shrink the stupid thing? Has anyone ever heard of weight loss helping to shrink it? My only other option is to leave it alone and just deal with it for the next 50-odd years, and that sounds just miserable.
Thoughts please!
Vicky~ your question just cam through to my email today. Are you still looking for some feeback?
Vicky,
I had the same problem as you and I chose to have a uvulectomy about 3 1/2 weeks ago. The procedure was in office and fairly simple. The recovery was very painful for about 10 days. But it worked.
My procedure was April 20th and now I’m about 98% recovered. I don’t wake up coughing and gagging anymore and I sleep much better. Thankfully, my ENT told me that the aftermath would be painful, so i was ready for it. I used alot of Chloraseptic throat spray to help with the pain and hot coffee and tea felt WONDERFUL!!
As for now, I breath easier and sleep better. Good luck.
Well its a long story & gross and probably too much TMI . I had way too many first time experiences in 14 hrs plus 5 drugs Ive never taken till then. FIRST MAKE SURE YOU GET ACURATE RECOVERY TIME!!!!! ENT said 3 days healing for nose and abt 10 days for throat! WTF??? My sleep Dr. said 8 weeks for healing. AND I didnt get any recovery info…had to google it!
It was fricken horrible. Well, for me personally the proceedures (I had 4 done at once) sinus openening, septum alignment, removal of tissue in throat, and what I didnt know till few days later untill lookin in the mirror w/ flashlight, was that they cut off that dangly thing too WTF they didnt tell me they were going to do that !!!!
Surgery itself was just over an hour so should of been outta there by 12:00pm but I awoke in PACU w major migraine & pain. All I remember was some mean-ass nurse giving me a hard time for being a smoker. There I was givin 2 different units of delauden (sp) and was in PACUfor 2 hrs. My tongue was all swollen & really hurt & asked her why & she said it was from the clamps on it and I was coughing during surgery so it pulled on it & yelled at me for smoking. I was scared in there & in a lot of pain so I assume thats why my heart-rate went up outta nowhere, & then she yelled at me to get my heart-rate down etc – I JUST wanted to get away from her! When I got into the recovery room around 3pm my migraine was still there so they gave me Percocet but didnt help. Didnt leave hosp till 4:oopm.
Puked in the car right when I got in it, and couldnt stop throwing up when I got home – I couldn’t pee and everytime I tried I threw up. I was puking bunch of blood which made me bleed thru my stitches, so was bleeding out my nose & throat. We called the surgeon & ended up going into the ER. I puked in the car again, & in the entry way of the ER. My migraine hurt soooo bad they gave me morophine, a steroid for migraine, ativan (cuz I was so scared to take morophine… haha Im such a wuss) and then its was like the pain floated awaaaaaaaaay
Morophine wasn’t so bad! Then cuz I still couldnt pee they did a catheter (never had one before) and she filled a whole liter and more! Apparently my bladder was FULL! Yikes!
I wont even go into the removal of stuff in my nose, all I’lll say is I kicked the Dr. ANYWAY I took your important advice of staying on schedule for pain meds!!! Crap! That saved me cuz I HURT! I’m doing better but am frustrated that I cant swallow right & liquids go up my nose haha but Im really wondering why they didnt tell me they were removing my uvula ??? I wont be able to try CPAP till July, so we’ll see.
I had a uvulaectomy. My problem is I only needed it shortened, but they cut it all off. Now I feel like I have walking pneumonia chronically due to the stuff that gets into my lungs. I’m constantly having to try to cough stuff up.
I’d recommend only getting a uvula shortened versus fully removed if it’s too long.
Joe, When did you have the procedure?
I’ve read these posts with interest.
This is the third day after a UUUP and tonsillectomy to cure severe sleep apnea. I have a very high pain threshold, but even taking the cocktail of drugs supplied by the hospital, life has been pretty unpleasant since the op.
I had the operation on the National Health Service in the UK, as my private medical insurance company do not cover sleep apnea procedures.
I was told that that the op would last around an hour, but mine lasted 3 and a half, due to the thickness and strength of my tongue and uvula. My tongue was damaged in the process.
Too early to say whether the op has been successful, looks like it may be a while before I will know for sure. I’ll come back later and let you know.
I had my uvula remove because it was too long about 1.5 monthsand all is good now and sleep a lot better , BUT the only thing is that constantly feel something hanging
ion the back of my throat that makes me want to swallow contstantly and this gives nausea but other tahn that is all good
I have had 2 different sleep studies done in the past 2 years and am classified as mild sleep apnea (35). Insurance won’t pay for a CPAP. When the sleep study was done with the machine I never even got to sleep. I am a small guy (150lbs). When I went to the ENP he told me that my tonsiles where huge and my uvula was very long and webbed. I always feel like there is something in my throat and am constantly swallowing to clear it. The doc says that it is my uvula that is getting in my way. I don’t sleep well and snore like a freight train. I constantly wake up and feel like I am suffocating. The ENP recommended a tonsilectomy and removing my uvula. I have scheduled the surgery and am awaiting insurance information. All the research says it will be very painful but it seems like the only way out for me. I have tried pillows, mouthpieces, and I snore in every position during inhale and exhale. Do you guys have any advice?
Here’s a brief synopsis of my experience preop and postop. I had my tonsils and uvula removed one year ago. I was suffering from sleep apnea due to one extremely enlarged tonsil (to the midline) and an enlarged/ long uvula. The uvula would actually stick to the tonsil. Sometimes it would get so elongated id feel like I was choking on it. I have my own dental practice and keep putting it off due to the fear of the length of time required to recover. I picked an excellent ENT and once he examined my throat he agreed it all had to go.
The recovery was rough but I was back in the office treating patients nine days later only taken Ibuprofen and Tylenol. It was still extremely painful but I was determined. It was a small price to pay. I feel great and it has changed my life.
I had a uppp and my tonsils removed in Feb of 2011, and the ENT told me my tounge was too long, he said that he needed to make an insission under my chin and pull my tounge through and attach a wire around it and secure it with a screw to the inside of my chin bone. I did fine with the uppp and tonsile surgery but the chin part still hasn’t healed over a year later. it stays infected and burst like a pimple every few weeks and makes my throat stay swollen on the outside. Oh I do sleep better and all that but the sore on my chin is driving me crazy. I don’t have any insurance now, and I don’t now where to turn to. somebody please give me some advice. you can contact me at ld32964@yahoo.com with any ideas.
Thanks
Lesia