Week in Review: Toothbrushing linked to COVID-19 symptoms | Prepare for monkeypox | New pain research

Dear DrBicuspid Member,

In a study of more than 20,000 people in Japan, those who changed the length and frequency of their toothbrushing routine were more likely to have the three main symptoms of COVID-19. Our top story of the week details the findings and explains why the oral cavity may be an important site for SARS-CoV-2 viral replication.

Prepare for monkeypox in the office

Monkeypox is a highly contagious infectious disease in the same family as smallpox. Patients infected with the monkeypox virus develop characteristic skin lesions on the face and extremities, but of interest to dental professionals, the primary lesions caused by monkeypox originate in the oropharynx before manifesting on the skin.

As such, in disease-endemic regions, dental professionals may be the first to detect the initial symptoms of monkeypox. Researchers urge dental practitioners to consider monkeypox when treating patients experiencing a rash and fever, especially if they have generalized lymph node swelling.

New research into pain and pain management

Researchers have long thought that inflammation is somehow involved in the switch from acute to chronic pain. But a new study turns that thinking on its head, finding that rather than contributing to the development of chronic pain, inflammation appears to help curb it.

The findings lead to questions about whether the use of anti-inflammatory drugs for acute pain may actually contribute to long-term chronic pain. Importantly, the study's authors don't suggest stopping the use of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs for now, since clinical trials are needed to know whether the link is related to correlation or causation.

In other Anesthesia & Pain Management news, researchers interviewed dozens of dentists to better understand their reasoning behind prescribing opioids or other analgesic drugs. Dentists based their decision on what prescription to write from everything such as the day of the week to whether their license numbers have been fraudulently used for opioid prescriptions in the past.

Last but not least, if you are looking for drug-free ways to control pain for patients, you may want to consider using virtual reality (VR). In a study of pediatric patients, the use of VR as a distraction tool significantly reduced pain during rubber dam placement. The findings are in line with prior studies showing that VR can help effectively manage dental pain.