Removing my sons tonsils and adenoids...

[zaftigmama]

My son has had snoring issues for years - he snores so loudly it's hard to sleep near him (he's 6 now). Lately I noticed a weird noise a few times a night and taped it, his peditrician says he has sleep apnea. So he referred us to an ENT.

We met with the ENT today, and I got a good feeling from him. We talked about sleep and the fact that Ari isn't getting good sleep, and is chronically exhausted. He recommends taking out his tonsils which are very large and his adenoids which are also very large.

He says the recovery is about a week of pain, I think I have heard from other moms that it's a lot longer than that. Anyone have any experience with a child going through this surgery?

Thanks in advance!

[Youngfrankenstein]

My son had it done in Kindergarten and it was no big deal. A big deal for me seeing him groggy afterward and seeing him get nervous when he walked off to the OR, but we were with him the whole time before and immediately after. He stayed in the hosp most of the day and we brought him home in the afternoon. His first trip to the bathroom he was hopping and skipping and I had to tell him to walk and go slow.

We stuck to the Tylenol w/ Codeine schedule for several days and he stayed home from school for a week (he wasn't missing much in kindergarten!) and that was that.

He is a pretty "roll-with-the-punches" kind of kid but it couldn't have gone any smoother.

[zaftigmama]

Thanks for the reply! Ari is a pretty tough kid, and we were told we'd get tylenol with codeine for pain. Was it hard for your son to eat/drink afterwards? How long was he sore?

Thanks again! It's so helpful to hear from someone who's gone through it.

Take care,

[Youngfrankenstein]

Who knows? For him, he just kept living life with little interruption. He got a lot of popsicles and jello and I think he enjoyed all of the attention for a little sore throat. I think we had to keep him from eating anything too "rough" for a day or so but I think that was me, not his pain level.

[Metasequoia]

If my child's tonsils or adenoids were enlarged, I'd remove all dairy for a while & see what happens. After that, I'd remove all gluten (while still staying off the dairy.) I'm not saying I'd *never* have them removed, but I'd try to figure out why they were inflamed first. Tonsils act as an important filter for the lungs.

[zaftigmama]

They're not inflamed, they're just huge. They've always been huge. We've been waiting to see if his throat would grow into them (kind of) but they are keeping pace with the rest of his body. The doctor is concerned with the sleep apnea and the effects of constant exhaustion, so they are coming out.

Thanks for the thoughts!

[tanyalynn]

Depending on the scheduling, you could play around with diet while still going forward with plans for surgery. It took about a month for my daughter's tonsils to shrink down to a normal size after we removed all gluten and dairy from our diets. I saw other improvements before then, this was the slowest improvement we had.

[Youngfrankenstein]

I have 3 children and 2 have enlarged tonsils and one doesn't. They were this way from birth. I have one that has always been enlarged. Honestly if my choice for my son was no gluten or dairy or the surgery, I'd do the surgery.

[tanyalynn]

Originally Posted by Youngfrankenstein

I have 3 children and 2 have enlarged tonsils and one doesn't. They were this way from birth. I have one that has always been enlarged. Honestly if my choice for my son was no gluten or dairy or the surgery, I'd do the surgery.

But for us, so many other things got better that I didn't even realize weren't just the way things were supposed to be for my kids. GFCF is totally worth it for us! My daughter, at age 3.5yo, started napping again, after a year of not napping. She was so much nicer to be around! And she stopped wetting the bed at night within a week, and the dark circles under her eyes got so much lighter! She'd been dry during the day for over a year, but within a week of GFCF, no nighttime wetting. Which isn't a make-or-break problem, clearly, but something in these foods was clearly causing her systemic problems, and the tonsils were just one symptom. It was hard at first, really hard, and we've moved twice since then and having so many fewer convenience foods can be hard at times like that, plus vacations require more prep work, but I am very happy that we stumbled onto this.

[francesmama]

Hi. My son had this surgery when he was three for the same reasons. It was ten days of hell, BUT, that was because he was a very headstrong three year old who refused to swallow *anything* including the pain meds so he was in a tremendous amount of pain. We had to hold him down to force the codeine and I found that pretty traumatic.

That said, it was worth it for the healthy child we got in the end. He now has much fewer colds, sleeps much better at night, breaths easier - it was worth it. Plus I don't worry about his breathing at night any more. HTH

[5thAttempt]

Originally Posted by zaftigmama

He says the recovery is about a week of pain, I think I have heard from other moms that it's a lot longer than that. Anyone have any experience with a child going through this surgery?

Thanks in advance!

We removed adenoids when ds was 6. He was sucking posicle 1 hour after surgery, eat pizza 3 hours later and no pain issues afterword.
However the first hour was HELL. He was groggy, in pain, could not undestand what is going on after sedation etc. Dr ordered a pain shot and after 10 min after that the things started to get better, as I said before 1 hour after the surgery he was fine. His tonsils were not touched, I am not sure if it makes a difference....Good luck with whatever decision you take..

[luminesce]

I don't know all the details but my cousin's son had this done at age 4 or 5 and it was a terrible ordeal for them. His heart rate dropped during surgery from the anesthesia and they almost lost him. Following that he was in terrible pain for days, wouldn't eat or drink and ended up back in the emergency room a few times. He may have been the 'exceptional' case, though. I don't know anyone else who has had it done. But -- he is ok now, so even though it was hard, they got through it.

ETA: Has he had any sleep tests (oxygen levels, etc.)? My DH has obstructive sleep apnea and those were very useful for him w/deciding what to do. He chose to use a CPAP device.

[StephandOwen]

My ds has enlarged tonsils and adenoids (always has). He also has a deviated septum so all that put together equals a very loud child when he's sleeping! It also means when he gets a sore throat it doesn't take much swelling to get to a dangerous spot. We learned that the hard way when his throat swelled so much he was barely getting any air in (and he couldn't get any liquids down at all).

We've talked about getting his tonsils and adenoids out but, to be honest, I'm terrified. DS has autism and already has food/mouth issues. I fear if we get this surgery done he's going to A) refuse the medicine (he refuses all meds) and be in extreme pain (though on the other side he doesn't feel pain like a typical person does) and B) refuse to eat/drink (which he can ill afford to do as he's pretty small to begin with). My sisters son had this surgery done (he also has autism) and ended up back in the hospital after refusing to eat.

On the flip side to that.... I know he's not sleeping well. At 5 1/2 years old he's waking at least once, usually twice, a night. I don't want him constantly exhausted.

He has had ear tubes put in. The nurses forced one dose of tylenol on him afterwards but he never had any pain meds after that first dose and did fine. A year ago he also had an accident that ended up with him being sedated and receiving stitches and glue in his private area. He got a shot of pain meds but never took any tylenol after that and was fine. But the tonsils/adenoids seems to much worse to me.

[SquishyKitty]

My youngest brother had it done when he was 4 due to very bad sleep apnea. He would stop breathing at least once or twice a night. He was also born with very large tonsils, that did not shrink down. He was on a monitor for the first 6 months of his life, and my parents were constantly checking on him until he had the surgery done.

I remember the first day being rough for him, but after that he was slowed down a little, but overall still himself. After a week, he was back to normal.

Not everything is dairy or gluten related.

[mommytolittlelilly]

I'd want to make SURE that he actually has sleep apnea before consenting to removal of tonsils and adenoids. Tonsils and adenoids have an important role in the body's defenses. A pediatrician's opinion just would not cut it for me. I'd reasearch what sorts of tests can definitely give you that diagnosis.

My daughter started having chronic congestion, snoring, enlarged tonsils and adenoids, when she was around three years old. Also, frequent night-waking and screaming in her sleep. It got much worse when she was four and five years old (seemingly coinciding with me not producing anymore breastmilk), followed with ear infections. The pediatrician said she had environmental allergies and gave us a corticosteroid to use. I am confident that using that stuff actually weakened her immune system. Turns out, she has no environmental allergies at all since I had her tested this winter. I feel like I can't take anything they say at face value anymore.

What seemed to help us enormously was cutting out all dairy, introducing much more variety in her diet, as well as supplementing with cod liver oil and probiotics. Before she was eating yogurt, pancakes, cereal with cow's milk pretty much every day. The snorning is gone, and the tonsils and adenoids are no longer enlarged. We've had one ear infection this year (which appeared to follow her having ice scream at school a week earlier.) Her sleeping has improved vastly. She has also made some enormous intellectual leaps this year.

This got really long, but my point is to try eliminating dairy and see what happens. You can still go to the ENT while trying no dairy. I really think that *if* enlarged tonsils, etc. are caused by some kind of food intolerance, health problems will just manifest themselves in other ways.

[Cheshire]

I'm so glad you posted this question.

My son had sleep issues last year around this same time. We didn't really notice he had any congestion but he started developing sleep apnea (my dad and sister have it so I can recognize it).

We took him to an ENT who wanted to do surgery and sent us to have an x-ray so he could look at his adenoids. When the x-ray came back he saw that DS had a raging sinus infection - his sinus cavity was completely white on the x-ray, couldn't even see it. So, he went on 20 days of antibiotics and it cleared it up. No more sleep issues.

We also had decided at the time that he would not be having any surgery anytime soon. Just a month before the doctor's appointment our second son had died shortly after his birth and we were not going to put another child at risk. The doc was great about it and we felt fantastic that the treating the sinus infection cleared up his sleep problems.

Well, it is the same time of year again and his sleep issues have started up. His apnea is pretty rough at night. So, I've got to get him into the doc again and see if we can figure out what is happening. I'm thinking it might have something to do with seasonal allergies but whenever we treat him for allergies it doesn't make a difference.

My DH had his tonsils removed when he was little and he has terrible allergies. This is such a tough one to figure out. I'm so interested in what has worked for others. Surgery will be our absolute last resort.

Thanks!

[Metasequoia]

Large tonsils/adenoids can mean inflammation. Children can be exposed to gluten or casein in utero or via breastmilk (or formula) & have physical reactions (usually inflammation) as a result. Just because a child's tonsils or adenoids "have always been huge" doesn't mean it's not a food reaction.

If a child is reacting to gluten (or casein aka dairy) & you remove tonsils & adenoids, there will still be inflammation in the body. Damage is still going on even if you remove whatever is obviously being affected. Gluten allergy has been linked to Type 1 diabetes, Hashimoto's thyroiditis, IBS, Crohn's Disease, etc, etc.

[Mommyintraining2]

I realize this is an old thread, but I'm wondering if there are any updates on those who were planning on doing the surgery. We are facing this issue with DS five years old who hasn't had a good night's sleep in months. We do GF/CF diet, pro-biotics, cod liver oil, etc. But nothing's helping this time. In the past, homeopathy helped. Now we're considering the surgery.

[Doodlebugsmom]

Originally Posted by Mommyintraining2

I realize this is an old thread, but I'm wondering if there are any updates on those who were planning on doing the surgery. We are facing this issue with DS five years old who hasn't had a good night's sleep in months. We do GF/CF diet, pro-biotics, cod liver oil, etc. But nothing's helping this time. In the past, homeopathy helped. Now we're considering the surgery.

My dd has large tonsils and adenoids. (We're fairly sure it's genetic, as dh does too.) Dd was a horrible sleeper. Snoring, gasping and waking up throughout the night. It was severe for about a year before we took her to the ped. (Dd was 6, almost 7 at this time.) NONE of us were sleeping well at that point. The ped agreed that dd does have huge tonsils and adenoids. She recommended we try Veramyst spray, which is a steroid spray, before going to a ENT and having a sleep study. (I think any reputable ENT will require a sleep study before surgical removal.) Well, we did the Veramyst, and within a month dd was sleeping through the night, no snoring, gasping or mouth breathing. She used the Veramyst every night for 3 months. After the bottle ran out, we tried going without it. She has not resumed any of the previous problems, and it's been over a year since we initially went to the ped about it. I'm not big on prescriptions or regular use of meds AT ALL. Between my 2 kids, they've had prescription meds a total of 4 times including the Veramyst.

[Mommyintraining2]

That's interesting. I'll look into the spray.