Ask Your Plastic Surgeon About Smoking Before Procedures

Before your surgery, your plastic surgeon is likely to give you a list of things you should and should not do as you prepare to go under the knife. These admonitions will be to ensure your safety, prevent possible reactions with medications, and to increase the chances of a successful operation. What may or may not come up, however, is cigarette smoking. It’s something many people do, in spite of the well known health consequences, and if you are a smoker you should know about the possible hindrances you could cause to your own recovery.

What your plastic surgeon tells you about smoking may surprise you. One of the main side effects of inhaling nicotine and carbon monoxide is a restriction of the blood vessels. These vessels work by bringing oxygenated blood through the system. This blood is vital when it comes to healing areas that have been wounded (including intentionally, as in the case of surgery), fighting infections, and delivering medication where it needs to go. When the vessels are constricted, it makes it much more difficult for the blood to get to the healing site, causing complications and delays in the recovery process.

Any plastic surgeon who is being honest will tell you that a procedure always comes with some degree of inherent risk. This becomes more or less serious depending on the specific operation, the health of the patient, and the skill of the doctor. An outside influence such as smoking only serves to increase this risk for the patient. It could very easily lead to an increased chance of an infection setting in, pneumonia taking hold in the lungs, and the tissue surrounding the incisions to undergo necropsy, otherwise known as tissue death.

There are, of course, other reasons to consider ceasing your smoking habit. If you’re concerned enough about your appearance to see a plastic surgeon, you should be aware of the negative effects cigarettes have on your visage. They have a tendency to decrease the amount of elasticity in the skin, which leads to premature wrinkling and sagging, both of which are hallmarks of aging. This is why many smokers look much older than their age in number would indicate. If you want to look younger, putting down the butts would be a good place to start.

As anyone in the medical field knows, quitting smoking is one of the most difficult things a person can do. Some have even compared it with getting off heroin. There are medications, patches, and programs that can help you quit. If you don’t feel that you can do it at this time, consider postponing your desired surgery until a time when you can. Short of that, if you can stop for a few weeks both before and after your operation, it may be long enough for you to get through the surgery and the recovery process with minimal risk. Of course, if you can put them down for that long, you may find that you don’t need to pick them up again.