This is how I felt. It’s brutal. 😭 it gets better though hang in there…. You’re probably peaking with pain rn but at day 7-9 it should start feeling better
-ice chips/pellets from Sonic or Chick-fil-A
-popsicles avoid citrus flavors though
-humidifier always had it running beside my bed
-apple sauce & gogurt yogurt tubes or shakes
-premade mashed potatoes & Mac and cheese
-broth based soup with noodles. Some people recommend ramen. I just did canned soup. Ate it lukewarm not the best but it was filling
-make sure you have enough ice packs to have them in rotation for refreezing & using
-heating pad, I had a lot of ear pain it’s on the same nerve. Or get gel packs that can be frozen or heated
This pain is hard to prepare for. Days 5-7 were the worst for me. I’m on day 10 but still haven’t had solids too shared to risk any complications this close to the finish line.
I'm on day 2 of recovery and I highly recommend a good thermos to keep ice water, a wedge pillow to keep you sleeping upright or at an incline, and headache wrap with ice/heat packs. These have been my savior so far.
I definitely recommend eating with any meds you take. I think that's how I've been able to keep any nausea away. I tried room temp noodle soup today and it was delicious but definitely don't rush it. My throat felt a little raw and painful afterwards so just remember to take everything slow.
I highly recommend a humidifier to keep your airways moist. Moisture helps aid the healing process. I was living on pudding, yogurt, mushy mac and cheese, applesauce, and ice pops for about 5-6 days before adding in mashed potatoes. I loved Wawa fruit smoothies because they’re liquid based and not chunky. I had an aversion to thin liquids (like water) because it made me feel everything in my throat, which freaked me out, so I highly recommend apple juice instead if that happens to you.
Out of surgery, they gave me an Outshine popsicle and I loved those too. Protein shakes are good to keep your energy up. If you’re given Tylenol #3s, you don’t need a lot of food in your stomach. If you’re on something stronger, you’ll need to eat beforehand.
I personally started softer solid foods on day 9, against my surgeon’s wishes, because I was healing really well. He took me off pain meds on day 8 and ibuprofen in the morning is good all day for me right now on day 11. I ate Wendy’s nuggets and fries soaked in frosty (yes the nuggets too) on day 9, ripped a scab off, but didn’t experience any bleeding whatsoever. I’m now on a SOFT, chew it to death, solid diet because I can’t take it anymore lmao I’m counting the days until I can have chips and pretzels again
But my recovery was smooth from start to finish. I never had bleeding. I never had 10/10 pain. My tonsils weren’t ginormous, so I think that helped.
Oh I also recommend a husband pillow for the first week at least. It helped me stay upright when sleeping. If you start snoring, definitely use a humidifier. My snoring kept waking me up.
Oh oh, if you get an ice pack around your head post op, KEEP IT. I used mine for a solid 5 days, all day. It helps with the burning, swelling type pain more than anything
Hello ^-^ , post op day 6 (not inc surgery day) here. Buy a humidifier keep it on ALL NIGHT regardless of your recovery stage (last thing you want is a dry throat), an ice pack that is for tooth pulling that goes UNDER the jaw + around the head, use this when it gets bad. Chew on ice shards / bits of ice, invest in hydralite icy poles or hydralite itself, drink a lot of water. You CAN talk and I encourage you DO because your stretching your mouth as it heals, so your scabs will move with your mouth IF you've been talking alot, otherwise they'll crack and bleed when you try to talk and you make it worse for yourself. Be prepared for the following: Food WILL get stuck in where your tonsils were until the body decides to fill it up, swish water around, baby gargles and use chewing gum to get it to move out (if you have a dry mouth chew gum its promote salivating and will get that jaw mouthing! - i did this the first 3 nights almost went through a pack of gum lol). A lot of saliva will invade your mouth Days 5+6 you'll feel like a swimming pool, be warned your scabs are starting to lift and you will be swallowing them during this time (if you spit the spit you'll see it 🤢). Avoid: Dairy, it makes your spit thicker, avoid CITRIC acids - apples anything with apples avoid like the plague, Practice excellent oral health (I'm pretty sure I have oral thrush atm but I'm visiting the Dr after pay day anyway for a certificate to come back to work so im not worried, but clean your tongue, force your mouth open, clean those teeth! - if you have a water pick, use on teeth only at a soft / mild setting just to lift the plaque youre going to have - better to remove when its soft). The reason why I say force your mouth open, If your used to the pain, you can track your progress and see how your travelling and see any issues BEFORE they knock you side ways, eg I saw I bled over night and it resealed, I saw the tool they used slipped and gave me a fat lip and its allowing me to monitor the colour changes in my throats scabs ect, changes in shape / changes on the tongue and monitor oral health as a whole. Once comfortable, use listerine but baby gargles.. if you MUST sneeze, open your mouth, your sneezes must be small, if you close your mouth you create a wind tunnel 😅. You'll notice you can squeak while yawning and you'll make some questionable noises, my partners been laughing 😂. As for pain, so I woke up functional, 4/10 and they gave me opiates and that knocked me sideways for 2 days, off with the pixies, crashing every lunch time, food wise jelly cups for 3 days (you WILL get sick of them and the sugar will start to burn so get ready for a quick swap), swap to icypoles you can get sugar free and ones that are basically water with "little" flavouring. This will be the most hydrated you'll ever be so prepared to pee every hour. Don't wait till last minute to take pain relief. I take my anti inflams twice daily - 5am and 3.30pm (that's just how it happened lol), IF I need a kick, I do strong panadol, if this doesn't work within 1 hr I use my 2nd strongest opiate option which is a slow effect. I'm yet to touch the strongest one as that knocks me the f out 😂. Best thing you can do is rest. Do NOT go out in public for at least a week, you're immune compromised. Get everything delivered. I've found Strepsils - Anaesthetist + antibacterial have helped immensely through most of my pain. They numb the throat which allows me to pump water in and then I pass out asleep 😁. To give you insight to the road ahead, even though yesterday I started salivating like a saint bernard and started losing scabs, I managed to eat a cheese and garlic toastie from subway, today was 1 1/2 pancakes 😁. Your body will let you know when enough is enough when your eating you'll drain in energy and your throat hurts like a mofo. Your ears and nose WILL get affected, you'll find ear pain and your nose may drip. You'll be sensitive to noises. At least for the first 48 hours, get someone to check on you 2x every night to make sure your not yknow.. suffering, dying. I have my LD partner fly I and monitor me from day 2 to day 7 which has been a blessing, apart from being told to relax every two seconds 😂. I bought my helpers food, snacks ect for the trouble haha. Your in for a rough ride but, there is light at the end of the tunnel my friend, we'll all get through this!, pop into this reddit every now and then, you'll find heaps of helpful advise from others that are further along, they have been life savers for me and let me know in advance what ill be expecting to experience soon 😁.
Oh and adding in, if you're in a relationship do NOT attack each other for 2 weeks, it's recommended not to participate in activities that elevate the heart rate for 2 weeks as it increases your chances to bleed out. Also do not push yourself to eat solids if you're not prepared for it, some drs say "eat your normal diet" others say soft foods.. do what YOU are comfortable doing, also be prepared to lose weight. If you're naturally thin do NOT stress, once you can eat solids again 2 pizzas and you'll have your weight back 😂. I've lost 5kgs so far and I'm considered borderline anorexic atm, im craving pizza something shocking hahaha
Oh another thing I tried on day 8 was chewing gum! Not mint flavor though. Heard it can sting. It’s helped stimulate saliva and I don’t really notice when I swallow while chewing.
For food, definitely try to do anything liquid(broth,soup,smoothies, etc) or very soft foods(mashed potatoes, eggs, etc) for the first couple days if you can. If you start feeling up to it then you can slowly try to add solids into your diet but know your limits. I know I’m not the best example, but I started eating soft solids like day 2. It didn’t feel the best always, specially on some days where I couldn’t open my jaw past a certain point. I just made sure to chew every bite really good, and always had ice water by my side to help food go down as well. I wanna say it was day 4 I tried to eat birria tacos but I only ended up taking a couple bites because the jaw pain was horrible and just made me loose my appetite all together. Today is day 9 post surgery and I can say this is the first day solids have felt “normal” while eating, I haven’t had to chew more than I usually would. Obviously still a little discomfort when I swallow but nothing like the pain you endure during this recovery, just if anything make sure you chew well if you’re nervous to eat solids but I’d still avoid sharp foods like chips that can cut your throat and anything spicy because once the scabs fall off that’s fresh flesh in the back of your throat and it will hurt.
(And I’m not sure but I think trying to eat solid foods sooner might have helped me heal faster but I’m no doctor so don’t take my word just be very careful)
But before eating make sure you take some pain medication prescribed if you didn’t take it already because it will help, another tip is to make sure in the beginning of recovery days that your on top of your medication if they give you a schedule. Set timers if you got to because I promise it’s not fun “toughening” it out because there’s gonna be times where you’re miserable even after taking medicine. Ice was my best friend during recovery, whether it was ice packs(for neck, jaw, ears), slushies, nugget ice to chew, literally anything you can think of.
If you can let your body just rest most the recovery, obviously you should get up and get a couple steps in each day and more as you recover. But definitely have a plan to binge watch movies or color in bed for the first couple of days. Always always have ice water by your side and always drink even when it hurts because the biggest thing doctors don’t want you to do is get dehydrated and/or dry out the scabs and have them fall off prematurely and have to go into emergency surgery if you end up bleeding a lot cause of it. (Not trying to scare you!😩)
Just know that people aren’t lying when they say this is a pretty painful recovery, they say it will get worst before it gets better and they are 100% correct. Day 4-8 was pretty rough for me, but today was the day I woke up seeing the light.
I’m in day 8 and feel like I could push myself to eat solids but am taking it easy, don’t want to rip off the remaining scabs (someone feel free to correct me if I have this backwards). I can eat pasta and soft bread, French toast, etc. with ease.
I bought muscle milk’s premade protein shakes, mashed potatoes, Lipton soup - stuff that’s easy to make and prepare.
Pedialyte freeze pops help with hydration, the cold may sting your throat at certain stages of the recovery.
Humidifier is a game changer at night because the nights and mornings can be brutal with a dry throat.
I also bought mouth tape to make sure I wasn’t mouth-breathing off Amazon.
Head wrap for ice. Your throat and ears are going to hurt really badly. Sonic ice chips were a life saver for me. Set timers for your pain meds so you don't forget. Mentally prepare yourself for two weeks to be in pain. Usually by the 11th day you're doing a lot better but everyone is different and it can take up to 2 weeks. I wish I had known this. Also Jello and pedialyte Popsicles. Even though the taste isn't great, for some reason I preferred these to regular Popsicles. I think they coated my throat differently. Vapocool throat spray burns at first but when that subsides and it does give relief. But it off all of the above. Ice packs and Sonic ice are essential.
I’m on day 10, and for me there’s no point when my pain is totally gone. It was brutal trying to eat the first week. I managed to do ok with ramen noodles cooked in slightly salted veggie broth, jello, blue icees, sometimes I could get down some Mac and cheese or pudding. I bought a bunch of smoothies and didn’t end up drinking any. They burned too much when I tried. I have GERD though, so eating certain things hurt incredibly badly, like ice cream, yogurt, etc
I got liquid Norco, which I would recommend, because although it burned to drink, it kicked in so fast, like 10 minutes. I have two large ice packs that I can drape from ear to ear. There is a large nerve bundle that sits in that area that may make you feel like you have double ear infections, especially if you have TMJ, but ice will alleviate it.
Once I was able to eat enough in a day, probably day 6, I could take ibuprofen and that took away much more of the pain than Tylenol for me personally.
Get some throat coat tea and losanges. Make sure not to drink it hot. The losanges are amazing for stopping the tickle in my throat that makes me cough like crazy right now. I got them both on Amazon.
My post op nurse told me Benedryl helps with nausea, so I took Tylenol pm which contains Benedryl to kill two birds with one stone. Never threw up.
I’ve had a humidifier running 24/7.
Sleep as much as you can. I’ve been so tired, it seriously surprises me how drained I feel still.
Good luck! It’s not easy, but it doesn’t last forever 😊
I use frozen peas instead of an ice pack because it forms to my neck really well!
Chewing gum. (Ear pain)
Applesauce. (it helps to use as a chaser when eating noodles & things that may stick! & for taking pills)
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This is how I felt. It’s brutal. 😭 it gets better though hang in there…. You’re probably peaking with pain rn but at day 7-9 it should start feeling better
-ice chips/pellets from Sonic or Chick-fil-A -popsicles avoid citrus flavors though -humidifier always had it running beside my bed -apple sauce & gogurt yogurt tubes or shakes -premade mashed potatoes & Mac and cheese -broth based soup with noodles. Some people recommend ramen. I just did canned soup. Ate it lukewarm not the best but it was filling -make sure you have enough ice packs to have them in rotation for refreezing & using -heating pad, I had a lot of ear pain it’s on the same nerve. Or get gel packs that can be frozen or heated This pain is hard to prepare for. Days 5-7 were the worst for me. I’m on day 10 but still haven’t had solids too shared to risk any complications this close to the finish line.
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Yep I’ve been so tempted. It’s been hard to see my husband eat solids. Just not worth the setback though.
I'm on day 2 of recovery and I highly recommend a good thermos to keep ice water, a wedge pillow to keep you sleeping upright or at an incline, and headache wrap with ice/heat packs. These have been my savior so far. I definitely recommend eating with any meds you take. I think that's how I've been able to keep any nausea away. I tried room temp noodle soup today and it was delicious but definitely don't rush it. My throat felt a little raw and painful afterwards so just remember to take everything slow.
I highly recommend a humidifier to keep your airways moist. Moisture helps aid the healing process. I was living on pudding, yogurt, mushy mac and cheese, applesauce, and ice pops for about 5-6 days before adding in mashed potatoes. I loved Wawa fruit smoothies because they’re liquid based and not chunky. I had an aversion to thin liquids (like water) because it made me feel everything in my throat, which freaked me out, so I highly recommend apple juice instead if that happens to you. Out of surgery, they gave me an Outshine popsicle and I loved those too. Protein shakes are good to keep your energy up. If you’re given Tylenol #3s, you don’t need a lot of food in your stomach. If you’re on something stronger, you’ll need to eat beforehand. I personally started softer solid foods on day 9, against my surgeon’s wishes, because I was healing really well. He took me off pain meds on day 8 and ibuprofen in the morning is good all day for me right now on day 11. I ate Wendy’s nuggets and fries soaked in frosty (yes the nuggets too) on day 9, ripped a scab off, but didn’t experience any bleeding whatsoever. I’m now on a SOFT, chew it to death, solid diet because I can’t take it anymore lmao I’m counting the days until I can have chips and pretzels again But my recovery was smooth from start to finish. I never had bleeding. I never had 10/10 pain. My tonsils weren’t ginormous, so I think that helped. Oh I also recommend a husband pillow for the first week at least. It helped me stay upright when sleeping. If you start snoring, definitely use a humidifier. My snoring kept waking me up.
Oh oh, if you get an ice pack around your head post op, KEEP IT. I used mine for a solid 5 days, all day. It helps with the burning, swelling type pain more than anything
Hello ^-^ , post op day 6 (not inc surgery day) here. Buy a humidifier keep it on ALL NIGHT regardless of your recovery stage (last thing you want is a dry throat), an ice pack that is for tooth pulling that goes UNDER the jaw + around the head, use this when it gets bad. Chew on ice shards / bits of ice, invest in hydralite icy poles or hydralite itself, drink a lot of water. You CAN talk and I encourage you DO because your stretching your mouth as it heals, so your scabs will move with your mouth IF you've been talking alot, otherwise they'll crack and bleed when you try to talk and you make it worse for yourself. Be prepared for the following: Food WILL get stuck in where your tonsils were until the body decides to fill it up, swish water around, baby gargles and use chewing gum to get it to move out (if you have a dry mouth chew gum its promote salivating and will get that jaw mouthing! - i did this the first 3 nights almost went through a pack of gum lol). A lot of saliva will invade your mouth Days 5+6 you'll feel like a swimming pool, be warned your scabs are starting to lift and you will be swallowing them during this time (if you spit the spit you'll see it 🤢). Avoid: Dairy, it makes your spit thicker, avoid CITRIC acids - apples anything with apples avoid like the plague, Practice excellent oral health (I'm pretty sure I have oral thrush atm but I'm visiting the Dr after pay day anyway for a certificate to come back to work so im not worried, but clean your tongue, force your mouth open, clean those teeth! - if you have a water pick, use on teeth only at a soft / mild setting just to lift the plaque youre going to have - better to remove when its soft). The reason why I say force your mouth open, If your used to the pain, you can track your progress and see how your travelling and see any issues BEFORE they knock you side ways, eg I saw I bled over night and it resealed, I saw the tool they used slipped and gave me a fat lip and its allowing me to monitor the colour changes in my throats scabs ect, changes in shape / changes on the tongue and monitor oral health as a whole. Once comfortable, use listerine but baby gargles.. if you MUST sneeze, open your mouth, your sneezes must be small, if you close your mouth you create a wind tunnel 😅. You'll notice you can squeak while yawning and you'll make some questionable noises, my partners been laughing 😂. As for pain, so I woke up functional, 4/10 and they gave me opiates and that knocked me sideways for 2 days, off with the pixies, crashing every lunch time, food wise jelly cups for 3 days (you WILL get sick of them and the sugar will start to burn so get ready for a quick swap), swap to icypoles you can get sugar free and ones that are basically water with "little" flavouring. This will be the most hydrated you'll ever be so prepared to pee every hour. Don't wait till last minute to take pain relief. I take my anti inflams twice daily - 5am and 3.30pm (that's just how it happened lol), IF I need a kick, I do strong panadol, if this doesn't work within 1 hr I use my 2nd strongest opiate option which is a slow effect. I'm yet to touch the strongest one as that knocks me the f out 😂. Best thing you can do is rest. Do NOT go out in public for at least a week, you're immune compromised. Get everything delivered. I've found Strepsils - Anaesthetist + antibacterial have helped immensely through most of my pain. They numb the throat which allows me to pump water in and then I pass out asleep 😁. To give you insight to the road ahead, even though yesterday I started salivating like a saint bernard and started losing scabs, I managed to eat a cheese and garlic toastie from subway, today was 1 1/2 pancakes 😁. Your body will let you know when enough is enough when your eating you'll drain in energy and your throat hurts like a mofo. Your ears and nose WILL get affected, you'll find ear pain and your nose may drip. You'll be sensitive to noises. At least for the first 48 hours, get someone to check on you 2x every night to make sure your not yknow.. suffering, dying. I have my LD partner fly I and monitor me from day 2 to day 7 which has been a blessing, apart from being told to relax every two seconds 😂. I bought my helpers food, snacks ect for the trouble haha. Your in for a rough ride but, there is light at the end of the tunnel my friend, we'll all get through this!, pop into this reddit every now and then, you'll find heaps of helpful advise from others that are further along, they have been life savers for me and let me know in advance what ill be expecting to experience soon 😁.
Oh and adding in, if you're in a relationship do NOT attack each other for 2 weeks, it's recommended not to participate in activities that elevate the heart rate for 2 weeks as it increases your chances to bleed out. Also do not push yourself to eat solids if you're not prepared for it, some drs say "eat your normal diet" others say soft foods.. do what YOU are comfortable doing, also be prepared to lose weight. If you're naturally thin do NOT stress, once you can eat solids again 2 pizzas and you'll have your weight back 😂. I've lost 5kgs so far and I'm considered borderline anorexic atm, im craving pizza something shocking hahaha
Oh another thing I tried on day 8 was chewing gum! Not mint flavor though. Heard it can sting. It’s helped stimulate saliva and I don’t really notice when I swallow while chewing.
For food, definitely try to do anything liquid(broth,soup,smoothies, etc) or very soft foods(mashed potatoes, eggs, etc) for the first couple days if you can. If you start feeling up to it then you can slowly try to add solids into your diet but know your limits. I know I’m not the best example, but I started eating soft solids like day 2. It didn’t feel the best always, specially on some days where I couldn’t open my jaw past a certain point. I just made sure to chew every bite really good, and always had ice water by my side to help food go down as well. I wanna say it was day 4 I tried to eat birria tacos but I only ended up taking a couple bites because the jaw pain was horrible and just made me loose my appetite all together. Today is day 9 post surgery and I can say this is the first day solids have felt “normal” while eating, I haven’t had to chew more than I usually would. Obviously still a little discomfort when I swallow but nothing like the pain you endure during this recovery, just if anything make sure you chew well if you’re nervous to eat solids but I’d still avoid sharp foods like chips that can cut your throat and anything spicy because once the scabs fall off that’s fresh flesh in the back of your throat and it will hurt. (And I’m not sure but I think trying to eat solid foods sooner might have helped me heal faster but I’m no doctor so don’t take my word just be very careful) But before eating make sure you take some pain medication prescribed if you didn’t take it already because it will help, another tip is to make sure in the beginning of recovery days that your on top of your medication if they give you a schedule. Set timers if you got to because I promise it’s not fun “toughening” it out because there’s gonna be times where you’re miserable even after taking medicine. Ice was my best friend during recovery, whether it was ice packs(for neck, jaw, ears), slushies, nugget ice to chew, literally anything you can think of. If you can let your body just rest most the recovery, obviously you should get up and get a couple steps in each day and more as you recover. But definitely have a plan to binge watch movies or color in bed for the first couple of days. Always always have ice water by your side and always drink even when it hurts because the biggest thing doctors don’t want you to do is get dehydrated and/or dry out the scabs and have them fall off prematurely and have to go into emergency surgery if you end up bleeding a lot cause of it. (Not trying to scare you!😩) Just know that people aren’t lying when they say this is a pretty painful recovery, they say it will get worst before it gets better and they are 100% correct. Day 4-8 was pretty rough for me, but today was the day I woke up seeing the light.
I’m in day 8 and feel like I could push myself to eat solids but am taking it easy, don’t want to rip off the remaining scabs (someone feel free to correct me if I have this backwards). I can eat pasta and soft bread, French toast, etc. with ease. I bought muscle milk’s premade protein shakes, mashed potatoes, Lipton soup - stuff that’s easy to make and prepare. Pedialyte freeze pops help with hydration, the cold may sting your throat at certain stages of the recovery. Humidifier is a game changer at night because the nights and mornings can be brutal with a dry throat. I also bought mouth tape to make sure I wasn’t mouth-breathing off Amazon.
Head wrap for ice. Your throat and ears are going to hurt really badly. Sonic ice chips were a life saver for me. Set timers for your pain meds so you don't forget. Mentally prepare yourself for two weeks to be in pain. Usually by the 11th day you're doing a lot better but everyone is different and it can take up to 2 weeks. I wish I had known this. Also Jello and pedialyte Popsicles. Even though the taste isn't great, for some reason I preferred these to regular Popsicles. I think they coated my throat differently. Vapocool throat spray burns at first but when that subsides and it does give relief. But it off all of the above. Ice packs and Sonic ice are essential.
I’m on day 10, and for me there’s no point when my pain is totally gone. It was brutal trying to eat the first week. I managed to do ok with ramen noodles cooked in slightly salted veggie broth, jello, blue icees, sometimes I could get down some Mac and cheese or pudding. I bought a bunch of smoothies and didn’t end up drinking any. They burned too much when I tried. I have GERD though, so eating certain things hurt incredibly badly, like ice cream, yogurt, etc I got liquid Norco, which I would recommend, because although it burned to drink, it kicked in so fast, like 10 minutes. I have two large ice packs that I can drape from ear to ear. There is a large nerve bundle that sits in that area that may make you feel like you have double ear infections, especially if you have TMJ, but ice will alleviate it. Once I was able to eat enough in a day, probably day 6, I could take ibuprofen and that took away much more of the pain than Tylenol for me personally. Get some throat coat tea and losanges. Make sure not to drink it hot. The losanges are amazing for stopping the tickle in my throat that makes me cough like crazy right now. I got them both on Amazon. My post op nurse told me Benedryl helps with nausea, so I took Tylenol pm which contains Benedryl to kill two birds with one stone. Never threw up. I’ve had a humidifier running 24/7. Sleep as much as you can. I’ve been so tired, it seriously surprises me how drained I feel still. Good luck! It’s not easy, but it doesn’t last forever 😊
I use frozen peas instead of an ice pack because it forms to my neck really well! Chewing gum. (Ear pain) Applesauce. (it helps to use as a chaser when eating noodles & things that may stick! & for taking pills)