When an Orange County plastic surgeon tells you not to smoke prior to a surgery, it is with your best interests in mind. The reason they ask you to work towards quitting at least two weeks before your plastic surgery and hold off smoking through recovery and healing is because of the negative impact smoking has on your healing. Smoking impacts the body’s natural blood flow by restricting the vessels. Therefore, when you are cut open and the skin and muscles are asked to reattach, especially in a new location, there can be inadequate and prolonged healing that occurs. This leads to a large number of infections that occur post-surgery because of the effects smoking has had on the patient’s body over their lifetime.
Each patient is opting for elective plastic surgery in order to improve their appearance. Newport Beach plastic surgeons are simply trying to communicate the seriousness of causing unnecessary complications during the procedure and healing thereafter. Smoking will only bring on infections and unattractive skin scarring.
Plastic surgery and the subsequent recovery requires honesty from both the surgeon and the patient. On one hand the patient can find out if the doctor is board certified and has all of the other credentials that he or she claims. However, if the patient misleads the surgeon about their lifestyle habits that can hinder their life during surgery or compromise the success of the procedure, the patient is really only cheating themselves. Surgeons are really buckling down these days with restrictions for operating on smokers, for their protection in the short and long term.
Newport Beach plastic surgeon, Milind K. Ambe, MD, is an ABPS board-certified plastic surgeon. For more information on the effects of smoking or to schedule an appointment for Orange County plastic surgery, contact Dr. Ambe’s office at (949) 759-5539.
