Riddled with back aches, joint pain and incessant headaches, 50 million Americans suffer with chronic pain. About 18% of Americans are smokers, yet they make up half of the chronic pain patients who desire pain relief. You could possibly improve your condition with treatment, but you’re certainly worsening your pain if you choose to smoke. It’s awfully strange that nicotine in the lungs can make arthritis pain worse, but the organ systems in our body are extraordinarily interconnected and require proper maintenance to minimize those nagging pains.
What’s So Bad About Smoking?
Nicotine and tobacco, among many other detriments, narrow your arteries over time. When your blood vessels constrict, less blood can travel throughout the body and less oxygen gets to your organs and muscles. Since blood can’t circulate efficiently, your heart has to work that much harder to sustain your vitals and basic bodily functions. All these factors mean that your risk of medical conditions like heart disease, high blood pressure, and heart attack rises significantly. When your heart isn’t functioning up to standard, anything in your body relying on your heart (i.e., everything) also deteriorates. And that’s what causes the chronic pain to feel worse with each cigarette that someone lights. Smoking definitely exacerbates chronic pain, but it also shoves carcinogens into your body, making you 15 to 30 times more likely to develop lung cancer than non-smokers.
What Does Worse Chronic Pain from Smoking Look Like?
The research clearly indicates that smoking is one of the largest risk factors of chronic pain. Since smoking reduces oxygen and blood levels in your circulatory system, your spinal discs deteriorate from improper nutrients. That translates to smokers being three times more likely to have lower back pain, according to a study by the Cleveland Health Clinic. Smoking will also weaken your bones, increasing your chances of developing incurable osteoporosis.
Without the proper distribution of nutrients in the blood, smokers also experience longer recovery times and spend longer time in pain from arthritis and other health conditions.
Because smoking weakens the immune system, patients are less likely to qualify for innovative pain-relieving treatments that can be implanted. Smokers also become less likely to withstand the intensity of surgery. The surgeons can’t close wounds due to diminishing blood flow. If you do end up going into the operating room, your chances of infection in recovery skyrockets because your wounds can’t heal properly.
Smoking increases pain sensitivity because tobacco use increases the inflammatory response in your body. Inflammation is the direct cause of pain, as swollen tissues push against the nerves. Your tissues take longer to heal, but you’ll also be in more severe pain with any case of chronic illness. The cost of the temporary dopamine release that forces smokers into addiction is a long-term, never-ending slew of lingering pain that progressively irritates you with each passing day.
What About Alternatives Like Vaping and Nicotine Patches?
Vaping might be considered slightly safer than cigarettes, but it still has poor outcomes in its relation to chronic pain. Vaping is still linked to chronic lung disease and cardiovascular disease. Although e-cigarettes are believed to be a crutch for those wanting to quit smoking, medical professionals at Johns Hopkins said they’re just as addictive as traditional cigarettes. Since nicotine patches still induce nicotine into your system, many of the negative effects persist.
What Can I Do?
Smoking addictions are tough and extremely difficult to overcome. The best way to set yourself up for success is to have a network of support around you every step of the way. That might entail family and friends, but chronic pain patients should also include their primary care physician. In models like direct primary care, your flat monthly payment covers consultations with the doctor about any health issues, including smoking therapy. If you’re worried about the cost of seeking treatment now, don’t forget that the bill for worsening chronic pain due to emergency heart and lung issues will be exponentially more costly than a few doctor’s appointments and nicotine substitution medications.
Our team at Eagle Primary Care can help you get on the road to recovery. Give us a call at (512) 859-5662