Now THAT is a blog title that’ll get your attention, huh?  I wish I could take credit for it, but it actually belongs to Dr. Anthony Youn, a plastic surgeon in Detroit.  Dr. Youn is a pretty funny guy and gives some good advice – you should definitely check out the post.  

Now I realize that gravity has yet to inflict its cruelties on most college and grad students so there aren’t a lot of breast lifts getting scheduled around campus.  But that doesn’t mean there’s nothing to learn from Dr. Youn’s terrifying tale of necrotic nipples. 

We did a post a while back on reasons to quit smoking you might actually care about and we talked about peripheral arterial disease (PAD) – impaired blood flow to the extremities which can lead to tissue damage and amputation.  Like many of smoking’s ill effects, PAD mostly affects old people and is therefore easy to blow off.  But there are all kinds of surgeries that young people may run into, and as Dr. Youn so vividly points out, ones who smoke are at a higher risk for poor wound healing, which can lead to heavier scarring and/or higher risk of infection after surgery.

So don’t smoke, Young Buckeyes.  Your nipples – and the rest of you – will thank you for it.

John A. Vaughn, MD
Student Health Services
The Ohio State University