Tonsillectomy

Right, so today we're going to talk about tonsillectomy and the reason that you're having this, you're going ahead with this operation is because you're having recurrent episodes of tonsillitis that are causing you quite a lot of impact on your day-to-day life really. We've tried essentially managing this with medication and it's not really helped so you've opted to go for the operation. So I'm going to tell you a little bit about that. The operation itself will be done as a day case operation, so that means you come into hospital and you have the operation all being well and home the same day. It'll be done under a general anaesthetic, which means that you will be asleep, and the operation will involve us essentially using a device to open up the mouth and remove the tonsils and essentially that will be it. So with any surgery there is a risk of infection and there's a risk of bleeding. These are the two things that are main things I want to tell you about this operation. To minimize your chance of infection what you can do is eat and drink as much as you can soon after the operation as possible really. Now that helps by minimizing infection and also helps prevent bleeding. Now we won't let you out of our sight with any form of bleeding whatsoever but if you notice anything when you go home come straight back and again the best way to minimize that is going back to a normal diet as soon as possible. To help that, we'll obviously make sure that you've got lots of pain relief prescribed for you when you go home. I want you to use those medications regularly. It's not uncommon at around day four after the operation or so to notice a slight increase in the amount of pain that you experience. That will subside, and it's normal to notice that increase. Other things to tell you about, you might have some ear pain and a slight alteration in your sense of taste afterwards, which will settle. Because we do this operation through the mouth, we use a device to hold the mouth open, and there's a small theoretical chance that we can injure the gums or teeth, but again, this is very, very rare, and we're very careful to prevent that from happening. So in terms of the operation itself, it's a operation that we do a lot of. It takes about 10 minutes, essentially, and it'll feel a lot longer than that for you because of the time it takes to go into the hospital, have the anaesthetic and then sort of waking up. But it is, to all intents and purposes, a short operation. You'll then be moved over to the recovery area where you'll be woken up, and the nurses will be doing regular observations on you, will come and check on you, and hopefully you'll be going home the same day. Now, we wouldn't routinely see you again in clinic after the operation, but if you need any more input from us, your GP can refer you back to our services and we'd be more than happy to see you.