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Smoking is unlikely to affect your bloodwork but can certainly affect your healing. Be sure your surgeon knows you are smoking. They are likely to want you to stop well before and after your procedure.
The only lab test that would be affected would be a blood carboxyhemoglobin or a urine nicotine. Both of these tests we use to screen people who have reported that they quit smoking. You should be less worried about beating the tests than you are about having a safe outcome i.e not smoking.Cigarette smoke contains 4000 toxic substances. Theeffects of each of these substances on the outcome of a breast augmentation hasnot been studied individually. The most important issues with cigarettesmoke is the carbon monoxide, which compromises the oxygen delivery to thehealing tissues, and the nicotine, which causes spasm of the blood vesselsdelivering blood to the healing wound. Anything that compromises healingcan lead to an increase risk of infection, wound separation, or capsularcontracture. Just because there is no scientific paper which linksnicotine or carbon monoxide specifically to the development of capsular contracture,does not mean that an association exists but has not been adequatelyidentified. Clearly eliminating the smoke is important because of thecarbon monoxide poisoning of the blood. Eliminating nicotine is importantas well. It would be wise to stay away from nicotine until everything iscompletely healed.
Hello and thank you for the question. Smoking can be a major problem with certain procedures. We don't typically check for nicotine levels and smoking will not affect basic lab results. Having said that, you should be honest with your surgeon and let them know if you smoke.Best,Pejman Aflaki, M.D.Johns Hopkins trained plastic surgeon
Smoking will not effect routine labs, such as blood counts (CBC) or blood chemistry (BMP or Chem 7). Many surgeons will order a urine test to determine if there patients are smoking. It is called "urine cotinine" and will be positive if someone has had one cigarette in the past 7 days.
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.
