A child’s tonsillectomy is typically done with general anesthesia, which means the child is fully asleep and not aware during surgery. The sources also describe common parts of the anesthesia plan, such as using short-acting medicines, lowering the oxygen level during airway work to reduce fire risk, and giving medicines to help with pain and nausea.

For airway control, the sources say a cuffed oral RAE tube is typically used for endotracheal intubation, and the child is usually extubated, or the breathing tube removed, when fully awake and able to protect the airway. In some cases, the team may use a rapid sequence induction, which is a fast way to go to sleep and place the breathing tube.

Pain control is usually part of a multimodal plan, which means using more than one kind of pain medicine to reduce opioid use. This is especially important in children with obstructive sleep-disordered breathing because they can be more sensitive to opioids.