Smoking Cessation
Smoking cessation is critical to improving your vascular health.
“Believe you can and you’re halfway there.”
– Theodore Roosevelt
Do You Smoke?
Quitting smoking is one of the most important steps you can take to improve your health. This is true no matter how old you are or how long you have smoked. Every American knows that tobacco products can cause diseases like lung cancer and yet many have little to no idea that smoking is also extremely bad for your blood vessels. For too many smokers, the first they learn of the connection is when a vascular surgeon diagnoses them with peripheral artery disease (PAD). The disease starts mildly with either no symptoms at all, or with claudication – calf, hip or buttock pains when walking that goes away when you stop walking. PAD is a progressive disease that slowly starves the toes, feet and legs of oxygen, which can eventually lead to gangrene and amputation if not treated.
How Does Smoking Damage Blood Vessels?
Here are a number of ways that cigarette smoking damages your blood vessels:
1. Nicotine is a stimulant, which speeds up your heartbeat — around 20 beats a minute faster — with every cigarette. It increases blood pressure and is a vasoconstrictor, which means that it literally makes your arteries smaller everywhere in your body. That makes it difficult for the heart to pump blood through those constricted arteries and it results in the body releasing its stores of fat and cholesterol directly into your bloodstream.
2. Smoking speeds up the hardening and narrowing of arteries. Stiff, narrowed arteries are common in elderly people. However, smokers experience hardening and narrowing earlier which leads to having prematurely “old” arteries.
3. Smoking increases “bad” cholesterol (low-density lipoprotein) and decreases the “good” cholesterol (high-density)
4. Smoking is prothrombotic, which makes it easier for the blood in your veins and arteries to clot.
What vascular conditions does smoking contribute to?
Smoking contributes to these arterial conditions:
Smoking contributes to these venous conditions:
How Do I Quit Smoking?
If you’d like to quite smoking, you’re not alone. About 70% of smokers in the U.S. would also like to quit smoking. After nearly two decades of counseling patients on smoking cessation, Dr. Tahara has seen just patients try just about every method available – medication, acupuncture, hypnosis, and quitting “cold turkey”. And you’ll probably be surprised by what he considers the most effective method for long term success: cold turkey.
Cold Turkey, Really?
Counter to what most people believe or read on the internet, at AVV we’ve seen that our patients’ best long-term success stories occur when patients quit cold turkey. Dr. Tahara says, “Quitting smoking is not easy but it can be done – and the best way to do it, is just to simply stop. It’s not special or magical. I’ve found that what this takes is a combination of educating the patient so they fully appreciate the potentially devastating risks of not quitting, a firm commitment to finally quit, an acceptance that the withdrawal process will take 2-3 weeks, and a lot of of encouragement from us at each appointment.”
Can Medications help me to Quit Smoking?
Medication is an option for patients who feel they need it and we will work with your primary care physician to steer you in the right direction.
ALL THINGS VASCULAR
Copyright © 2022 - Allegheny Vein & Vascular. All rights reserved.