What can I expect after surgery

[lorilou107]

I am having a right 3rd thyroidectomy on .Monday and I am slightly freaking out on how rough I am going to feel afterwards. I have had loads of operations due to a botched epidural which damaged discs in my spine but I've never had a throat operation before.

How will I feel for the next few days, will I be able to eat, will I feel unwell wandering around or will i want to be laying in my bed.I often have low BP after surgery so I'm guessing that I might feel rough to begin with. Will I be able to go back to my choir a couple of weeks later and sing again? I just don't know what to expect.

I have a large goitre which they are removing to check for cancer although I haven't felt well for months, long before the goitre came up and am hoping to get some medication after the operation as I believe my tsh levels are causing my symptoms of hypothyroidism even though the endo told me I won't feel any difference in symptoms once the goitre has gone as they are not related.!!!

Any advice would be fantastic,

thank you

Loubelle

[SilverAvocado]

This is a hard question, as it can vary a lot. Hopefully you've spoken to your surgeon about your singing voice, as one of possible side effects of the op is damage to the voice. Even more common is to have a tired voice for a while, and eventually it comes back to normal. I think I would plan to skip the choir until I'd recovered fully from the operation, or maybe just go to watch and drink tea if it's an important social meeting. You don't want to be too ambitious and make yourself feel like you've let yourself down if you can't do it.

I felt uncomfortable flashing my throat around for several weeks and maybe even months, moving it fairly slowly and carefully. I never had full on pain, but there was discomfort, particularly lying on pillows pulling on my neck.

There's a good chance you will need thyroxine afterwards, unfortunately you may still have a fight, as doctors assume you can be fine, but they do know 'small numbers' of people don't cope well with half a thyroid.

I was able to eat within hours, and was offered toast in the hospital, which surprised me but I was fine eating it. Others on my ward got up and put makeup on the next day to go home. I didn't do as well and staggered out in my pyjamas. I was mostly in bed for several weeks after, but lots of people are up and about, and can even go out on gentle outings.

[Hidden]

The goitre and the hypo/hyper symptoms are very much related, of that I am certain as this is precisely what happened to me. As soon as the multinodular goitre was removed I felt absolutely wonderful, for a few days anyway until I had to start taking the levo. And by that I mean I felt wonderful the morning after the operation and went skipping across the car park when they let me out a couple of days later.

However for the standard goitre some years before it was totally different when it tok 3-4 months for the remaining thyroid tissue to start operating properly again.

I imagine I am lucky as many people on the forums state that their experience is far worse. As with anything to do with the thyroid, you simply cannot predict how any individual is going to prosper as everybody is so different.

If they are removing the entire thyroid gland then you will be put onto levothyroxine soon afterwards. BUT that may very well not be the correct medication as it rarely is good enough for people like you and me. It certainly wasn't for me, I was forced to start on NDT eventually which I now have to buy myself from Thailand. Without it I could be bed-bound for the rest of my life.