My 9 year old daughter had a T&A two months ago for OSA and we have been waiting anxiously for some sign of improvement.  So far, we have seen no improvement in behaviour, enurisis etc.  Does anyone know how long it generally takes post operatively for some signs of change?  If improvement is to occur, is it so gradual that you don't notice it?  I am starting to wonder if the surgery will make any difference at all.  If any of you have experience with this, I would be grateful for your comments.

Hi. I am sorry to hear that you haven't seen an improvement in your daughter. How disheartening and frustrating.

My 4yr. old had a T&A on 12/21/05 and I saw improvement in her snoring about a week later, even more 2 wks later. Her enuresis was slower to improve. I am afraid that for my daughter the bedwetting had almost become a habit. Like her body knew she needed to pee, but her signal wasn't that important for her.  What I have done to help her progress quicker is a reward chart. I gave her a whole month after the T&A and then we started putting a sticker a night for a dry pull-up. At the end of the week she gets a prize that has been on display for her on the kitchen counter. That is also where her chart is so that when we put the sticker on we see the prize we are working for. I give her little things, but things  that I know she will be excited about.  For example once she fills in the next 7 stickers she gets a pair of new flip flops ($1.94)! She loves that kind of stuff and it has been a big motivator for her.

Her breathing is different a lot quieter (See post "My 4 yr. old daughter has been diagnosed with Central Apnea". I just posted today an update).

Have you had your follow-up with the ENT? What do they say?

Good luck.

Erika

Thanks for the feedback Erika.  We are now almost at the three month point and there is still very little change.  Her enurisis is not as bad, but still present nightly.  She still needs about 11 1/2 hours sleep a night or else she is very grumpy.  The ENT told me that it would take about 3 months before I would start to see change and then it would occur over the 3 - 7 month time period.  I was curious about that because other people I spoke with said their children improved within weeks.  I am not sure if it is due to her age and the fact that she has likely had apnea since she was an infant, and so has had a long history of poor sleep patterns that need to correct itself.

The other puzzling thing about this is that her enurisis in fact disappeared right after surgery for about 10 days.  It came back the day she started eating solid food.  She has alot of food allergies and so I am wondering if the enurisis is also tied into diet some how.

She has a follow up sleep study at the end of March, so I guess we will find out whether the OSA is gone or not.  In the meantime we will keep hoping for improvement.

As an aside, I was amazed at how quickly you got your medical appointments and surgery for your daughter Erika.  Here is Canada the wait times are ridiculous - I had to wait 5 months just for an ENT appointment and then another 4 months for the surgery.  I was actually lucky becuase the ENT was new in town and was able to see me.   The wait for a pediatric sleep study for a new patient is about a year.

If sleepdave is reading this, I would greatly appreciate his input re:  when improvement is normally expected.

tuckeredout wrote:

The other puzzling thing about this is that her enurisis in fact disappeared right after surgery for about 10 days.  It came back the day she started eating solid food.  She has alot of food allergies and so I am wondering if the enurisis is also tied into diet some how.

Isn't that interesting!

The list of foods associated with enuresis includes dairy products (milk, cheese, ice cream), carbonated beverages, artificial coloring, citric acid (Vitamin C), caffeine (hey, you'd be surprised)(or maybe not) or high sugar items.  Maybe try a food-elimination strategy.

Was she on any medications during the post-op period?  Anticholinergic drugs are used to treat enuresis, and you usually get one pre-op during these types of surgery.  But that's really a stretch, we still have 8 or 9 more days to explain.

But immediately post-op, the OSA is usually dangerously worse because of swelling, so the explanation that the surgery provided temporary relief is unlikely.

I'm assume you're working up the enuresis angle aggressively, and understand the difference between enuresis and incontinence.

But I'm not a very good enuresis source.  When confronted personally with enuresis (well, not personally-personally, just...oh, never mind) but I used a bladder control training strategy (during the day, wait till the last minute, then continue to try to wait x-amount of time) and although it produced great results, it doesn't seem like that's a really widely accepted approach, most folks go the opposite way.  Maybe this approach just produced some psychological confidence to explain its success, you know, like the child goes "Aha!  There's a physical reason why this happens, it's not me failing!"

But I think that's a good mindset regardless.
sleepydave