A fulltonsillectomyrecovery takes 10 days to two weeks.
Different age groups recover at different rates.
Small children tend to recover sooner than everyone else.
Verywell / Cindy Chung
They usually feel better after a few days.
Older kids (ages 5 to 12) can take a few more days.
Teens and adults will likely take about two weeks to bounce back.
Scar tissue builds up on tonsils over time.
The more you have, the more difficult it is to remove.
This, however, does not fully account for the differences in postoperative pain and recovery times.
Recap
Small kids often feel better a few days after getting their tonsils removed.
Children between ages 5 and 12 need a little more time.
Teens and adults can expect to recover for about two weeks.
Don’t let that fool you into thinking that back to your normal routine the next day, though.
Whilepain medicationwill ease discomfort as much as possible, other symptoms are expected.
They may include:
At any age, there’s an increased risk of bleeding after surgery.
This risk lasts for seven to 10 days, so you should continue to take it easy until then.
These cases are relatively rare but they do occur.
It’s a backup plan, just in case.
Your healthcare provider will determine if you or your child are at increased risk for complications.
They may want to have extra monitoring during the surgery as a precaution.
They may feel sore, or need to sleep more, but these symptoms soon go away.
These people may have longer recovery times too.
Adults will probably need to take 10 to 14 days off from work.
This will depend on the pop in of work you do and how well you feel.
Most adults will need to take up to two weeks off from work.
With kids, ask yourself if they seem like they’ve returned to normal activity levels.
If so, they can probably head back to class.
In most cases, young kids will recover in just a few days.
These recovery times are affected by other factors that include your overall health.
They also may change if bleeding or other complications arise during surgery.
Rest assured that you’ll heal in due time, even if it takes a bit longer.
In some cases, this may lead to dehydration, problems swallowing, and perhaps temporary weight loss.
Adults whove had many more infections have thicker scar tissue at and near the tonsils.
The healthcare provider will need to deal with this during surgery, which leads to longer recovery times.
It depends on how well your child recovers.
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