How Dental Professional Are Combating Opioid Addiction

To create a comprehensive picture of the opioid crisis, it is important to understand the reason behind the crisis, pain. The mechanism of pain is quite complex, none the less we cannot survive without it. Pain is a defense mechanism that helps us protect ourselves from harmful situations or inform us to pay attention to something that is going wrong in our bodies. For example, a person will know that a stove is hot before even touching it because the hand will sense the heat radiating from the stove as it gets closer. Pain can also present as an early warning sign of arthritis, an appendix infection, or even a cavity. The opioid crisis has plagued the world since the beginning of the 21st century. It has affected the sick and the healthy, the poor and the rich, and the young and the elderly with no discrimination. You might likely know of a family member or a friend who suffers from opioid dependency. As dentists and physicians, this issue is particularly important to us, as we are the first barrier between the general public and an opioid prescription (Figure 1).