Spinal health hazard 'Tobacco, Alcohol', if only one had to be cut off
Jul 28, 2024
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This is the most frequently asked question by people with spinal diseases who usually smoke and drink, and the ideal answer is to quit both. This is because both tobacco and alcohol directly or indirectly affect spinal health. However, if a patient has undergone spinal surgery, it is cigarettes that must be stopped.
▶ Drinking worsens pain and smoking worsens illness
When the disk leaves its place, such as a lumbar disc disease, presses the nerve, or narrows the spinal canal, which is the passage through which the nerve passes, such as spinal stenosis, the nerve becomes inflamed and painful. Alcohol makes this inflammation worse. Alcohol, the main component of alcohol, is converted to acetaldehyde in the liver, a substance that causes inflammation. Therefore, drinking alcohol worsens inflammation by producing a lot of acetaldehyde in the liver.
Smoking can promote degeneration of the disc. Discs in our bodies are vascular-free, vascular-free tissues that naturally receive blood (nutrients) from surrounding bones as they move their bodies. If you smoke, blood flow disorders occur and the amount of blood to the disk decreases, which accelerates degenerative changes.
Choi Il-heon, director of the Spinal Clinic at Gangbuk Yeonse Hospital, said "Smoking can cause or worsen spinal disease by promoting degeneration of the disk. In addition, blood flow disorders caused by smoking also have an adverse effect on nerves, hindering the recovery of nerves damaged by discs or stenosis, and speeding up nerve damage, causing severe symptoms such as leg tumbling and numbness.
▶ Smoking after spinal surgery slows nerve recovery and increases the risk of spinal disunity.
In severe cases, nerve damage caused by lumbar disc disease or spinal stenosis can cause weakness in the legs or even urine disorders. Surgical treatment is needed at this time, and spinal surgery is typical of removing disks protruding from vertebrae or expanding the narrowed spinal tube to release nerve pressure, removing troublesome structures around the spine, and combining the upper and lower vertebrae into one. At this time, when blood circulation is active, damaged nerves recover well and bones unite well, and smoking interferes with this. Therefore, continuous smoking after surgery can not only slow nerve recovery, but also cause disunity that does not stick well in the case of spinal fusion. Therefore, it is best to quit smoking completely after undergoing spinal surgery, and if it is difficult, you must quit smoking for at least three months.
Choi Il-heon, the head of the hospital, said, `Reducing the number of cigarettes does not help much with spinal health, so patients who usually complain of chronic back pain or have been treated should quit smoking altogether"In addition to quitting smoking, we need to abstain from drinking." If you have had spinal surgery, it is recommended to abstain from drinking until the area where the surgery was performed for 6 to 12 weeks is fully recovered.
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bellho@sportschosun.com
