Novel Approaches to Pain Management

By Craig McKenzie, DMD, MSEd and Joseph A. Giovannitti Jr., DMD
Opioid alternatives for post-operative pain control have received significant attention in recent years due to an increase in opioid addiction and overdose.1 Although the number of opioid prescriptions written by dentists has decreased in the last decade or so, oral health professionals are still one of the top prescribers of these medications. Oral health professionals wrote 12.2% of all immediate-release opioid prescriptions in 2007, with that rate dropping to 8.6% in 2017.1,2 What was once a routine analgesic for common dental procedures became part of America’s opioid crisis.
* References can be found in the original article via the link below.
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