It’s a Good Time to Love a Quitter
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Nobody loves a quitter, right? Well, that doesn’t necessarily apply when you’re talking about someone who’s trying to quit smoking. May 31 is World No-Tobacco Day. The World Health Organization encourages people everywhere to put down their smokes for 24 hours. Here in our little corner of the globe - Monmouth County, New Jersey - it’s our fervent wish that our patients learn to celebrate No-Tobacco Day every hour of every day.
If you smoke, your feet suffer
The chemicals in cigarettes, cigars, and vaping tools contribute to
Burning sensations in your feet
Numbness
Pain
Ulcers that don’t heal
Loss of bone mass
Three reasons to quit
Smoking puts you at risk for three diseases that threaten your foot health with symptoms like the ones listed above. They are:
Diabetes. The Centers for Disease Control says that smokers are 30-40% more likely to develop Type 2 diabetes than non-smokers. In addition, smoking makes it harder to control high blood sugar in people who already have diabetes.
Cardiovascular disease and PAD. Smoking is one of the leading causes of heart and blood vessel disease. Smoking clogs your arteries with a buildup of plaque. When the arteries in your lower limbs are clogged, we call that peripheral arterial disease or PAD.
Buerger’s disease. Like PAD, Buerger’s disease affects the blood vessels in your feet. Rather than being blocked with plaque, however, blood vessels become inflamed and blood flow is restricted.
To our patients who smoke we say, “Be a quitter!” Your feet will thank you. For excellent advice and support in your efforts to quit tobacco products for good, talk to your primary care physician or one of our board-certified podiatrists here at Affiliated Foot & Ankle Center, Dr. Samantha Boyd, Dr. Hal Ornstein, Dr. Dan Phan, and Dr. Joseph Saka. For excellence in foot care, smoking-related or not, contact us at our offices in Howell and Jackson. Call (732) 905-1110 or make an appointment online.