CHARLOTTE, N.C -- Chances are when you get surgery, your doctor is going to prescribe you some type of pain killer. Chances are you'll have some leftover, but what are you doing with those leftovers?
Right now, misused opioids are causing an epidemic in North Carolina.
"Oral surgeons prescribe a lot of drugs, there's no getting around it. We do a lot of surgical procedures that unfortunately induce pain," Dr. Dale Misick of Carolinas Center for Oral and Facial Surgery said. "The problem is, on an individual basis we don't know how many painkillers a patient will need."
However, a new bill could make that decision for you. It's called "The Stop Act," formally "The Strengthen Opioid Misuse Prevention Act." Essentially the bill would limit the number of prescription painkillers available to patients. It's all in an effort to curb the opioid abuse problem we're seeing in our state. In fact, prescription drug addiction has claimed the lives of close to 1,400 North Carolinians in 2015 alone, according to legislators presenting the bill.
Now, many doctors are now turning to other options.
"What we have at our disposal now is a long acting local anesthetic, which is non-opioid," Misick said.
It's called Exparel and Misick says it serves two purposes.
First, it improves post-op for patients and allows them to return to their daily routine much quicker. Second, many patients aren't having to take any narcotic painkillers at all.
That was the case for Clinton Chapman when Misick used Exparel during Chapman's wisdom teeth removal.
How, about this for a stat: every year there are 705 million pain pills prescribed to North Carolinians. Legislators say "The Stop Act" would not only reduce the millions of leftover pills at risk of being misused, but it would also include a budget for treatment and recovery.
Read more about The Stop Act