Biting Trumps Piping?

[ophiuchus]

I would have suggested giving a break for a couple of days ... but I smoked right after having a root canal, so who the hell am I to talk?

 

[mso489]

I've done both. I'd opt for taking a break, as with my recent oral surgery. I'm back with my pipe right now, but the surgery was weeks ago. As elbert points out, tobacco is a vasoconstrictor (love the word), which means all those little capillary blood vessels get more narrow. My worst experience with toughing it out, or one of them, was walking off a sprained ankle. Yeah, yeah, I walked around and assumed my body would take up the slack. A bunch of little blood vessels broke, and they still show, rather dismally, and that was twenty years ago. It didn't relate to pipe smoking so much, but to not letting things heal. A few days with ice would have been a better choice perhaps. I"d say, over the age of fifty, coddle yourself and be "tough" when you're in shape to do that. Before that, go with your instincts. How fast are you healing otherwise? If you have other drags on your healing, at any age, be conserving.