How to cope with gag reflex while getting a dental impression? - Dr. Shyam Padmanabhan

A severe gag is very annoying. There are people who have severe gag in the sense that when they are brushing in the early morning, the brush when they brush into the posterior aspect of the mouth, they tend to gag. It becomes very challenging for an individual with a severe gag. However there are also several techniques that the dentist would try to use while taking the impression. One is to anesthetize the soft palate. Take maybe a spray or a topical anesthetic. Make sure that the soft palate or the inner part of your mouth is anesthetized. Once it is anesthetized, the individual does not feel the impression material much. The other thing is to divert the individual’s attention. Patient should not concentrate on one procedure only. Besides that, the amount of material is minimized in the impression tray that is used on the impression tray would do. So this is what the dentist would try it out to make sure that the patient will not gag.