Smoking raises surgical complications and slows wound healing in plastic surgery patients. The video compares smoking to vaping and nicotine patches, examining which poses fewer risks before and after procedures.
Foreign smoking following surgery causes significant risks. Any complication that can happen to a patient in general, including infection and wound problems and poor scarring, can happen to smokers, but in fact happens at a much higher rate. Complications such as wound healing issues can be very severe and can develop as much as two or three weeks after surgery. Generally speaking, I counsel my patients to stop smoking for at least four weeks before and six weeks following surgery. If they follow this, generally they will heal as if they were non smokers. However, even a single puff of a single cigarette in the period after surgery can result in a serious severe complication which can occur immediately and without warning. These kinds of complications can result in loss of large areas of skin or openings of an entire wound and require weeks or even months to heal. So smoking is a serious risk factor after surgery. Vaping and nicotine patches are more safe and don't have the same kinds of risk associated. And so in my practice, I accept patients doing those things following surgery. Having said that, not all surgeons agree, and many surgeons will instruct you to stop all nicotine products before they would operate on you.
