What risks are involved by smoking cigarettes before major surgery?

Question

Is the problem with recovery time?

Answer 1

The first thing is that cigarettes contain carbon monoxide which is a poisonous gas which stops your blood from carrying around the oxygen which you need. If you have a general anesthetic the amount of oxygen you get from the machines may not be enough because your blood is busy carrying around the carbon monoxide.

Because your body is short of oxygen it makes the bone marrow make more blood which means you have thicker blood which is sluggish and gives you the risk of blood clots.

Obviously the thick sluggish carbon monoxide carrying blood can't help tissues to heal quickly and properly....so poor wound healing and infection...

Hope that helps....if you cant stop at least cut down.

Answer 2

Infinite.

Nicotine is a poison; it is commonly used in insecticides. If you are taking poison then you are harming yourself and any compromise in the immune system or your health could result in complications or even death from the surgery. The risk would be there even in the case of a minor surgery.

People think that cigarettes just cause cancer, what they don’t' realize is that this is only the worst problem and the one that kills the most people. Tobacco has nicotine in it and that is poison. When the cigarette is made other ingredients are added to "improve it." Recently, the cigarette manufacturers have been adding ammonia to improve the nicotine delivery and make the cigarette more addictive. You would never consider drinking ammonia and the fumes of it are enough to make a person ill; why would you want to smoke and inhale it?

Cigarettes are bad enough, smoking before undergoing a major surgery is just shaving a dozen points or so off your chance of coming out okay. Would you want the surgeon to grab a handful of dirt and sprinkle it into the wound before sewing it back up? That could be safer than smoking before the operation.

Answer 3

Smoking will NOT cause anesthesia to "fail". What is DOES do, is make your airway more reactive, so that when we put the breathing tube in, your trachea and bronchi will be more irritated than a non-smoker's will. You'll buck on the tube, raise your blood pressure, and maybe have asthma symptoms. If it's a big surgery, you might get to spend some extra time on the ventilator.

When the surgery is over, you'll try to cough up a lung. If you just had belly surgery, that is going to HURT. If you have thyroid or carotid surgery, you could start things bleeding by raising your blood pressure, and have to go back to the OR for emergency surgery to stop the bleeding.

Smokers have higher than normal levels of carbon monoxide in their blood, CO takes up space that oxygen could use, so your tissues don't get as much oxygen as they should. That can delay healing.

The plastic surgeon I work with won't operate on smokers because he knows the complication rate is higher and the results poorer.

All smokers eventually have vascular disease, so the arteries feeding your heart and brain don't get as much blood flow as they should. You are at higher risk for heart attacks and strokes, not only under anesthesia, but all of the time.

I see people killing themselves all the time with their addiction. It's sad. I had a lady today who was 47 but looked 70. She already had one leg chopped off from vascular problems, and they were trying to save her other leg. It'll eventually go as well. Cigarette ads don't show people like her.

If you smoke, keep trying to quit until it works. Try Chantix - a prescription stop-smoking medication. It's the most effective thing to hit the market yet.

Answer 4

The mere fact you are asking this question indicates you are aware it is not a good idea.

If you are having general anesthesia and will be on a vent during surgery and you have been a long time smoker, it may delay your extubation.

Also since you are a smoker and most facilities are not smoke free, you will experience with draw symptoms while recovering. Hopefully your surgery is not heart and your doctor believes in using a nicotine patch while you are unable to smoke.

Good luck.

Answer 5

Smoking does a number of things.

The major thing is that it VASTLY impedes healing and increases the risk of having a wound dehiscence and infections.

It also decreases the amount of oxygen your blood can carry.

Answer 6

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Answer 7

Carbon Monoxide Poisoning and Failure of Anesthesia.

Answer 8

cigarettes are stimulants, stimulants raise your blood pressure, heartbeat rate. surgeons try to lower your blood pressure so that there is minimal loss of blood during the operation and lessen the risk of trauma and shock during surgery.

Answer 9

the anesthesia might not be able to have effect on you. and the recovery time? I don't think that it might affect it, but it might and so the result is your healing process would be slow.

Answer 10

It can restrict the blood flow to the heart for one thing!! Bad idea!! Dont do it x