You increase your chance of complications with every cigarette you smoke. The nicotine in the cigarette will cause the blood vessels to tighten, and that can interfere with your healing. Is it worth having a cigarette to jeopardize the whole procedure?

Published on Jul 11, 2012

Smoking always presents a risk to any type of surgery. I have my patients quit smoking before surgery. If you know you have a surgery scheduled, do not smoke before, during, or after surgery. It adds an unneeded risk factor during surgery as well as delaying healing time.

It sounds like you are not addicted to nicotine at this point, so I would advise you not to smoke at all during this time. This being said, one cigarette probably will not affect you, but it may affect your healing afterwards.

Published on Jul 11, 2012

There are certain procedures that any type of smoking can have major deleterious consequences. These include procedures in which the blood supply depends on the microvasculature function. These procedures typically include any type of procedure where there are segments of tissue mobilized and moved into new position. Some common ones that are important to consider are: tummy tuck, face lift, breast lift. These procedures combined with smoking will have deleterious consequences because of vasoconstriction effects of smoking byproducts.

There are other procedures that have less damaging effects as related to smoking, and these include liposuction and some of the general surgical procedures. Contribution of smoking to capsular contraction is significant and can increase the rate of contraction to twice the normal rate. This increase is concerning enough that we often forbid our patients to smoke before and after surgery. Capsular contraction is a very difficult problem to fix and often has long-term issues that will result in removal of your breast implants.

Published on Jul 11, 2012

Smoking puts you at increased risk of virtually every illness, from lung disease to breast cancer, not to mention aging of the skin. The short term risk is small. I believe you increase your risk of capsular contracture in the short term.

Published on Jul 11, 2012

Smoking definitely interferes with healing as well as anesthesia, but one cigarette should not make that much of a difference. The concen would be more for a facelift, tummy tuck and breast uplift procedures.

Published on Jul 11, 2012

We err on the side of safety. Dr. Stein will not operate on ANYONE who smokes at all one month surgery, and we would advise no smoking for one month after. I wish you good luck.

Published on Jul 11, 2012

There is always a risk with smoking and surgery; however, more so with facial surgery than breast surgery. While it is recommended to not smoke at all approx. 2-3 weeks before and after surgery, it is unlikely 1 cigarette 24 hrs before and after would be too concerning. There is no real data to provide you with the impact this amount of smoking would have on the development of capsular contracture. Obviously, plastic surgeons would like their patients to follow all pre- and post-op instructions to ensure optimal recovery and results; however, we know this isn't always the case.

Published on Jul 11, 2012

We suggest that our patients be nicotine-free for one month after a breast augmentation surgery. What concerns us the most is smoking causing a lack of oxygen supply to the healing incisions, which could cause them to not heal correctly, potentially the incision opening, and leading to the patient losing their implant.

Published on Jul 11, 2012

Congratulations on your recent surgery.

Your surgeon is your best resource regarding what you can/ cannot do after surgery. One cigarette should not cause an issue, but I generally ask patients to not smoke immediately after surgery and to allow their body to completely heal.

Best wishes for an outcome you will be pleased with.

Published on Jul 11, 2012

We know from multiple studies that smoking adversely affects the healing process and that patients who are actively smoking before and after surgery have higher complication rates across the board when compared to non-smokers. That being said, I would agree with your doctor that for the surgery you had it is not that big a deal and I am not aware of any study that found smoking increased capsular contracture rates. We worry more about smoking for surgeries like facelifts, breast lifts and tummy tucks.

Published on Jul 11, 2012