ADVERTISING: Advertorial — Does smoking affect healing?

There aren’t many things more crucial than the air we breathe. We don’t live long without oxygen. Permanent brain damage begins after only 4 minutes without oxygen, and death can occur as soon as 4 to 6 minutes later.

As we know, we get oxygen from the air we breathe. If we can only live for 4 minutes without it, it is critical to our survival. Oxygen helps organisms grow, reproduce, turn food into energy and heal.

Smoking slows the healing process down. Chemicals found in cigarette smoke can cause many changes in the way the body handles oxygen. We have a molecule called hemoglobin that transports oxygen throughout the body. But when hemoglobin is exposed to cigarette smoke, the amount of oxygen it normally can carry is decreased. Small blood vessels in the body become too narrow, making it difficult for hemoglobin, which carries oxygen to get to the areas where they need to get.

Smoking already makes blood vessels narrower, but it also makes blood thicker. The thicker the blood gets, the harder it is to flow through blood vessels. Less blood traveling through the vessels, means less oxygen getting to certain tissues. With less oxygen, the body has a more difficult time healing. Oxygen is crucial for healing of tissues. It is involved in numerous biological processes including cell proliferation, angiogenesis (the formation of new blood vessels) and protein synthesis, which are required for restoration of tissue function.

Recent research shows that smoking has other far-reaching effects. It slows healing after many common injuries:

• Broken Bones — Smoking increases your risk for vertebral, forearm, and hip fractures.

• Osteoporosis — Smoking decreases bone density, increasing the risk for osteoporosis.

• Muscle pain — Muscle pain often appears after an injury and is a common complaint in chronic conditions like fibromyalgia. Decreased blood flow can interfere with the removal of lactic acid, leading to chronic muscle pain.

• Herniated discs — Decreased blood flow in the capillaries surrounding the spinal discs causes a decrease in oxygen and nutrients to the disc and may increase the risk of disc degeneration.

• Wounds — With the lack of oxygen and nutrients needed to heal, smokers have trouble recovering from surgeries. There is an increased risk for wound infections, scarring and torn stitches.

The short answer is yes. Smoking inhibits your body’s ability to heal. This doesn't necessarily mean that you will never heal, however it will take much longer and make the job much harder for your body to accomplish.

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Dr. Wayne M. Fichter Jr. is a chiropractor at Natural Spine Solutions. The business is located at 3913 Schreiber Way in Coeur d’Alene. For more information, please contact us at 208-966-4425.