Expert Skin Care

First, if you’re under the age of 18, you may be required to have a parent with you before they will perform the piercing. Do you know of a place that will do it without a parent? Fine, but discuss it with your parents first so you can explain why it’s important to you and so they can tell you how they feel about any risks.

Secondly, and most importantly, don’t take it upon yourself to pierce your body or let one of your friends do it. This should only be left up to professionals. This will drastically reduce any health risks or permanent damage.

Plan Ahead

• Preexisting health conditions: If you have any allergies, skin disorders, diabetes, immune system deficiencies or disorders, or are pregnant, consult your doctor on if a body piercing would be okay or what other measures, if any, you should take.
• Immunizations: Make sure that you’re up to date on your immunizations, especially hepatitis and tetanus immunizations.
• Plan where you will go for medical care in case you experience any difficulties later on pertaining to the piercing.
• Check out the piercing shop ahead of time.
• Know the health risks before getting a piercing.
  

• Jewelry: Check out their jewelry and make sure that they use non-toxic materials such as surgical steel, 14-karat or 18-karat gold, titanium, platinum, or niobium. Other materials can cause skin irritation or even several rashes or outbreaks of the skin.
• Cleanliness: The shop should be clean and all needles and waste products such as gauze and other items that may contain blood are properly disposed of.
• Person Performing the Piercing: Make sure the person washes their hands and uses a fresh pair of disposable gloves.
• Sterilization: Make sure that the instruments used are sterilized and make sure that a new needle is being used.
• No Piercing Guns: These aren’t’ sterile, so make sure these aren’t being used.
  

• Infection and Chronic Infections: This is a risk especially with any piercings in or on the mouth and/or nose.
• Damage to Teeth: This is a risk for tongue piercings and is not a short term risk, but can happen over the course of several years.Gum Issues: This is a risk for any piercing that is on or in the mouth. Again, it’s not an immediate risk, but can happen over a prolonged period of time.
• Prolonged or Excessive Bleeding
• Scarring
• Disease: Mainly, you can contract Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C, or tetanus.
• Skin Allergies
• Abscesses or Boils
• Nerve Damage

Quit smoking reason #1:

Reduce your risk of lung cancer
Lung cancer accounts for 26 percent of cancer deaths among women reports the Lung Cancer Alliance. Just 50 years ago, lung cancer accounted for only three percent. Though smoking is not the only cause of lung cancer, it can greatly increase your risk of developing this deadly disease. According to the American Lung Association, smoking is directly responsible for 87 percent of reported lung cancer cases.

Quit smoking reason #2:

Protect yourself from HPV
In the book The HPV Vaccine Controversy, author Dr Shobha S Krishnan warns that smoking can make existing HPV infections persist in the body and even cause HPV-related diseases because smoking weakens the immune system

Quit smoking reason #3:Save your eyesight
Dr Edward Paul, one of the world’s leading authorities on macular degeneration, says smoking increases a patient’s risk of developing age-related macular degeneration – a leading cause of blindness in Americans 65 years old and older – by a whopping 350 percent.

Quit smoking reason #4:

Your heart-health
Smoking increases your risk of developing heart disease and stroke - among other diseases – and the more cigarettes you smoke, the higher your risk. Even reducing the number of cigarettes you smoke per day can help protect your heart. A study in Nicotine & Tobacco Research reports that fewer cigarettes can decrease “bad” cholesterol, increase “good” cholesterol, and improve the blood’s ability to transport oxygen – meaning you will feel less winded during exertion. Kicking the habit for good delivers even more heart-health benefits.

Quit smoking reason #5:

Keep your teeth
A study in BMC Public Health earlier this year indicates that current smokers are significantly more likely to lose their teeth than former smokers or nonsmokers aged 20 to 38 years old. That’s too young to be losing teeth! Additionally, the nicotine in cigarettes stain teeth, meaning the teeth you don’t lose will stay a dingy shade of yellow.

Quit smoking reason #6:

Live longer
Don’t you have family and friends you enjoy spending time with? What about your kids – don’t you want to see them grow up, get married and have kids of their own? Quitting smoking will lengthen your life – as well as improve its quality – and the healthy results of kicking the habit are realized rather quickly. A May 2008 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association reports that 61 percent of the full benefit of quitting in regard to coronary heart disease mortality and 42 percent of the full benefit of quitting in regard to cerebrovascular deaths was realized within the first five years.

Quit smoking reason #7:

Improve your fertility
Having trouble conceiving? In the article Smoking adds a decade to your fertility age, experts say smoking could be hurting your chances. However, lead researcher Dr Bea Lintsen, from Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre, says: "The positive news from our results is that they suggest that couples – in particular, women with unexplained subfertility – may be able to improve the success of IVF treatment by quitting smoking."

Quit smoking reason #8

Stay beautiful
According to Kori Ellis, author of 8 Healthy skincare tips, studies show that the skin of cigarette smokers ages more than twice as fast as that of non-smokers. Smoking dehydrates your skin and depletes it of essential nutrients. She suggests that you detoxify your skin by quitting smoking and/or limiting your exposure to second hand smoke and other pollutants.

Quit smoking reason #9:

Better your digestive health
Believe it or not, smoking can contribute to digestive diseases. The National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases warns that smoking can effect all parts of the digestive system, contributing to such common disorders as heartburn and peptic ulcers as well as increasing the risk of Crohn's disease, and possibly gallstones, which form when liquid stored in the gallbladder hardens into pieces of stone-like material. Smoking can even damage your liver.

Quit smoking reason #10:

Be a good role model
Even though packs of smokes say smoking is hazardous to your health, your kids are going to look to you for guidance. If you smoke, chances are great they will, too. If you don’t, you improve the chances they won’t, either. If you quit, you are showing them that smoking is a poor choice for long-term health and, as importantly, you are showing them that you care enough about them as well as yourself to live to see them grow up and have kids of their own.