1.Do I have to have surgery for adenoids?
Surgery should only be considered if medication has proven to be ineffective. Please refer to the article on medication in this website for more information about medication. Generally, if there is no significant improvement after two weeks of medication, or if the symptoms are not relieved by more than half after four weeks of continuous treatment, surgery is more likely to be required.
2.Do I have to have surgery on my tonsils?
Tonsil enlargement, or recurrent tonsillitis (fever, sore throat), all need surgery. Drugs are not effective for recurrent tonsillitis and tonsillar hypertrophy.
3.Can adenoids surgery solve all the problems?
The best effect of surgery is to solve nasal congestion, snoring and breath-holding during sleep. It may improve the symptoms of sinusitis such as runny nose and cough, but it needs to be combined with medication.
4.What problems can tonsil surgery solve?
Like adenoidectomy, removal of tonsils can lift the obstruction of the upper airway, making snoring significantly relieved or disappear. In addition, if you have had recurrent tonsillitis before, you will not have any more attacks after surgery.
5. Do both adenoids and tonsils have to be removed at the same time? Is it possible to leave one of them?
Generally speaking, if the reason for surgery is snoring in a child over the age of four, it is best to remove all three (one adenoids and two tonsils) to prevent the tonsils or adenoids from growing again (compensatory hyperplasia) and requiring a second surgery.
6.Wouldn’t the immune system be affected if all three of the above are removed?
Removal of tonsils and adenoids in children over 4 years of age will not affect immunity. This is already a reliable conclusion after research, so there is no need to doubt.
7.Tonsillectomy is said to cause pharyngitis, is there such a thing?
The traditional surgery, mostly under local anesthesia, is painful and uncooperative for the patient, and bleeding is difficult to control. The surgeon performs the surgery under a very difficult condition, and sometimes a mucus-secreting gland at the upper pole of the tonsil is also cut off accidentally, and dryness of the pharynx or foreign body sensation may occur after the surgery. The method we currently use can avoid these disadvantages (general anesthesia, good exposure and vision, easy to control bleeding, no accidental cutting of mucus glands), so please do not worry.
8.How dangerous is the surgery?
For adenoid surgery and tonsil surgery itself, the biggest risk is bleeding, which occurs at a very low rate of less than 1%. However, since it is general anesthesia, the risk of anesthesia is much higher than the surgery itself, especially for children under three years old.
9.I heard that general anesthesia can affect the child’s intelligence, is there such a thing?
No, there is no such thing. The effect of anesthesia drugs on children is limited to the period of anesthesia and 24 hours after the end of anesthesia, after which there is no longer any effect on the body, let alone on intelligence.
10.How painful is the surgery?
Adenoids surgery alone is not very painful. Generally, children can move freely in the afternoon of the day of surgery, and can eat semi-solid food that night and normal food the next day. Most children do not look like they have just had surgery the day after surgery. Postoperative analgesia is usually not needed.
If combined with a tonsillectomy, the pain can be greater. However, recently we have been using post-operative analgesia technology. At the end of the surgery, the anesthesiologist will connect your child to an analgesic pump, which releases a small amount of pain relief into your child’s body through a vein on a continuous dosing basis, making it possible to be virtually pain-free for two days after surgery. You can eat semi-solid food the night of the surgery, which is usually taken for about a week. In the case of plasma surgery, it is generally recommended to eat for two weeks.
11.How long does the surgery take?
The surgery time for adenoids alone is about 20 minutes (meaning from the start of removal to the completion of hemostasis), and if combined with tonsillectomy, the time is about twice as long (60 minutes in total). But the child is in the operating room for much longer than that (about 150 minutes in total) because there is also pre-surgery preparation, anesthesia and post-surgery anesthesia recovery time. For the parents, it can feel like longer than a year.
12. How long does the hospital stay take?
The first and last full week, if admitted this Wednesday morning, then discharged the following Wednesday morning.
13.How long do I have to rest after being discharged from the hospital?
For children who have had tonsillectomy at the same time, if the school cannot provide semi-solid food at noon, you can consider resting at home for a period of time until you can eat solid food.
14.What should I eat after the surgery?
For adenoids surgery alone, you can eat semi-solid food that night and regular food the next day.
If combined with tonsillectomy, you can eat semi-solid food on the night of surgery, and you usually have to eat for about a week. In the case of plasma surgery, two weeks of eating is usually recommended. It is important to encourage your child to eat as early as possible so that more movement of the pharyngeal muscles can make the pain go away sooner and reduce the possibility of foreign body sensation in the pharynx later.
There is no need to eat, nor can you eat the so-called big tonic food, which will increase the possibility of bleeding.
15.Can I eat ice cream?
Yes. Eating ice cream can reduce the pain and will also reduce the chance of bleeding. But it is not necessary to eat, do not eat bad stomach.
16.Is there anything I can’t eat?
Except for the aforementioned tonic things, solid food, and overly spicy and stimulating food, all other things can be eaten.
17.Is there any food that can promote the healing of the wound?
No, there is no such thing. Ordinary food is fine.
18.When should I have a review after the surgery?
If there are no special circumstances, a follow-up check can be done once in half a month and once in two months after discharge. If you have other problems (allergic rhinitis or sinusitis), you will have to check again every month.