Up3 recovery

[megan]

Hello! I just had a t&a and a up3 on January 17th and im almost 100% back to normal! I was on Tylenol 3 for a week then i went for a check up and i was on perks and a anti fungal mouth wash! DRINK for the first couple days. Dont worry too much about food. your body wont let you starve yourself. Trust me you will be sore. drink, take your meds, and SLEEP. Im eating real foods on day 10 of recovery. Anyother questions? I was in the or for 2 hours becaue my tonsils were so infected that they made their own blood vessels and i bled alot. They basically crumbled when he touched them. I feel so much better. Everything is gonna go in your nose , so dont be alarmed. Youll be okay as long as you have a high pain tollerence.

[zonk]

Hello!

Hello megan and welcome aboard

[trish6hundred]

Hi Megan,
WELCOME! to the forum.!
Hope you continue to have a speedy recovery from your surgery.

[archangle]

Hello! I just had a t&a and a up3 on January 17th and im almost 100% back to normal! I was on Tylenol 3 for a week then i went for a check up and i was on perks and a anti fungal mouth wash! DRINK for the first couple days. Dont worry too much about food. your body wont let you starve yourself. Trust me you will be sore. drink, take your meds, and SLEEP. Im eating real foods on day 10 of recovery. Anyother questions? I was in the or for 2 hours becaue my tonsils were so infected that they made their own blood vessels and i bled alot. They basically crumbled when he touched them. I feel so much better. Everything is gonna go in your nose , so dont be alarmed. Youll be okay as long as you have a high pain tollerence.

Welcome and congratulations on the progress.

Please keep posting and let us know how well it works for you. We tend to only hear from the people who have problems with UPPP.

Did you have sleep apnea before the surgery? Did you use CPAP? Do you know your AHI numbers?

[cattiva]

I was told 70% success rate. so not guaranteed. but not terrible, if you are willing.

I have to agree with Archangle. Does anyone have any statistics on how many folks still have to go with CPAP even after surgery?

[trish6hundred]

Hi Cattiva,
WELCOME! to the forum.!

[me50]

I was told 70% success rate. so not guaranteed. but not terrible, if you are willing.

I have to agree with Archangle. Does anyone have any statistics on how many folks still have to go with CPAP even after surgery?

but the definition of success rate from the doc is probably different than the patients' definition of success rate.

[CounselorUSN]

Hey guys! I normally do not zombify an old thread for my first post but found you guys through doing a search for "UP3 recovery time" and decided to share my experience with you. This thread seemed the place already made for it but if you would like a new post made I can do that.

So, I was diagnosed with OSA in 2008 and they immediately put me on a CPAP after doing a "quick" turbinate reduction in my right nostril. It is only fair that I tell everyone before I go into my UP3 saga that I did, for 7 years, give it the "old college try". And in seven years I could not keep the mask on all night once. At all. As in never. I tried everything to get it to work from simply staying up until my body could not handle it then putting it on, to getting ripped drunk and having my wife put it on after passing out. Always the same thing. Mask was ripped off at night, machine still on. I tried Ambien, melatonin, herbal teas, Tylenol PM, regular sleep aids, you name it. Everything to try to get one night with that mask on. Not once in 7 years.

Here I am now getting ready to retire with 22 years of active duty service and I had to make some hard decisions. Having the UP3 was one of them. Compared to the quality of life I have had due to my apnea to this point I figured it could not hurt. My ENT is an Air Force doc who is extremely awesome, honest, up front, and transparent. He left no questions as to what the outcomes of what I was asking for could be. It has been a three stage process, which I will cover the first two stages quickly, before getting to the UP3 itself.

The first stage was, after examination, I had a severe deviated septum in my left nostril which was almost completely blocking air flow. Before he would entertain doing the UP3, he wanted to fix that and have another sleep study. So I had a septo-rhinoplasty and it was a huge success. Normal breathing took on a new life for me and my seasonal allergies did not seem so bad anymore.

The second sleep study showed that I still had OSA, but it had decreased from severe to moderate.

In fairness, my ENT asked me if I could live with the CPAP now. I tried. Still could not. So we had the UP3. That was seven days ago.

I will post again about the UP3 itself, the surgery and the recovery by day as the memories are still fresh.

[49er]

CounselorUSN,

Wow, you tried using the pap machine for 7 years to no avail? You deserve a big time medal. I have tried for 3 years without much success and plan to have deviated septum surgery next week in the hopes things will improve.

Greatly look forward to hearing your accounts of the UP3 surgery. I also wish you a speedy recovery.

[CounselorUSN]

D Day: March 5th - The day of surgery. Checked in at 0630. One patient ahead of me. A little boy getting tubes put in his ears. Having a daughter that had to have the same thing I chatted the parents and the little one. Think it made him feel better. My ENT came in and told me not to hate him. I laughed and told him I wouldn't. Then came the cocktail of pre-op drugs and lights out. Woke up about 1230 and seriously thought that they had left some pieces of surgical equipment in my throat. Nope, they assured me. The pain hit about 2 hours later. I have never thought about wanting to die until that moment. It seemed like life would never be without pain again. Took my pain meds and went to sleep.

D+1: March 6th - So by now I had taken stock of what had happened and grit my teeth with both determination, and the fear that nothing would ever be swallowed by me again. Realized that I had to eat something. This is where all the pre-op briefings came into play. My ENT had told me that I may be a "hot" or "cold" guy. Was not sure what that meant but now I do. Some people can take hot drinks and food better, some cold. Well, I found out quickly that I was a hot guy. Ate some apple sauce the first day along with an Atkins shake. The pain level was helped by the buckets of opioids that they had given me. But still had an involuntary flinch when I swallowed.

D+2: March 7th - Woke up after sticking to a strict pain med management and felt pretty dang good! Good enough to where I decided that some roast beef would be good. That lasted until it actually hit my throat. That cow got his revenge on at least one human that day for his death for consumption. So my diet has become warmed apple sauce, warmed beef and chicken broth with unflavored protein powder, warmed oatmeal, and, believe it or not, ramen noodles. Pain is managed but constant. Mind starting to believe that I will never eat normal again.

D+3: March 8th - Figured out by now that there was something worse to me than the pain that no one had mentioned. The phlegm and saliva. Usually you cough it up, suck it through the sinuses, or blow your nose. Well, these options don't really exit now as the act of trying to bring that stuff from the sinuses to the mouth for spitting or swallowing uses the same muscles that your now recovering palate uses and that is NOT happening. Got to keeping Dixie cups next to the bed for night spitting when I can get some stuff up. Food is the same. Tried adding some ice cream but cold stuff is still a no-no for me. Had some bleeding while in the shower but to be fair, that was because I was aggressively gargling to try to get some of that phlegm gone.

D+4 - D+6: Mar 9 - 11 - I combined these days because nothing really changed except for one thing. The ENT told me about referred pain. About how my ears would hurt because the throat and the ears share the same pain receptors. Well, this is true. What he did not mention is that the teeth can also hurt or become super sensitive. That was not cool to find out! So the pain did move around to primarily my right ear with most of the pain being at the uvula site and the right tonsil site.

D+6: Mar 12 - Some stitches came out today. Managed to get some phlegm out and there they were. I am thinking "Yay!". And it was a yay moment but now my whole diet has changed. Now my throat has decided that the apple sauce hurts now and my food has gotten blander. But that is okay because now I feels like my throat is healing and the mental perception is everything! Body getting used to the pain meds but I only have them for about another week then gone. Surgical follow up on March 18th.

D+7: Mar 13 - So here I am, just woke up, decided to post with y'all and share my experiences. I will post the rest of the healing story with you and most importantly, if it was successful.

I will say this, this is not something you do for a magic cure. It hurts. Really bad. But if you have tried everything else and it is being offered to you, give it some thought. I can see some benefit even now halfway though the healing process. But if you can sleep using your CPAP and life is good that way then don't worry about having this surgery.

Thank you all for sharing some time with me and I will post again in a few days with updated healing! Please feel free to ask any questions you may have and I will answer as everything is still fresh in my mind. Fair winds and following seas![/i]