Sleeping
Sleeping is another big challenge during your recovery. You should not expect to sleep anywhere near your normal number of hours nor the schedule that you normally have.
The obvious reason for this is the pain. It will keep you awake and it will wake you up. It is therefor extremely important to plan your sleep around your medication schedule. Its also important to consider when you drink water as your throat gets very dry when you are sleeping.
The best strategy is to take your pain medication schedule and plan to eat about half an hour after taking your medication and then if possible fall asleep afterwards. This gives you the maximum time to sleep with the pain medication in your system. Most of the pain medication will wear off within 3-4 hours after which you may naturally wake up from the pain.
You need to decide whether you want to set an alarm to force you to wake up and take some more medication and drink water or to just continue sleeping. The advantage of waking up with an alarm is that you hydrate your throat and keep a constant level of pain medication in your system. As always I strongly recommend that you follow your doctors recommendation.
Sweet dreams!
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
I’m 29 year old male and I am now 4 days post surgery. Without a doubt I can say sleeping has been the worst part of the recovery. As explained above, when you are sleeping you aren’t hydrating and not taking the pain killers on a “regular” schedule. I have found that sleeping “up right” (either propped up with pillows in bed or in the recliner), and drinking lots when I do wake up has helped the most. Last night I didn’t do this, and woke up at about 4am in severe pain – after getting down a popsicle and then some water and a couple pain killers I felt better; but it was an excruciating 1.5 hours
HYDRATION seems to be the key to doing well! Best of luck if your recovering from a tonsillectomy!
I am 39yrs. old and a week post op from haveing my tonsails and remaining atnoids removed. Yes hyration and pain medication are the key to doing the best you can. And your pain medication cycle will be your food and sleep cycle. There is no way around it. It took me three painfull (very painfull) days to realize and I have,had,two back surgeries.
Sleeping around three hours is as far as I can go without drinking water and then an,hour later pain meds. Any longer and it is very painful to get the mouth moving again abd lubricated. So set an alarm for three hours at a time. But u really,dont have to cause your mouth will wake you up. Try not to sleep with a fan on or things that cause the air to dry. A humidifier by your bed,will help great. I hear about there being a light at the of the tunnle dealing with post op healing, I just hope that light shines on a nice plate of nachos and a burger and fries.