I'm scheduled for surgery at the Miami Va. I'm having the works. UPP,tongue advancemenet, and turb's and septum. I amagine things Friday afternoon should be interesting. Any one have a any advice as to what to eat and what to expec t. I read your comments and found comfort thanks. I'll post on Monday to give you an update

Well today is finally the day.  I havent slept well all night and have been up since 1am. It is 5am now, I need to be at hospital at 6am.

Nobody likes surgery.

The surgery is scheduled for 730am in a downtown Boston hospital doing a mild UPPP, Nasal Septoplasty, and Turbinate Reduction.  I already had my tonsils out earlier from the same surgeon who was great.

I expect to be home and posting messages by noon! Modern medicine "cut em up and kick em out".

Drjayii


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Off CPAP Post Surgery
Formerly: Respironics M Series AutoPap

Just got back from the hospital.  The surgery took about 2 hours, a little longer than I expected.

They gave me some IV pain meds at the hospital, and right now I just took 4pm of Dilaudid (oral).

Nose is completely stuffed, bandaged, bleeding.  I can definatleiy tell swallowing is a bit bizzare, given the swelling, but that should go down as the healing process continues.

So anyway...now starts the recovery!


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Off CPAP Post Surgery
Formerly: Respironics M Series AutoPap

So far the pain is very managable.  It is a bit difficult to swallow, and I did get the water up the nose sensation a bit yesterday, but that seems to already be getting better as the swelling goes down.  The MD said that should be expected.  The nose is draining a lot mostly clear liquids by now.  So far so good.


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Off CPAP Post Surgery
Formerly: Respironics M Series AutoPap

drjayii wrote:

So far the pain is very managable.  It is a bit difficult to swallow, and I did get the water up the nose sensation a bit yesterday, but that seems to already be getting better as the swelling goes down.  The MD said that should be expected.  The nose is draining a lot mostly clear liquids by now.  So far so good.

Glad to hear the good news that everything is ok. Keep up the good work. In my experience, every new day is better than the last. I had my surgery a year ago and I am so happy that I did.

Well it is day (4).  The splints in my nose totally block all airway passage thru the nose.  The splints come out on Tuesday morning around day (8).  The pain is very easy to deal with.  Having splints shoved up your nose is an annoyance new to me.  I'm very tired.  I'm not sure if my body is in "post surgery" healing mode...or if fully blocking my nasal airway is complicating my normal sleep.  I might not be breathing 100% "normal" given my nose is completely blocked and I may have daytime fatigue as a result.

The palette is fine.  I've been eating fairly normal soft foods and getting them down.  The uvula removal is far less painful than the tonsil removal.  I'm pretty sure I am going to take (2) weeks off from work not just the (1).  I will be getting the splints out on day (7-8) and want to get some sleep before returning to work.  I will probably take the following week off as well.

Hopefully once my nose opens up I'll start sleeping and breathing normally.  Jason


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Off CPAP Post Surgery
Formerly: Respironics M Series AutoPap

Anyway...On Day (5) I called the MD and asked if he could take the splints out of my nose.  Only being able to mouth breath for (5) days was getting to be unbearable.  The MD said fine, and took the splints out.  My nose is now 70% open and he said the rest is swelling which will go down.  The pain, with no medication, is about 2-3 of 10.  I think I'm going to take some Tylenol this morning as the powerful pain meds dope you up and zombify your day.  I had a turkey sandwich on hard wheat bread last night.  I think that's another reason my throat hurts.  Oh well.  That's the day (5) update on mini-uppp, setoplasty.


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Off CPAP Post Surgery
Formerly: Respironics M Series AutoPap

OK so here I am a 59 YEAR OLD Female, 4 Days out UPPP/Tonsilectomy Surgery.  I really dont know where to start.  I guess the pain issue would be the first thing.  I was finished with the UPPP surgery  at 930am on the 21st, so I will call that 1 day of recovery.  Today is the 24th of May that would make this day 4.  I HAVE NOT EXPERIENCED ANY  of the HORRIBLE pain that anyone else here has...in fact as of today on a scale of 1-10 it is about a 1-1/2.  Here is the clincher, the only meds I am taking is childrens ibuprofen elixer 3 times a day and staying hydrated.  I am following DR.'s rules to the nines.  Granted it hurts a "little" but not at all what has been posted on this site.  Tomorrow is only day 5 so I will see if anything changes, but for now this is about the least amount of pain I have ever endured, for such an extensive surgery.  The improvements  I can already see, and feel are monumental.    My Surgeon is TOP NOTCH and REALLY knows his stuff, so since EVERYONE here has had such a TERRIBLE time of it with this surgery I suggest you get in contact with me, I will refer you to my surgeon here in Chicago.  The WORST problem I am having is with the stitches in the back of my throat, they motivate me to cough, I hate that.  I dont want to spring a leak...lol

Honestly, I dont want to jinx myself but even IF this surgery is NOT A COMPLETE success, it cant do any harm!!!!!  My airway is open so that when I breathe in I ACTUALLY GET AIR...ALL THE TIME, not just when I am asleep, you just cant put a price tag on that one!!!

I will keep  posting to see how the progression from healing of this surgery is going....Remember I am 59 Y. O,  I am NOT SUPPOSED TO HEAL as fast as YOUNG PEOPLE.

Oh heres another thing.  I live alone and with the exception of a one night guest I have been able to do this by myself!!!  GOD IS SO GOOD!!!!!!  In fact my dog got sick today and I was actually taking care of him!!  LOL

Again, I wanted everyone to know MY truth about this surgery for me, and I am not at all being smug about the recovery nor the results.  I put my faith in GOD and let GOD lead me through ALL LIFES ORDEALS... This being one of them.

Final Note!!! ANYONE NEEDING THIS SURGERY TO IMPROVE THEIR LIFESPAN GO FOR IT.  DON'T LET ANYONE STEER YOU AWAY FROM IT...

dont be scared!!!!

Nervous15

Just wanted to add information about the fluids after UPPP/Tonsilectomy Surgery.

I am in Day 4 of recovery and I have not had ANY sensation of fluid backing up into my nose.  The REASON for that is when surgeons do this proceedure they REMOVE the UVula, or shave it down way to low.  THAT'S the problem.  I drink SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much water its unbelievable and NOT through a straw.  I drink just as though I was drinking from a glass.  My gulps are not small they are almost normal sized, just not to many at a time.  If I do that I can feel fluid try and come through my nose.

Hope This Helps![/b]

I just posted but i went back and they are gone....OH WHERE OH WHERE can they be!!!!!!!

THERE THEY ARE MY BAD!!!

Nervous,

I can tell the pain meds are working   .  Glad to hear from you.  I was about to PM you to see how you are doing.  Keep posting!

Vicki


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That which does not kill you makes you stronger-Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich must of had apnea.

Basically I wanted to make mention that I am on a minimal amount of pain meds and still are fending very well.  Thanks for the response

Hi,

I had started a separate thread here on this site yesterday, and I'm moving that content into this thread, so you'll see a couple of posts by me in quick succession to get myself on track with this thread.  Here's the first post that I had...


I had UPPP surgery 2 days ago, and I'm going to post my experiences here.  First of all, I'll start with a little background.  I am a 42 y/o male, 6 ft, 190 lbs.  I exercise regularly, and I'm in good shape overall.  I went through a sleep study and was diagnosed with moderate OSA.  The good news for me is that I do not have any sinus problems, I don't have tonsils, and my doctor said that my tongue is not a contributing factor.  My entire surgery consisted of removing the uvula and a portion of the soft palette.  I've heard that the tonsils and sinus are the worst part of the surgery, and I did not have to go through that.

The surgery itself took less than an hour.  When I regained consciousness in the recovery room, I was immediately aware of the pain in my throat, but pain meds had already been started in my IV, and at that time the pain was manageable.  Extremely sore, but manageable.  As the day progressed, I had very modest intakes of water and ice chips and nothing else.  Swallowing water, even on the meds, is like swallowing razor blades.  That's the bad news.  The good news is that during the periods of time that I am not trying to swallow the pain is significantly less.  

My doctor requires all UPPP patients to spend at least one night in ICU, which I did.  I'm glad that it was required.  It provided 24 hours of constant IV liquids, so my body has remained hydrated in spite of not drinking much.  Since the surgery 2 days ago, I have gotten several periods of sleep that last about 2 hours, but nothing more.  I feel rested overall because the sleep is off and on throughout the day and night.

While I was in ICU, the doctor had 2 pain meds working for me...morphine and hydrocodone.  The meds were administered in 4 hour shifts that were alternated by 2 hours.  That is, morphine followed by hydrocodone 2 hours later followed by morphine 2 hours later, and so on for 24 hours.  Every 2 hours I got a hit of pain meds.  Even with all of the meds, swallowing is absolutely torture.  There is almost no pain at all during the non-swallowing time just sitting still.

I got home from the hospital yesterday and felt much better than I expected.  I am now on hydrocodone every 4 hours, and I'm offsetting that between doses with liquid tylenol.  In terms of how I feel right now, I feel pretty good overall because I am not eating or drinking anything at the moment.  I thought I was going to feel a lot worse.  I actually feel good overall, but weak because I'm not eating anything.  I've also brushed my teeth twice with no problems.

It's now been more than 2 days since I have had anything significant to eat.  The only thing I have eaten was 1 small snack pack of applesauce and a few spoonfuls of orange sherbert.  That's it.  It was torture!  I'd rather go hungry than do it again.  I think what made it even more difficult is that the applesauce is not totally smooth and seemed to collect on the stitches, which made me try to swallow harder.  That was a rookie mistake that I won't make again.  I think I'll try Jello and Gatorade today and nothing else.  I also had a mug of hot tea with honey in it yesterday.  It has been the least painful thing to drink.  The honey seems to provide a minor coating.  Maybe it's just my imagination.

Sleeping is tough.  I'm trying to sleep propped-up so that I am less likely to breathe through my mouth.  I'm keeping my alarm set so that I don't miss a single dose of pain meds.  I can tell it would be a disaster to miss a dose.  I'm keeping the humidifier running to help keep everything moist.  In addition to the meds, I'm taking frequent hits of Chloraseptic spray.  I strongly advise doing that.

I have read many posts that indicate that days 5-7 are among the worst.  I asked my surgeon about it, and he said it is probably because nerve endings are starting to regenerate at that period of time.  I'm bracing myself for it.  He told me to increase my pain meds slightly if needed during that window of time.  We'll see how it goes.

I have 3 friends who have had this done, and they all agree that it has been worth it for them.  They each had tonsil and sinus problems too.  They agreed that removing the packing from the nose was the absolute worst part of the whole thing.  I'm glad I won't have to do that.

So that's where I am at the moment.  So far, the pain is significant, but it is manageable.  I have no regrets so far.  I am feeling much better than I would have imagined, although I am starving.  I'll try to post updates.

OK,

Here is my second post...


Here's an update.  If you count the day of the surgery (Thursday) as day 1 and today is Saturday, that means I am at the end of day 3.  It's been a very bad day.  The pain is very manageable with the hydrocodone, but swallowing anything (including water) is impossible.  I've been working on a single 12 ounce bottle of gatorade today, and I finally finished it this evening.  I'm very weak from a lack of nutrition, and swallowing is a nightmare.  I'm hoping tomorrow is better.  If I could just tolerate swallowing protein shakes and gatorade, at least I would have the fundamental nutrients my body needs to heal.

I'll post again soon.