Marijuana and Plastic Surgery (Ep. 60)

All right, so welcome to another episode of the Trillium Show. I'm your host, Dr. Jason Hall. Pot is now legal in most of the 50 states, and the use of marijuana is increasing incredibly. I mean, what used to not be talked about or talked about at Hush Hush is now, you know, banned. openly discussed, uh, and if you walk around the sidewalks of most cities in the country, you're going to smell marijuana out on the street.

It's generally thought of as being a relatively benign drug, certainly not nearly as bad as alcohol is from a recreational standpoint. And at the same time, there are some serious consequences to smoking marijuana that are not legal, that we need to consider when we're talking about surgery, specifically elective surgery requiring general anesthesia.

And I'll tell you just right off the bat, marijuana is not recommended before elective surgery. And I'll give you three reasons why. First is that it, despite being, you know, Relaxing, it causes a significant increase in heart rate and blood pressure, and this effect lasts for one to four hours after either smoking or chewing gummies or however you ingest it, you get this increased heart rate and blood pressure for about one to four hours.

And in elective plastic surgery, this is the last thing that you want, is high blood pressure and a high heart rate. We do everything we can to actually prevent that from the way we do surgery to our pain management and anesthesia. High blood pressure can cause bleeding, which causes hematomas, which can cause lots of problems, including return trips to the operating room.

Same thing with a high heart rate, which can, which typically goes along with high blood pressure. Additionally, so right after you take, Marijuana, the acute ingestion can increase your risk of cardiac arrhythmias or irregular heartbeats. And one thing that was surprising to me as I was doing research for this show is that the incidence of heart attacks in the first hour after smoking or ingesting marijuana is over five times the So if you have a 1 in 100 chance of having a heart attack, that rate jumps up to 5 in 100 or 1 in 20.

And with all of the junk that's in the typical American diet these days, and the early incidence of atherosclerosis, and early heart disease, and that's not all diet related these days, but that's a whole other podcast. And that's something that you really need to be aware of, that it does increase the rate of cardiac problems right after taking marijuana.

The second reason has to do with narcotic use and pain control. And I've heard a number of patients who have come through my office say, well, you know, I'll just use a, I smoke pot recreationally or take gummies or bake space cakes or whatever it is. I'll use that for pain control after surgery and I've seen this a number of times, it doesn't work well.

Actually it is exactly the opposite. People who use marijuana recreationally end up needing more narcotic pain medicine after surgery, not less.

Both the group who use it semi regularly in the group that use it often, require more narcotics than a group of patients that doesn't use marijuana at all. Now, if you're a cancer patient, if you've got bad nerve pains from other diseases, whether it is diabetes or cancer or something else, Marijuana does help with that pain, but surgical pain, it does not help and actually causes you to need more narcotic than you otherwise would.

And then lastly, smoking leaf marijuana actually is really damaging to your lungs.

Marijuana, the plant itself, burns at much higher temperatures than tobacco. And so it, while it doesn't have the tar and all the crap that's in a processed cigarette the, the thermal injury to your lungs is much worse. And this has been studied and it's smoking three or four joints. marijuana cigarettes can causes the same type of lung damage that smoking a pack or 20 cigarettes does.

And that to me was an astounding statistics because marijuana cigarettes joints are not thought to be that damaging to your lungs. Additionally, you know, the vaping part of it. is another part. And that, that vaping in general is terrible for your lungs. You're essentially inhaling antifreeze down into your lungs.

And that not only damages the lining of your lungs, but increases mucus production, all of which makes anesthesia much more risky and raises the risk of pneumonias. after surgery. And that can cause all sorts of problems if you end up getting an ammonia after an elective surgery. From the coughing that can cause problems with blood pressure and tear things apart to creating hematomas, causing infections of, you know, places other than your lungs.

It's just not something you want to do if you're having an elective procedure. So this is going to be a short episode, but I wanted everybody to realize that There are certain health benefits, certainly with chronic pain from using cannabis or marijuana. But on the whole, if you're having elective surgery, marijuana is something that you want to steer clear of because it increases your risk of cardiac problems, increases your risk of blood clots, causes lung damage, and increases the, the, anesthesia risk and makes you prone to needing more narcotic pain medicine after surgery.

I hope you enjoyed this show. If you did, please like us or review us on apple or wherever you listen to podcasts.

If you have any ideas for further shows or have a question, you can shoot me an email at media@drjasonhall.com or reach out through Instagram DMs. Thanks a bunch, and we'll see you on the next show.