Olympia Laser Resurfacing doctors

	William Portuese, MD Seattle Facial Plastic Surgeon 1101 Madison St Suite 1280, Seattle		1 answer
	Braden Stridde, MD Federal Way Plastic Surgeon 918 S 348th St Suite B, Federal Way
	James Brazil, MD Olympia Dermatologist 424 Lilly Rd NE Ste A, Olympia
	Arthur Foley, MD Olympia Plastic Surgeon 3425 Ensign Rd NE, Suite 300 Ensign Medical Center, Olympia

Recent Answers

Postpone Laser Resurfacing and Facelift for Smoker? I'm due to have Laser resurfacing, upper eyes and a lower Facelift in 1 week. I have smoked 2 cigarettes a day for the last week. Should I postpone my surgery?
For the last 6 weeks, I had cut my smoking from 1 pack to 2-6 cigarettes a day and as I said this last week I've had 2 cigs a day. I hopefully plan on smoking no more prior to surgery.

A: Smoking compromises surgical healing

Smoking is a real problem for facelift patients for a couple of reasons. Proper healing requires healthy blood supply and oxygen delivery to the healing tissues, both of which are compromised with smoking.

Nicotine is a vasoconstriction agent that can cut off blood supply to the skin causing the tissue along the incision line to die. This results in very poor healing.

The second issue regarding smoking is that there is a much higher carbon monoxide component in smokers than non-smokers. A higher carbon monoxide component means poor oxygenation in the tissues, which leads to skin necrosis.

Smokers also have a higher infection rate. The best idea is to stop all smoking at least two weeks prior to two weeks after facelift surgery.

William Portuese, MD

Seattle Facial Plastic Surgeon