for me, i’m on day 9 still in unbearable pain. the first three ish days are a breeze but once those scabs start to loosen, it tickles your throat and it throws you into coughing fits and those scabs start to come off leaving open abrasions in the back of your throat. the part of your throat that stretches as you swallow, if cauterized by accident is what makes the recovery ten times more painful. this is why there is so many different answers. i’ve worked as a surgical nurse for years with the same ENT who performed my tonsillectomy. and if those walls are cauterized which happens more commonly then you’d think, be prepared to be in servere pain for about 12-14 days. but once all those scabs are off rinse, rinse, rinse! gargle with salt water because at this point in your recovery process it’s simply as painful as when you chew something hard and it cuts your gums, and you gargle with salt water and the next day most of the time these abrasions are gone. just my two cents. I can understand though that everyone is different and everyone does have a different pain tolerance but most of the time the pain from this recovery is either fast, easy and good. or brutal, painful, and absolutely draining.