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"International No Smoking Day" on May 31 has come and gone. In Miyagi, on Saturday the 30th, "The 4th Miyagi No Smoking Forum" was held with the No Smoking Physician and Dentist League Miyagi Branch sponsorship and 200 people participated. Notifications of workplace smoking bans and minimization of smoke are issued from the Ministry of Labor and have become an important subject in the occupational health care field.
One of the main sources of complaint of those coming to our outpatient clinic comes from those with headaches. I have already introduced, by the interview form, cigarettes, along with irregular shifts, and work environment and perform examinations daily. In the long period up to now, about ten individual patient's headaches were solved by smoking bans. By characteristic, not only cigarettes, but also irregular shifts,dissatisfaction and those citing complex factors are numerous, but if smoky environments are improved, the overall benefit is obvious. This representative case is a 32 year-old male whose main complaint was precisely wooziness or grogginess along with headaches. So-called "sleep apnea" was not found, but his complexion was not good; he was not thriving. At his job as a cook, he smoked 30 cigarettes per day. When I went to see the workplace, I found a very small cooking shop and pub in a downtown building where he was working under a very small hood with barbecuing fish and chicken in a small cooking corner. He was a smoker but was also subjected to a fair amount of secondhand smoke from cigarettes of front counter customers and others. Inspection showed no special brain nervous system abnormalities, and inflammation reaction was negative; lung functions revealed slight respiratory tract blockage with slight blood anoxia. It is important that his oxidated carbonic acid gas (COHb) in arterial blood was nearly 8% and the oxygen saturation level was about 87%, which already equaled great breathing deficiency - usually requiring home oxygen treatment for such low lung function patient. Even CO density of exhaled gas analysis had similar values. This man's headaches were improved with a small piece of paper with the words - "No Smoking", enlargement of the workplace ventilation fan, and a notice to the customers to "kindly refrain from smoking". As a result, exhaled CO density and blood CO density improved, concomitant with reduced incidence of headaches: painkillers used for a long time became entirely unnecessary. The patient in this case was very appreciative for the improvement. "Cigarettes" + "Bad workplace environment" which caused these discomforts, are often causes of very low oxygen saturation degree, and/or high CO density, COHb density, and exhaled CO density which can not be found without examination. So by all means, have the inspection, as I desire to develop "No smoking" + "Workplace improvement" as "Treatment Means". |