Suboxone Tooth Decay Attorneys
Suboxone is a medication for people receiving treatment for opioid use disorder. It helps reduce withdrawal symptoms and cravings. However, patients have reported tooth decay and dental problems after using brand-name Suboxone film. Patients filing lawsuits allege that the manufacturers knew or should have known about the risk of dental damage but failed to adequately warn patients and health care providers.
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If you or someone you know has suffered from tooth decay or other dental complications after using brand-name Suboxone film, you may be entitled to compensation. Our Suboxone tooth decay attorneys can help you pursue compensation for dental treatment, pain, and other losses. Contact our lawyers at Farah & Farah for a free consultation regarding your case. You pay no attorney fees unless we win.
What Is Suboxone?
Suboxone is a medicine prescribed to people who have opioid use disorder. It helps reduce withdrawal symptoms and cravings and supports recovery from opioid use disorder. It’s a combination of two drugs: buprenorphine, which is a partial opioid agonist, and naloxone, an opioid antagonist. It’s prescribed as a dissolvable film that patients use under the tongue or against the inside of the cheek.
How Does Buprenorphine Work in Suboxone?
Buprenorphine is an opioid medication called a partial opioid agonist. It activates the same receptors in the brain as other opioids, but with more limited effects. This means that buprenorphine helps ease withdrawal symptoms and cravings without producing the full effects of opioids such as heroin, fentanyl, oxycodone, or hydrocodone. Additionally, it can block other opioids from attaching to and activating the patient’s opioid receptors.
Why Does Suboxone Contain Naloxone?
Naloxone is an opioid antagonist medication or blocker. In Suboxone, it’s included to discourage people from injecting the medication instead of letting it dissolve in the mouth as prescribed. If naloxone is injected, it can trigger uncomfortable withdrawal symptoms in people who are dependent on certain opioids.
Why Is Suboxone Prescribed for Opioid Use Disorder?
Suboxone is prescribed to help reduce the cravings and withdrawal symptoms that can make opioid use disorder difficult to manage. For some patients, opioid use began with pain medication prescribed after an injury or surgery. Over time, opioid use can lead to addiction, and stopping can become difficult without medical support.
Taking Suboxone can be an important part of treatment, but patients also need clear information about its risks. The FDA has warned that buprenorphine medicines dissolved in the mouth can cause serious dental problems, even in people with no history of dental issues.
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Who Makes Suboxone?
Suboxone film is manufactured and supplied by Aquestive Therapeutics, Inc., while it’s marketed by Indivior. The partnership began in 2008 between Aquestive, then known as MonoSol Rx, and Indivior’s predecessor, Reckitt Benckiser Pharmaceuticals. Reckitt already sold Suboxone tablets and partnered with MonoSol to use its film technology to deliver the medication in a dissolvable strip. Under their licensing and supply agreement, MonoSol would manufacture and supply the film, which received FDA approval in 2010, for Reckitt to market.
Who Is Aquestive Therapeutics?
Aquestive Therapeutics, which is based in Warren, New Jersey, with a manufacturing plant in Portage, Indiana, was founded in 2005 as MonoSol Rx. The company specializes in developing medications in dissolvable oral forms. It was this expertise that led to its role in developing and manufacturing Suboxone film.
Who Is Indivior?
Indivior, which is based in Richmond, Virginia, grew out of the pharmaceutical business of Reckitt Benckiser, a British company that makes health, hygiene, and household products. Reckitt’s pharmaceutical business began focusing on buprenorphine treatments for opioid dependence in 1994 and became an independent company, Indivior, in 2014.
How Can Suboxone Cause Tooth Decay and Dental Problems?
Patients taking Suboxone film have reported serious dental problems, including tooth decay, cavities, tooth erosion, infections, and tooth loss, sometimes requiring fillings, root canals, extractions, or replacement teeth. Because the film stays in the mouth as it dissolves, researchers have identified prolonged exposure to the medication’s acidity as a possible contributor to this damage. Acid can weaken enamel, the protective outer layer of teeth, leaving them more vulnerable to erosion and decay.
Tooth Decay After Suboxone Use
Tooth decay develops when acids produced by bacteria damage the tooth’s protective enamel. The damage can gradually reach deeper layers of the tooth, including the nerves and blood vessels inside. Patients taking Suboxone have reported severe decay that requires extensive dental treatment.
Early tooth decay may not hurt. Signs and symptoms can include:
- White spots on the enamel
- Brown or dark discoloration
- Sensitivity to hot, cold, or sweet foods and drinks
- Toothaches as the damage progresses
Tooth Loss and Dental Extractions
Severe dental damage can leave a tooth too damaged to save. Tooth extractions have been among the treatments reported for patients who developed dental problems while taking buprenorphine medicines dissolved in the mouth. Advanced gum disease can also destroy the support around teeth, causing them to loosen or fall out.
Warning signs that a tooth needs prompt dental attention include:
- Loose teeth
- Pain when chewing
- Swelling around a tooth
Losing teeth can affect eating, speaking, and confidence in your smile. Depending on how many teeth are lost, treatment may involve a bridge, dentures, or dental implants.
Tooth Erosion and Enamel Damage
Cavities are holes that form as tooth decay breaks down the tooth’s surface. While tooth decay describes the process of damage, a cavity is an opening left by that process. Small cavities may have no symptoms, but deeper cavities can cause:
- Visible holes or pits in a tooth
- Sensitivity to sweet, hot, or cold foods and drinks
- Pain when biting down
- Toothaches that occur without an obvious trigger
Some cavities can be treated with fillings. More extensive damage may require a crown, root canal, or extraction.
Gum Infections and Periodontal Disease
Gum infections affect the tissues surrounding and supporting the teeth. Periodontitis is a serious form of gum disease that can damage the gums and destroy the bone holding teeth in place. Symptoms can include:
- Swollen, tender, or unusually red gums
- Bleeding when brushing or flossing
- Persistent bad breath
- Pus between the teeth and gums
- Gums pulling away from the teeth
- Pain when chewing or loose teeth
Gum infections need dental treatment to address the infection and protect the tissues supporting your teeth. As periodontal disease progresses, it can make chewing painful and lead to tooth loss.
Did Suboxone’s Manufacturers Fail To Warn About Dental Risks?
Plaintiffs claim that Indivior and Aquestive Therapeutics knew or should have known that sublingual use of Suboxone could raise the risk of tooth decay or other dental problems, given earlier reports of dental problems, but they failed to warn users. Patients filing these lawsuits allege that inadequate warnings left them and their doctors without the information they needed to weigh the risks and take steps to protect their teeth.
The FDA’s 2022 Dental-Risk Warning for Suboxone
In January 2022, the FDA required a dental-risk warning for buprenorphine medicines dissolved in the mouth, including Suboxone. The agency had received reports of serious dental damage, even in patients with no history of dental issues. The lawsuits focus on allegations that the manufacturers should have provided adequate warnings earlier, before patients suffered damage that required costly and sometimes extensive dental treatment.
Suboxone Tooth Decay Lawsuits
Patients who suffered dental damage after using Suboxone film have filed lawsuits against Indivior, Aquestive Therapeutics, and related companies. In February 2024, the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation centralized federal Suboxone film lawsuits in the Northern District of Ohio.
How the Suboxone MDL Works
Multidistrict litigation, or an MDL, allows lawsuits involving similar facts to share evidence gathering and other proceedings before trial. An MDL doesn’t turn everyone’s claim into a single class action. Patients keep their individual cases, including their own dental injuries, treatment expenses, and other losses. Coordinating the cases allows attorneys to investigate shared issues without repeating the same work in every lawsuit.
The Suboxone Lawsuit Bellwether Process
The court has established a bellwether process to select a smaller group of Suboxone cases for detailed investigation and possible early trials. Bellwether trials can help both sides understand how juries respond to the evidence and may inform settlement discussions. Each patient’s claim remains individual, so an early trial doesn’t determine compensation for everyone in the litigation.
Do You Have a Suboxone Tooth Decay Case?
You may have a Suboxone tooth decay case if you used brand-name Suboxone film and developed one or more of the following dental problems:
- Tooth decay
- Tooth loss
- Tooth erosion
- Cavities
- Gum infections
If this happened to you, let Farah & Farah help you pursue the compensation you deserve. If you’re unsure which medication you took, our attorneys can help you find out and explain your legal options. Contact us today for a free consultation.
Farah & Farah’s legal team is highly experienced with defective drug lawsuits and can help you fight to hold Suboxone’s manufacturers accountable for failing to adequately warn patients about dental risks. Contact Farah & Farah today for a free consultation. You pay nothing unless your case is successful.
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