> since nobody in the US is willing to prescribe opioids any more

Since when? I was given opioids when my wisdom teeth were pulled a year ago, far more than I needed.

From what I understand, opiate prescriptions are down, but only by 10-20% or so.

Opioids for wisdom teeth removal is insane to me (and 100% of the medical doctors that I know, and it's a lot of them). This is utterly disfunctional.

In fairness my wisdom teeth removal wasn’t exactly textbook. I had to go to an oral surgeon and he had to dig into the lower jawbone to remove one of them, breaking it into pieces to get it off the nerve. I had a lot of damage to the gums and quite a few bone fragments migrated out over the next few weeks.

I was however even offered opioids for a root canal once (different dentist). I didn’t fill that prescription.

I had this done two time (jawbone cut, tooth extracted in fragments, stitches thereafter) and while the healing process was annoying, it wasn't painful unless I tried eating solid foods with the wrong side of the mouth or something like that (which was a good indication of the fact that it was too early to do so, which helped healing faster, which is why - even discounting addiction issues - taking painkillers for avoidable pain is dangerous).

The "quite a few bone fragments migrated out" part sounds pretty bad, on the other hand; that's not really supposed to happen as far as I know.

I agree that the opiates probably weren't needed. I took the recommended dosage at first and just completely passed out for hours, so I have no idea how much pain I would have been in. After that, I cut the dose in half for the next day, until I got really sick of feeling foggy and just stopped entirely. (I found the whole "high" to be really annoying and not particularly pleasant, aside from the pain dulling properties. All I wanted to do was read and I couldn't do that.) I suspect ibuprofen would have been sufficient but I don't really know, either, since I took the surgeon's advice and took the opiates at first.

I do still have one wisdom tooth left. If I ever get that one out, I'll see how it goes without the opiates.

Bone fragments migrating out are apparently not that uncommon. Any bone piece that breaks off but doesn't get completely removed will eventually migrate out of the gums.

Having had a bunch of dental work done, sometimes it's not unreasonable - I had my wisdom teeth out and was given hydrocodone for afterward, but I was fortunate and didn't have any pain warranting it after.

Being given opiates for a root canal seems insane, though - if you have crippling pain _after_ a root canal, I think that means the dentist did something horribly wrong.