Rationale for full normal diet after tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy?

[GE90]

When I was a student doing clinicals in a children hospital (which was one year ago), every children who had ts&as were only allowed soft and fluid diet for the first day.

However now that I'm working in peds at a non-children hospital with no pediatric ent surgeons, notice that surgeons here always advice these type of patient to have full normal diet immediately after surgery and they said it helps heal better and faster.

I don't really understand the rationale behind, is there a new universal guidelines or is this just how my hospital works?

[blondy2061h, MSN, RN]

"We do not advise restricting the diet in any way because a restricted diet has not been shown to affect postoperative recovery [41,42]. Despite this, wide variability exists in the dietary instructions given to patients following tonsillectomy (with or without adenoidectomy). The most common advice is for children to start slowly due to the risk of postoperative nausea and vomiting secondary to anesthesia."

UpToDate

[roser13, ASN, RN]

The rationale that was taught to me was that a normal diet immediately post-up (advancing slowly, of course) was to "rough up" the scab as it was healing. Toughen it up, so to speak. That supposedly lessens the possibility of a fragile scab tearing away with the eventual introduction of solid food.

I even knew surgeons who advocated for handing out bags of pretzels & chips to the kiddos pretty quickly post-op.

[kakamegamama]

My throat hurts just thinking about this. As one who had a tonsillectomy at the age of 8, I remember most the PAIN of swelling, even on popsicles, ice cream, and other liquid/soft foods. I cannot even begin to imagine the "OUCH!" factor of letting them eat/giving them solid foods (pretzels? Yowzers!)

[meanmaryjean, DNP, RN]

Our ENT says 'if they're gonna bleed- I want it to be HERE and not at home' as a rationale.