Agile Tortoise
Greg Pierce’s blog
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UPPP, Tonsillectomy, Septoplasty: Day 7
I’m now exactly one week out from “minor” surgery to attempt to address my problems with Obstructive Sleep Apnea. I had three procedures in one fell swoop: UPPP, Tonsillectomy and Septoplasty. In simple terms, I had everything that’s considered unnecessary in the back of my throat ripped out, and the deviated septum in my nose repaired (along with general turbinate reduction) in an effort to open up my airway and allow me to breathe.
There’s a variety of opinions on the success rates of this surgery. It fixes apnea completely in some people, and my general physical profile suggested I was a good candidate to have success with it. ie, I had huge tonsils, am not overweight, etc. It will probably be several month before I really know the level of success I’ve had with it — but, I weighed a number of options and decided it was right for me. I’ve had a lot of trouble tolerating the high pressure levels of CPAP necessary to avoid apnea with my bad airway — and I’ve had a number of other recurrent issues over the years unrelated to apnea that may be improved by this procedure, like sinus infections and difficult to cure strep throat infections.
There were two incidents along the way that made me very hopeful about this surgery. The first being that the ENT I original was referred to started giving me a long speech about how he didn’t really believe in many of the surgical options for apnea in most patients anymore as soon as he came in the door. Then, he started explaining the specific set of narrowly defined conditions where it was likely to have very high success rate. Then he examined me and said, more or less, “Forget all that I said, you should have this surgery, you are exactly the perfect candidate for it.”
The other was at the anesthesia nurse at the hospital wanted to take a quick peek at my airway before the procedure, looked down my throat and said, “Wow! You definitely have a ‘difficult airway.’” Sort of suggesting it was amazing I managed to breathe at all.
As it stands, I took heavy duty pain killers for several days, and have mostly been surviving on Tylenol for the last few. The nose is really annoying, but should improve after I have the splints in it removed tomorrow. The throat is really painful at night, but pretty tolerable all day now. I don’t want to eat anything crunchy yet, but anything soft goes down pretty well. I’ve lost about 15 pounds, but don’t feel like I’m wasting away.
I’ve pretty much burned off all the brownie points I may have earn over 13 years of marriage by making my dear wife take care of me and our Summer-crazed kids all week (I love you, Sweetie!). Hopefully, this will at least be alleviated by not having to sleep next to a really bad snorer for the rest of her life.
I’ll update again on this in a few weeks.
June 19th, 2008 at 11:23 am
This was really the feed back that I needed. Just returned from ENT. Did you have ablation of base of tongue and inferior turbinates.?
Your post op doest seem too bad (
they told me to expect 10 painful days at my age of 58. I am considering this as soon as they can get a date hopefully July
S
June 19th, 2008 at 11:29 am
Not sure about the abalation stuff. I think not. It is very painful, don’t kid yourself. I’m at day 10 now and the throat is still really sore — like a bad strep infection sore. I have a pretty good tolerance for pain, but it’s quite uncomfortable and I’m still generally dragging. I’d say I feel at about 65% right now. But it’s getting better pretty quickly now.
I wouldn’t rush into this surgery. I got a second opinion. There are a lot of people who are encouraged to have it that don’t end up benefitting. I certain hope I’m not one of them, but ENT’s are a bit surgery-happy.
August 8th, 2008 at 7:06 pm
I just had this procedure done 3 days ago. I’m 20 and have had severe sleep apnea (my ENT who has been practicing for 35 years said my tonsils were the biggest he’d ever seen) since I was a kid. How did this turn out for you? Did your sleep apnea stop? I don’t smoke, don’t drink too much and am in very good shape (i play lacrosse in college) but sleep apnea runs in my family, does it run in yours?
August 9th, 2008 at 8:40 pm
I haven’t gone in for the followup sleep study yet, but I’d say I definitely have had improvement, but I don’t think the apnea’s totally gone. Apnea does run on my Mom’s side of the family…and I’m also, not overweight, or have other typical problems associated with apnea.
Hope it works out for you. It sure was b*tchin’ painful. greg.
October 7th, 2008 at 12:51 pm
I know what you mean about your throat feeling like you have a bad strep throat infection after undergoing a tonsillectomy; I had mine in my late 20s and thought I was going to die…it was only the hope of dying that kept me alive.
Seriously, for you to undergo these three procedures at once…God bless you! And your wife, too!
I sure hope you have great success from the procedures. Thanks for letting us all know how you are faring after undergoing this “torture.”