Dental patients prescribed far fewer opioid painkillers today, but pandemic slowed decline greatly

 ANN ARBOR —Americans who have a tooth pulled or another painful dental procedure in the United States today are far less likely to get opioid painkillers than they were just a few years ago, a University of Michigan study shows.  That ' s good news, since research shows that opioids are not necessary for most dental procedures. But the COVID-19 pandemic seems to have thrown a wrench into the effort to reduce opioid use in dental care —and not just in the few months after dentists and oral surgeons started providing routine care again after a pause in spring 2020.  The decline in opioid prescriptions filled by dental patients was much faster in the pre-pandemic years 2016 through 2019, compared with the rate of decline from June 2020 to December 2022, the study shows.  In all, dental opioids dispensed to U.S. patients of all ages declined 45% from 2016 to the end of 2022, according to the new findings published in PLOS ONE. But even with the decline, 7.4 million dental patients of all ages filled opioid prescriptions in 2022.  Fortunately, opioid prescriptions to teens and young adults —who face especially high risks related to opioids—kept declining at a rapid rate after the pandemic pause in dental care, the study finds. But for other groups, the rate of decline slowed after June 2020.   In all, the researchers estimate, 6.1 million more dental opioid prescriptions were dispensed between June...
Source: Dental Technology Blog - Category: Dentistry Source Type: news