My daughter needs her tonsills out and I am scared. She has a horrible temper at times and is stubborn. She has the loudest most ear piercing screams. I am dreading this. She already had ear tubes placed at 11 months or so and screamed from the surgi center to the house, nonstop. I'm afraid with the temper she will hemmorage. Any advice?
Just from the experience of having my own tonsils out at age
7. I remember there was much pain. I do not think that she
will want to even talk let alone do any screaming.
My best to you. Let me know how it goes.
K. : ____@____.com
My mom had hers out at this age as well. She said that it was not that bad, just a bad sore throat. She said that she actually felt better after they were out. I did not have mine out until I was 21 and let me tell you that that was horrible!!!!!!!!! Having them out when you are younger is way better than having to wait until you are an adult. The recovery time is not anywhere near it is when you are 21! With as sore as her throat will be, she may not even feel like screaming. She may do better than you think. Good luck!
I don't think you'll have to worry for a few days after the surgery her throat will hurt so bad that she will hardly talk.Whispering will be all she can do.After the surgery the anethsia will wear off after a few hrs and then they may give you a prescription to help with the pain that may make her drowsy or sleepy.Good Luck that has to worry you cause that can happen it is tissue that needs time to heal.Help keep her calm and cuddle her and read to her.
Maybe you can ask your Dr about getting some valium. One of my kids did that on the way to the dentist, so when he had to have a procedure done, he prescribed that, and it just made him kinda of chill out, not drugged up or anything. It went smoothly. Have fun!!! :)
My daughter had it done at that age, maybe a few months past that. She was ok and handled it very well. That was years ago. I hear that the lasers don't cause quite as much pain as they used to. Just keep the cold Popsicles on hand :)
Suzi
My niece had her tonsils out this spring (she was 3 1/2 then) it was a day surgery and she was really up and playing by the end of the day. Crazy - of course they tell you to keep them from jumping, etc... for a few days. I will warn you - their breath will be awful (but it does go away once they are healed).
Can't help you much here...but just wanted to share an experience. I was 3 when I had my tonsils out...
In terms of pain...I remember it feeling like a bad sore throat, and what I remember best was getting to eat LOTS of ice cream and jello while my brother had to eat his veggies! So...needless to say, it didn't scar me for life! LOL
Medically...the younger the child, the better they recover from this surgery.
My son who will be 3 next week just had it done on Halloween at Children's Mercy. The thing to remember is every child acts differently. Our son had a lot of tissue damage, so they had to remove a lot of tissue. His throat and ears hurt, but he actually was pretty mild tempered the whole time (not typical for him at all). When he got his tubes in he did the same thing your daughter did. The difference with the tonsils being taken out is they kept him in recovery for about 45 mins-1 hour, so by the time we saw him he was woke up for a bit. The nurses were fabulous and very patient. The only problem that we have had is getting him to take the pain medication...he refused to (we just slipped it in something he drank). That is really the key to a speedy recovery...fluids, fluids, fluids. If they don't drink, it becomes very painful for them (and needless to say they can get dehydrated). I realized after this whole ordeal that I was far more stressed than my child was and I just told me the basics that "we are going to the doctor, he is going to look at your throat. Then you will take a little nap and when you wake up your throat and ears might hurt. After you take you nap then we'll sleep at the doctors for a night!!! That is going to be so neat!!" I tried to keep it upbeat, but also let him know he would not feel very good. If you are really worried Children's Mercy has a video also.
The other thing for us is since he had a lot of tissue removed we had to stay on the soft food diet for the whole 2 weeks. I have read previous posts (not on yours) about people who let their children eat pizza or worse afterward! If you are worried about her bleeding pay attention to the diet because the bleeding is usually at 7-14 days and it is usually not following the diet that causes the bleeding (at least that is what the nurses told me). We, also, followed the instructions on keeping him home for 7 days after the surgery. Anyways, goodluck to you and your little one! :)
My mom did daycare & little guy she wached had his out at about 3-4 years of age. He was a very stubborn, headstrong, fit throwing child. He did not do any screaming after the procedure ( he returned to my mom's care after just 2 days), but he stayed mad at the world for about a week! He survived & got better, but getting him to eat or drink was a task because he was just plain ticked off. I don't know if the scraning would cause hemmoraging, but I don't think she would do it more than once & not for very long before she realized. I had mine out when I was 10 & hemmoraged twice & survived with no serious effects.
If you are concerned with her straining her throat ask the doctor about the chances of hemmorage. Other than that, let her find out the hard way that screaming will hurt. Then tell her that if she wants it to not hurt so bad to stop. let her scream if she thinks she wants to be in control, she'll find out it's not a good idea. sometimes it's the only way to have a child learn, and if the doctor says it's not going to cause a problem then don't worry about it.
My oldest son was 5 yrs. old when he had his tonsils/adenoids removed. He whined a lot and we had a hard time getting him to take his pain meds. He started acting more like himself on day four but got a little irritable around a week when the scabs were peeling off.
My twin boys were 2yrs 7 mths old when we had their tonsils/adenoids removed at the same time. They were very similar to the five year old but they were very whiney and wanted to be held all the time. I think the worst part for me was them waking up from surgery and the anesthesia. I kept them home from daycare for five days. They were just very irritable and didn't want to eat or drink anything. I had to syringe water into their mouths to keep them hydrated.
All I can say is good luck. It was the longest week of my life but I had double the pain:)
Not sure where she is getting her tonsils taken out, but NKC hospital has a little class that shows them what will happen. Then, her throat is going to hurt so much that she probably won't scream. Or talk. My daughter was 5 when she had hers out and she couldn't talk or anything for several days. It hurt way to much. Good luck and God Bless.
I personally had my tonsils out when I was 5 and did just fine. I am now MUCH older, LOL. My son, who is now 19, had his tonsils removed at age 3 and my now 18 year old daughter had hers removed at age 4, both did wonderfully. The older a child/person is, the harder the recovery time. PLUS, they get to eat a LOT of ice cream!!!! My daughter and I both had VERY enlarged tonsils. My son, however, kept getting infection after infection so they removed his tonsils, adnoids AND put tubes in his ears at the same time. I'm just curious why your doctor did not do this all at the same time as well? Anyway, it is a routine surgery now. Plus, if your daughter doesn't have them removed and continues to get infections, the tonsils, at this point, could just be keeping the infection IN her body instead of doing the job they are supposed to do, which is help the body RID infection. Hope this helps :)
My son had this done at 4. You may have some of the screaming if she is scared as they prep her for surgery, but once they give her the knock out drugs, there won't be any fight left and she'll just be asleep.
As for screaming afterwards...not a chance. They can barely whisper w/o it hurting. Play up the good side of getting all the pudding, jell-o, ice cream that she wants. Make a trip to the grocery store to let her pick out whatever she wants for after the surgery...make it special to her. We had ours done at Children's Mercy in KC and I can't say enough good things about all the staff there. They had so many things for my son to do he was less interested in how his throat hurt as opposed to when the next icee was coming and what was the next movie and gameboy game he could get. They were FANTASTIC! My only gripe was really with the hospital not filling the Rx before we left so you might want to get the Dr. to write the Rx before you do the surgery so that you have the meds on hand and don't have to mess with stopping somewhere in route home...that was the roughest part for me b/c my hubby was deployed so there was no one to send on the errand...I literally had to take him into CVS at 10:30 pm to get the Rx filled (we had a late discharge as he vomited a couple of times).
I would certainly discuss this concern with your Dr. and let him know that you really think this will happen. If he tries to downplay it and not counter with a productive measure to help control this, then perhaps you need to find another ENT to perform the surgery.
I dont know much about tonsillectomys but it will hurt too bad to scream I imagine. There is this spray you can spray in the throat that kind of numbs it when you have a sore throat. I dont know if they make it for kids but it might help with the pain. I would ask a doctor before giving it to her though. Good luck!
The older they are the more pain and the harder they are to deal with. EVERY kid in my family has had this done, including my own 2.
My youngest will be 3 in march, she got hers done last month and that personality your describing is the same as my little girl and what we found was the fact her tonsils were soooo big, was preventing her from doing things like sleeping well and just like mommies who run on little to no sleep, the downfalls of her toddler personality were magnified by just not sleeping well,
they gave her a "kiddie shot" of something that erased her short term memory and made her almost drunk (her head was heavy, she was laughing at everything, trying to pick our nose, let who ever pick her up, when she is terrified of strangers...neway) what ever it was, it worked
Then for after care, skip worring about getting her to eat, get 5 boxes of the yummiest popcycles out there, we got the kind in the tube and the yogert stuff too, I cut them in half and she would eat a half of one every 30 mins, it numbed her up, kept her hydrated and she felt like she was getting a treat all the time!!! Before we knew it she was asking for meals...
At 3.5, she should understand quite a bit. I would HIGHLY recommend a bit of pre-teaching. Explain that you will be going to the doctor, they will put a funny mask on to help her get sleepy, and when she wakes up, her throat may feel funny and she may not be able to talk right away. Try not to make it scary, but at least give her some basics of what to expect. I think a lot of the screaming before may have been just the fear of the unexpected combined with waking up feeling hurt/strange with all the strangers and beeping machines. It can be scary to a kid.
My son, 2.5, just had eye surgery, and I was EXACTLY where you are now. How do I help him get thru it with minimal trauma. And he's a year younger! I started a good week or two before just telling him the doctor would make him sleep and when he woke up, he would have a boo boo and big bandaid on his eye. And he would have to leave it alone and not take it off. He still had some crying coming out of anesthesia, but I think that is normal. But I think once he was fully awake, at least he knew what had happened and why one eye was covered. I think that helped a lot. If you can reduce the fear of the unknown, I think it will help both of you.
Good luck.
