Posted by hibb on February 25, 2004 at 06:48:10:

I thought I would include my experience here since this forum has really helped educate me.
I am a 45 year old male, 5'9" and 200 lbs. I have had mild sleep apnea for years and was prescribed the CPAP machine, which I couldn't tolerate.( I kep taking it off at night and never liked the idea of being connected to a machine). My ENT recommended the UPP3, tonsillectomoy, turbinate reduction, and septoplasty. Initially scheduled for 12/4/03, but then I got cold feet and cancelled after reading a lot of horror stories on this web site. I made an appointment with the doc to talk over everything and he answered all my questions and spent a lot of time with me (I was surprised.).
I rescheduled for 2/5/04 and went ahead with the surgery.
The first couple of days were no picnic. Very painful to swallow, even gulps of water. Took Percocet for pain, but it bothered me with dizzines. The doc switched me to Tylenol 3, but that had no affect, so he finally switched me to Lortab which worked wonders.
I forced the water as much as possible and kept the cool mist humidifier nearby and going full blast. After the first day, I was able to start sipping Ensure and sucking down Jello that was whipped up with whip cream.
By Day 4, I was overjoyed to eat (very slowly) a grilled cheese sandwich cut up into cubes.
Day 5, the ENT removed the stents from the nose and I could breath a lot better.
Each day has been a small progression in feeling and sleeping better. I tried to go back to work for half days after taking a whole week off, but it didn't work out. After a couple of hours at work, talking on the phone and doing things, I started bleeding from the throat and had to go home. The bleeding stopped within 10 minutes, but it scared me enough that I took the rest of the second week off to heal up.
Twenty days after the surgery now, I'm almost healed up all the way. I finally am getting stuff out of the nose and clearing up the airway. I found the best way to clear the nose was to stand in a warm shower while using saline spray up the nostrils.
My wife is happy that I am no longer the "snore machine" that I used to be. I still can not eat very much very fast without having pain from the back of the throat (maybe that's a good thing..it"ll limit how much I can stuff myself).
I'm starting to sleep a lot better, I can smell things I haven't smelled in years, and I can even hear things that I haven't heard for a long while. The only thing I lost, somehow, is my ability to whistle.
It's a scary thing to think about and get into, but if you spend the time up front investigating your ENT to make sure he has been doing these for awhile (also check your State Board of Doctors to make sure he doesn't have a lot of complaints against him)and prepare yourself to be out of commission for a couple of weeks and baby yourself, I think that it can be well worth it.

Follow Ups:

• Re: UPP3,Septo,Tonsils...A good outcome The Minotaur 09:39 3/02/04 (0)
• Re: UPP3,Septo,Tonsils...A good outcome Marco 20:36 2/25/04 (0)

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