I got diagnosed with Eagle Syndrome on 5 August, 2020 and had gone through surgery on 30 August, 2020. After Surgery my neck movement problem has been solved, but I have been suffering from few complications. I am on my 12 day post operation. I had tonsillo-styloidectomy on the right side. So still I can feel pain there. Every morning I wake up with severe pain. After a few hours the pain started to decrease but not permanently go. I have to take pain medicine which give me some comfort.
I cannot speak much and open my mouth wide. I am still not able to eat solid food. Sometimes I feel pain in my ear but it doesn’t last very long. I don’t know are they common complications after a tonsillo-styloidectomy? I want to know about it. My left styloid started poking my left tonsil already. Considering my current situation, I am really very afraid of going through surgery on the left side.
Unfortunately intraoral surgery can be longer & more painful to recover from than external surgery, because throat healing is very sore. If you google recovery from tonsillectomy as an adult you’ll see that your experience is quite common. There have been some discussions recently by Weezie & BFresh about their intraoral recovery.
I had external surgery & experienced similar with not being able to eat well or open my mouth wide with my first surgery, so that’s common with both surgeries.
12 days is still very early on in recovery, nerves can take months to heal, so you won’t know how well surgery has worked for a while yet, but good that you’ve seen some improvements already!
Keep up with pain meds regularly & hopefully that will help, & I’m sure that things will ease soon. Take care, very gentle hugs for you…
In many ways internal surgery can be awful. There is no way to know yet. It takes at least 3 weeks for swelling to start to recede and stitches can take longer to dissolve. if you do not see any sign of infection in your mouth and have no fever, just take it very easy.
Cold freeze pops and ice are your best friend.
A wedge pillow and travel v shaped pillow or u shaped are great. You can stuff an ice pack between the travel pillow and jaw and it will stay while you relax. Try not to do much. Unfortunately, it takes time. I think I started to come around by week 4, but I still had a feeling of something stuck in my throat for 11 weeks.
Hi Ischratchy,
What Jules & Emma have said is great advice. Icing your neck for 15-20 minutes & then waiting for an hour to do it again will help. It took me 2 months to get my energy back & start to feel better after both of my surgeries. It took almost a year for my nerves to heal though the pain was mostly gone by 9 months. You just had a major surgery.
It is also common in bilateral cases for symptoms caused by the remaining styloid to get worse after the first one is removed so that is not an unusual situation either.
Please be patient & follow the advice both Emma & Jules have given you. It will help a lot.
Thank you @emma for your advice.
I am having burning sensation where the surgery has been done. It is not going with cold thing or with pain meds. I don’t know is it part of healing process or something else. My appointment with doctor has been set for the next month. Should I consult for this or wait for a few days??
It cannot hurt to call and ask. You may need to go early. However, unless it is an infection, some pains cannot be determined after surgery. Nerve pain can be a burning pain. I am not much help.
You don’t want to risk leaving it too long if it might be an infection…but I do get burning in my nerves so it could be healing, best to get it checked in case though!