Following your surgery, when you emerge from your anesthesia, you will have a large bulky neck dressing in place. This dressing will usually consist of a soft cotton fluffed bandage, and will provide gentle support for your wound. In most cases neck drains will usually not be necessary.
Depending on the extent of your surgery, and whether one or both lobes of the thyroid have been removed, an overnight stay in the hospital may be necessary. In most cases where both thyroid lobes have been removed at the initial surgery, or when a second lobe has been removed at a second operation, the doctor may wish to observe you in a monitored setting in the hospital. The reason for this, is that the small pea sized glands that are usually present directly behind the thyroid, and control the regulation of your calcium blood levels, (parathyroid glands) may be disturbed during your thyroid surgery and any fluctuation in your calcium levels may need to be regulated.
The doctor or nurse will usually remove your dressing the morning after surgery. The dressings will usually remain off, and the wound kept open to the air. You may be asked to apply some antibiotic ointment to the incision site once a day. It is important to keep the wound dry for at least the first seven to ten days after your surgery. In addition, it is also very important to limit your physical activity, and avoid any straining or heavy lifting that could potentially raise your blood pressure, and cause bleeding into the neck.
There will be small adhesive tapes across the incision that reduce the tension on the incision. These will fall off by themselves in approximately one week. The antibiotic ointment if prescribed, can be applied directly over these tapes.
You will be prescribed antibiotics to take by mouth, as well as pain medication to take as needed. Please keep in mind that narcotic pain relievers which you will be given, as well as the residual effects of anesthesia, can cause nausea and vomiting.
It is normal to expect some minimal blood tinged oozing from the incision site for the first few days post op, as well as some minimal swelling in the area around and above the incision. This should gradually decrease during the first post op week.
Potential complications of thyroid surgery include injury to the nerves that control the vocal cords. This can result in temporary or permanent hoarseness, or in rare instances, the need for temporary tracheostomy tube placement. Other potential complications involve injury to the parathyroid glands which are responsible for regulating calcium metabolism. An injury of this type may require long term medical regulation of blood calcium levels.
You should not experience any significant bleeding from the wound, any progressive or sudden neck swelling, any difficulty breathing, nor any severe pain on swallowing, although a minor sore throat is normal. Should you experience any of these things during the post op period, you should contact us through our answering service. Dr Durante, or Dr Patel will call you directly. Should you experience any sudden or severe difficulties, go directly to the Emergency Room at Jordan Hospital, and one of the doctors will meet you there.
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thyroid surgery may be performed for hormonal reasons. The important structures in close proximity to the gland (nerves that make the vocal cords work and fragile blood supply to the parathyroid glands) necessitate a careful and systematic approach. We often use special electrical sensors to facilitate identification of the important structures making the surgery safer. Identification and removal of one or more of the parathyroid glands (which can be a challenging procedure given their small size variable location and subtle color difference from the surrounding tissue) can also be facilitated be both preoperative and intraoperative localization techniques.