Ashley Hanson

For Some Teenagers, a Battle Against Addiction to Opioids Starts with Getting Their Wisdom Teeth Removed Photo by​ ​Quang Tri NGUYEN​ on​ ​Unsplash Every year, millions of people have their dentist remove their wisdom teeth. A large portion of these patients are teenagers or young adults that have those teeth crowding into their mouth, causing problems, and causing pain. These patients could go in for a minor surgery and come out with a painkiller prescription. But, this prescription could be riskier for these young adults and teenagers than their wisdom teeth themselves. Stanford University​ performed a study that showed roughly 7% of 15,000 patients between the ages of 16 and 25 who originally got a prescription for opioids from their dental professional after wisdom teeth removal went to another doctor for more opioids in a span of 3 to 12 months after the initial prescription. A year after the original opioid prescription, almost 6% of the patients were abusing opioids. To compare, 0.4% of the patients who didn’t get opioids from the dentist later got a diagnosis of opioid abuse. The research used claim records from private health insurance that had no identifying patient information on it from more than 750,000 people. Around 100,000 got opioids prescribed one time in 2015. Of these 100,000 people, 30% of the prescriptions came from dentists. 75% of the prescriptions were for Vicodin. Considering the current opioid abuse in the United States, these are alarming statistics. In 2017, around 70,000 people died​ from an overdose on drugs, and most of those deaths were opioid-related. One of the first places people get exposure to opioids is when their dentist takes out their wisdom teeth. They usually get a 30-day Vicodin prescription. If you take it for a full 30 days, your risk of continuing is substantial. Dentists write out these month prescription because it’s easy to write out one than it is to give multiple refills. Teenagers and young adults are more vulnerable to the effects of painkillers. In addiction, two parts of your brain interact. The prefrontal cortex is one that doesn’t reach maturity until someone is in their mid-20s, and it deals with decision making The second part is your reward system, which you can find in your midbrain. When a young adult or teen gets exposed to an opioid, they’ll get a huge rush of pleasurable chemicals. Alan Schroeder is the lead author of Acetaminophen, Ibuprofen, or​ ​NSAIDs​ and a Stanford University School of Medicine pediatrician. He said, “I think a lot of experts in the medical and dental fields with an understanding of pain management would agree with that, but we can be more judicious about how much we dispense.” This paper brought up the question whether or not taking out a person’s wisdom teeth was necessary. A review​ showed many extractions of a young adult or teenager’s third molar had little to no patient benefits. This puts more pressure on dental professionals as a whole to rethink taking wisdom teeth out. While it’s true that opioids have a key role to play in helping people manage their chronic and acute pain, it’s necessary to start coming up with better policies to limit teenagers’ exposure to opioids over several weeks. We already have these policies and strategies in place. It’s just trying to convince the physicians and their patients to use them.