Question:
I am a social smoker, smoking a cigaratte only occasionally. Is there any harm done

I am a social smoker, smoking a cigarette only occasionally. Is there any harm done to smoke a cigarette after RNY?    — PatriciaAE (posted on August 30, 2007)

August 30, 2007
If you are only a social smoker, I would suggest quitting for 2 weeks before surgery. I am a heavy smoker and I smoked up until the day of surgery. When I woke up from surgery, I was on a ventilator and my wrists were tied to the bed so I could not pull the tubing ut of my lungs. I was only on the ventilator for 2 days. Was not fun. Of course after surgery when I got home I started smoking again and ended up getting tissue necrosis from smoking. Tissue necrosis does not allow blood to flow freely into the healing part of your surgery. I was lucky my hole in my stomach on the outside was only abut the size of a half dollar. Took 8 months to heal. NOW, if you wait til you are all healed up from the RNY surgery, then you can resume smoking but I advise waitint til your incision is all healed up. Best Wishes!! Mickey............
   — MCraig3

August 30, 2007
If you are only a social smoker and you are going to take such a big step to better your health by having RNY why smoke at all. It isn't a good thing. I know how hard it is to stop smoking I smoked for 30 years.....you can do it and it will make such a difference in your life & to your family's life as well. Good Luck. Jodi
   — [Deactivated Member]

September 2, 2007
I was told that if any signs of smoking show up in the preop blood work, that the surgery is cancelled. Paula P
   — paulakp

September 2, 2007
There is harm done *whenever* you smoke... wls or not. But I am sure you already know that. As far as the RNY goes, smoking before surgery and during the recovery period is very dangerous. Poor healing, more anesthesia complications, and respiratory distress are major problems. I cannot think of any reason why smoking would be more harmful after having an already healed RNY. Lungs are lungs. I haven't tested this, but I assume that because of the weight lost, the concentration of smoke/toxins in your body will be higher than it was pre-WLS. A cigarette puts out the same amount of smoke/toxins but when you are 300lbs, the toxin is spread out thru 300lbs of skin/tissues/muscle/blood/etc.... if you have lost 150lbs and now weight 150lbs, you will have double the concentration of smoke/toxins. I would assume this higher level of toxins would be more dangerous but I've never tested it out. There is always harm done when you smoke a cigarette... it harms your health, the health of anyone unfortunate enough to breathe your smoke, damages the enviornment (mostly from the process of grown/harvesting tobacco, trees destroyed to make packaging and papers, and the use of various dangerous chemicals needed to process all of this), and of course monetary damages caused when a smoker gets sick and requires money and resources to treat completely preventable health problems. I encourage you not to smoke... try gum, keep some pretzels in a cigarette pack and munch on them...anything besides polluting your very important lungs.
   — mrsidknee