Pain after tonsillectomy

[toffeefee]

DS (age 3) had his tonsils and adenoids removed last Thursday. Since then he has, as expected, been in lots of pain and I am starting to worry as we are now on day 7 post operation and he doesn't seem to be getting any better. I have read many of the threads on here about tonsillectomy in children and know that it isn't unusual to have pain for a few days, but should he still be this unwell?

He's on calpol (10ml x 4 per day) and codeine (2.5ml x 4 per day) for the pain as he can't have ibuprofen. He is still needing full doses of each of these to get through the day and is waking in pain in the night.

He will only eat crisps and ice cream, perhaps the odd cracker with a bit of cheese on, but he is drinking plenty.

He has no temperature, so I don't think there is an infection, but he is so sorry for himself. He is currently fast asleep on the sofa, something he would never do if he were well.

Would he have a temperature if he is on codeine and paracetamol? I would have him checked out.

When my son had his tonsils out, he was still very sore a week later, but the peak of pain so to speak was on day 3 and 4. He still needed paracetmol, but only took codeine for around 5 days. He did however develop a "post op infection" so needed a course of antibiotics anyway.

Hi, thanks for the reply.

He is having his doses 6 hours apart as we do when he has tonsillitis to keep it spread through the whole day and night and this would only knock the temp down for an hour or so, so I am assuming that it would be the same for this? I've definitely not seen any sign of a temperature, but will keep checking just in case.

He has eaten a little today, but also slept for an hour this morning and is sleeping again now.

I will ring the surgery and see if I should bring him in. When we left hospital we were told to ring the GP if there was a temp or go to A&E of there was any bleeding, but not bother either if it was just for pain as this was to be expected for up to 2 weeks. I just didn't think it would be like this.

I had read on some of the other threads that the way to beat the pain is to give painkillers at 3 hours and 58 mins to make sure that the pain doesn't set in, but he really needs them over night and if I did that then there would be a period each day where he wouldn't be able to have anything.

Bumping for any experiences from the evening crowd.

How is he this evening?

IME it was sore, really sore, for a little over a week. It was fine initially after the op but got much worse a couple of days later and dragged on for ages. We had our child checked at the GP but they found no infection so we just had to persevere.

I had mine out as an adult and the recovery is longer I would say it was a good 14 days before I didn't need pain killers.

Recovery for children is usually much quicker, as the weekend is creeping up I think it would be wise to see the dr tomorrow just to rule out infection as you don't want to be worried over the weekend.

I had an infection but no temperature.

Hi, thanks for the replies! Sorry I didn't respond last night we went to bed very early!!

He did perk up quite a bit in the evening and was playing with his sister for an hour or so, ate some toast for lunch and then some of his tea (even crispy garlic bread taht I had left in the oven too long!). He also managed the whole night with only 1 dose of calpol, so he went from 9pm until 5.30am without any extra pain relief. In fact looking at what he actually had yesterday he only had 3 doses of calpol and 2 doses of codeine so I am hoping this is a turning point.

I will keep an eye on him this morning and take him to GP if he looks suspect this afternoon,. I think I grossly underestimated the recovery from this 'routine' operation. My husband had it done in his 20's and says that it was much worse than any tonsillitis infection.

Thank you for all of your advice.

Oh that's good, like you say hopefully it's a turning point. It's not a pleasant operation at all.

Just to update, we are now 2 weeks post-op and he is so much better. He had a real turning point at the weekend and has improved day by day since then. I am so relieved! Turns out some kids really don't just bounce back from this simple operation. He is still sore in the mornings, but sleeping through now and so probably that he has a dry throat and not had any calpol for 12+ hours! He is only on 1 or 2 doses of calpol per day now and no codeine at all since the weekend. Now he is feeling better he is so hungry all the time! I don't think there was an hour go by yesterday when he wasn't asking for food! A good sign, I think!

Thanks to all of you for your advice and reassurance.