The Thing Nobody Wants to Bring Up

I want to end this month with the two subjects people are most embarrassed to raise, which is precisely why they are worth raising.

The first is the gag reflex.

The second is asking for what you need.

When the Gag Reflex Makes Dentistry Difficult

For most people it is barely noticeable, a nuisance at the back of an impression tray.

For a smaller group it makes dentistry close to impossible.

Not merely unpleasant: impossible.

Impressions can't be taken, X-rays can't be positioned, dentures can't be fitted, and a person can end up with a mouth in real trouble because the necessary work simply cannot be carried out. It's a widely recognised problem in dentistry, enough that the Cochrane review on managing the gag reflex during dental treatment covers the range of approaches clinicians use to work around it.

What makes it so miserable is how visible it is.

You cannot conceal it, you cannot will it away, and it happens in front of somebody.

People apologise constantly.

Many stop going altogether, and then describe themselves as lazy about their teeth, which is about as unfair a description as I can imagine. It belongs squarely among the fears people carry quietly rather than admit to, the kind I wrote about in The Phobias We Don't Mention.

It also runs on the hair trigger of anticipation.

For a lot of people, by the time anything is actually near the back of the mouth, the response is already under way, set off by the sight of the tray or the sound of the chair. That is exactly the pattern I describe in How a Phobia Is Born, where a response gets learned quickly and then fires ahead of the thing it's reacting to.

That anticipatory quality is exactly why this can respond well to hypnosis.

It is one of the few problems where hypnosis is not simply an alternative option but can be a particularly relevant approach, and it has been used for it in dentistry for a very long time.

You Are Allowed to Ask for What You Need

I will admit an interest here.

As a child, I fainted in a dentist's chair.

I had given every signal a child can give short of climbing out of it, and not one of them was read. It's part of what shaped the way I now work, which you're welcome to read more about on my About Me page.

The two dentists I have had over the past twenty-odd years have been the opposite of that in every respect.

My gag reflex is not a modest one, and neither of them has ever treated it as a nuisance to be got past.

Everything stops when I raise my hand.

Not slows.

Stops.

Knowing that, absolutely and in advance, is most of what makes the chair tolerable.

Not technique.

Not distraction.

The certainty that the signal will be honoured.

Permission to Speak Up

There is a peculiar politeness that descends on people in medical and dental settings.

Adults who are entirely capable of complaining about a restaurant bill will sit silently in a chair while something hurts, because the person doing it is busy and seems to know what they are doing, and it feels rude to interrupt.

I have been on the other side of this, and I can tell you that no clinician wants that. It's part of why the collaborative side of this work matters so much, and why I've put together resources for medical professionals who want to support patients through exactly this.

A patient who says something is easier to treat than one who has silently decided never to return.

So, plainly, here are things you are allowed to ask for:

• You are allowed to agree a signal that means stop, and to expect it to be honoured.

• You are allowed to ask for breaks, for the tray to come out or for a moment to sit up.

• You are allowed to say that you faint at blood draws and ask to lie down for it.

• You are allowed to bring your own music or your own practised way of being elsewhere.

• You are allowed to say that you would rather not be talked to while you use it.

• You are allowed to say that the last time was bad, and explain why.

• You are allowed to ask, before anything begins, roughly how long it will take.

Knowing the duration changes how the duration feels.

None of that requires hypnosis.

It requires permission, and my experience is that a good many people have simply never been given it.

Four Things People Put Off

That has been September: the dentist, the needle, the scanner, the operation.

Four things people put off, all of them costing far more in the postponing than in the doing.

If any of it landed close to home, you do not have to keep putting it off or feel embarrassed about the reaction.

Book a Consultation Call

If medical or dental fear is stopping you from getting the care you need, you can book a consultation call to talk through your concerns and discuss whether hypnosis may be suitable for you.