Considering plastic surgery, but you smoke? Dr. Rogério Leal explains all the details of this subject. It is important to note that any plastic surgery, even the simplest, requires preparation with tests that assess the patient's health.
In general, it is recommended that patients who smoke stop smoking so that the procedure is safer and recovery is smoother.
Smoking: understand the situation
The problem of smoking is so serious that in 1990 the Ministry of Health launched a tobacco control program in Brazil. At the same time, several countries around the world stepped up their campaigns against the use of tobacco products.
The current world population is approximately 7 billion people and, unfortunately, even after all these campaigns, approximately 1 billion people continue to smoke.
Many of the patients who have come to us for plastic surgery, especially blepharoplasty, eyebrow lifts, chemical peels and laser peels, rhinoplasty, and rhytidoplasty, are smokers and are unaware of the risks that smoking poses during the postoperative period of our surgeries.
Recently, some patients had complications, and it is important to raise awareness not only among the general public but, above all, among patients who are candidates for plastic surgery.
What problems does smoking cause?
One of the major problems for smokers is that cigarettes, and nicotine in particular, act on our central nervous system. Nicotine reduces appetite, improves mood, and even relaxes the body's muscles.
The thing is, for smokers to keep getting these sensations, their bodies develop a tolerance and they need to smoke more and more. That is why one of the most important steps if you smoke, not only for plastic surgery but also to break the addiction, is to seek out a qualified professional to help you.
Before getting into surgical matters, I would like to point out something many people do not know: pregnant women who smoke pass all the toxins from cigarettes on to their babies, who are more likely to develop diseases, especially respiratory ones. Likewise, breastfeeding mothers pass all the toxins from cigarettes on through their breast milk.
As for passive smokers: if someone smokes, the people nearby also end up absorbing the toxins in cigarette smoke through the air.
And many people wonder: how did we get to this situation, with 1 billion smokers around the world, despite campaigns since 1990 trying to discourage smoking?
One of the problems is that the tobacco industry was one of the greatest marketing success stories in human history. To sell cigarettes, advertisements featured leaders around the world, famous actresses and actors, and especially athletes.
And how many cowboys had to die? How many prominent people ended up dying of lung cancer and other types of cancer or diseases before our society became alert? So that positive “Marketing Era” of cigarettes came to an end, and since then we have wanted to stress that the goal is to truly quit smoking.
Plastic surgery in smokers
When it comes to surgery, the major problems for smokers are the following:
In most cases, smokers do not breathe very well, which can make it a little harder to position the patient on the operating table during surgery.
At the same time, anesthesia may be affected. Nicotine causes vasoconstriction, a narrowing of the arteries and of blood vessels in general, which hinders the delivery of oxygen and nutrients to the healing area, increasing the chances of necrosis, thrombosis, and thromboembolism; it can cause the surgical wound to open at the suture line; and it can even alter the pigmentation of scars. That is why cigarettes and surgery are a major problem.
Specifically regarding rhinoplasty surgery, which is plastic surgery of the nose, patients who smoke may notice, in addition to impaired healing, severe dryness of the inner lining of the nose.
Our greatest concern about necrosis is precisely in rhytidoplasty, the facelift. And as for blepharoplasties, in addition to the –, there may also be dry eyes due to a reduced tear film. For this reason, it is essential to stop smoking for at least 30 days before and 30 days after surgery.
Skin care for patients who smoke
Lately, people have become increasingly aware of the importance of collagen for our skin, bearing in mind that it is formed by the combination of three amino acids with vitamin C. But it so happens that one cigarette can destroy approximately 50 milligrams of vitamin C.
This makes it easy to understand that, in addition to the circulatory problems caused by vasoconstriction, which disrupts the entire supply of nutrients to the scar, it also becomes practically impossible for smokers to produce good-quality collagen.
So it is essential to supplement vitamin C around the time of your surgery, before and after, in addition to what we have already discussed here: stopping smoking completely.
This content is for informational purposes only and does not replace a consultation. Whether any procedure is indicated depends on an in-person assessment, case by case. CRM SP 90.116 | RQE 11.350.
