Will smoking affect my lab work test?

While smoking (presuming tobacco) will not affect your lab work such as with a Chem 7 or CBC, it may have a direct outcome on wound healing as smoking, particularly nicotine, can reduce oxygen to healing tissues.  We recommend you stop all smoking prior to surgery and follow you board certified plastic surgeons perioperative advice.

Hello and thank you for the question.  Smoking should not typically affect routine lab test results.  If you are smoking though, nicotine can be detected in your blood, urine and saliva.  Smoking is not recommended (as you can see below) and you do need to be honest with your surgeon if you are smoking.  Cosmetic surgery is expensive; smoking can potentially ruin the result of a perfectly performed procedure.  My recommendation is to be free of nicotine for four weeks prior to surgery.  Good luck!Sincerely,Dr. Michelle Spring

Smoking is not something that will show up in your lab work but it can show up in the urine test if they are testing for it.If you are still smoking and planning on undergoing a cosmetic procedure, my advice would be to inform your surgeon about this.  Smoking and plastic surgery do not work well together and you could be heading towards significant wound healing issues.Cigarettes contain nicotine as well as carbon monoxide.  Nicotine deceases the blood flow to the skin and tissues and carbon monoxide decreases oxygen delivery to the tissues.  Some patients state that they have had other surgeries while they were smoking and everything healed fine.  However, other surgeries are very different than plastic surgery procedures.  Hope that helps.