A million ways to die in the west alone.
Health Question for the Older Crowd
- Thread starter Sloopjohnbee
- Start date
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Amazing they haven't come up with a 'vaccine' for each one of them. Imagine all the money they'd rake in.
C
carolinasmokes
Guest
I can sum up my thoughts on this subject in four words, "live freedom not fear". Your health and doing things that may or may not be healthy for you is your decision, live life or live in a bubble.
C
carolinasmokes
Guest
I am 71 and have been smoking pipes and cigars (never cigarets) off and on since I was in my early 20s. I currently smoke at least 3 bowls a day. It has not adversely affected my health in any way. Stained teeth and bad breath are cosmetic not health problems. My wife worries that I'll develop oral cancer and she's not wrong to worry about that. (Saves me worrying about it I guess.) Putting a carcinogen like smoke in your mouth must logically increase the risk of oral cancer (how much it increases the risk is harder to measure). The thing about oral cancers is that they can be diagnosed fairly easily. If you see your dentist regularly and ask her to check for changes to your mucosa you can likely catch cancerous changes early. Dentists are supposed to do this anyway but aren't always systematic in doing so. The treatment for oral cancer, however, is not pleasant. Inhaling cigaret smoke, and by extension pipe smoke, does increase the risk of lung cancer, heart disease, etc. and those maladies are harder to diagnose. For me the take-away is don't inhale and see your dentist twice a year.
I just thought of an analogy to pipe smoking: sun exposure. Sun block was not a thing when I was young. I got a burn on my shoulders nearly every summer as a kid. As an adult, I get a whole body check for skin cancer by a dermatologist every year. I have had one or two sun-related precancerous lesions above my eyebrows that were easily treated with laser or liquid nitrogen. I also had Moh's surgery for an early basal cell carcinoma above my eyebrow. I would not like to have either kind of procedure on my oral mucosa but I reckon that I've probably had a much higher exposure to sunlight than to pipe smoke over the years. Of course, sun exposure is unavoidable! On the plus side, when you're my age, the treatments for oral cancers will probably be less invasive.
Bad breath is indeed indicative of many possible health problems. Also. don't fprget your no doubt stained tongue which, while an appearance problem may hide health problems. Granted nothing may be occurring at this time but, self-diagnosing is certainly not a proper evaluation of your health.
Yes, self-diagnosing is not a proper evaluation. That's why I have my dentist (and dermatologist) check me regularly. If I did have a lesion in my mouth or on my tongue that didn't quickly go away, I would consult an ENT specialist. I should probably have said "tobacco breath" not bad breath.
And there is a saying “don’t piss down my boot and tell me it’s raining “.
I've been smoking a pipe for 27 years. So far so good.