I had my full thyroid removed and honestly, felt pretty much OK after a couple of days. Still have a bit of tingling in my neck two years later, but that is no big deal (and is probably more due to the neck dissection anyway), did have some slight effect on my voice for maybe two months afterwards, but that was only an issue due to being a teacher (yard duty was fun as I couldn't make myself heard across a busy yard, so had students running around saying, "Miss says to come down from there," "Miss says we need to get ready to go back in to class," etc) and was a bit tired at night for a couple of weeks, like I'd get tired at 9pm or 10pm, when I usually wouldn't until 11 or 12.

The only tip I would really give is to follow any instructions they give you. I took painkillers at night for a while after the operation, but really, there was very little pain. Just discomfort.

OH! One thing, be careful of eating sticky things. Bit of a funny story. My mum came to see me in hospital and brought Pringles and After Eights. I wasn't sure if it was OK to eat crisps, so asked the nurse who said it was fine. Turned out, it was the After Eights I should have been asking about because the mint sort of got stuck in my throat. It wasn't a big deal or anything, just kind of went down slowly because my swallow wasn't as strong as usual. Just thought I'd mention it because it wasn't something I thought of. The crisps and all were fine, just sticky stuff was difficult, so maybe avoid things like toffee for a week or two?