No Gag Reflex and Dentures

Individuals with no gag reflex or with less sensitive gag reflexes are perfect candidate for dentures.

The problem with dentures is its high tendency to trigger a person's gag reflex so it helps with getting used with the fitting when one have no gag reflex or at least believes (feels) they don't.

Chronic gaggers on the other hand, are the worst candidates for dentures and most just don't get used to it. Since their gag reflexes can't tolerate their upper dentures, they oftentimes have to remove it, otherwise suffer from unending gagging.

If you're not sure what gag reflex is; gag reflex, also called pharyngeal reflex is a reflex contraction of the back of your throat which is triggered by touching the sof palate.

Determining whether or not you have sensitive gag reflex is rather easy, it's just a matter of putting a your clean index finger inside your mouth; if you can lower it down at the base of your tongue (or your soft palate) without gagging, it's an indication that you have no gag reflex.

Though having no gag reflex is said to be a symptom of some medical conditions like brain death, and damage of the vagus nerve and glossopharyngeal nerve, one study revealed that one third of healthy people do not have gag reflexes.

Gag reflexes, as with anything else can be trained. Take, sword swallowers for example (you don't have to swallow swords), with an untrained gag reflex, a person can choke or gag the moment they try to put in a sword inside their mouth but these sword swallowers got so used to putting stuff inside their mouth that their gag reflexes isn't already triggered.

If you have sensitive gag reflexes, we have some suggestions to help you feel more comfortable with your upper dentures.

First, here's a little background information on upper dentures and why they can make you gag.

Observe from the image that upper dentures basically cover the whole palate which includes the soft palate which triggers the gag reflex when touched.

This has been seen as the major reason why upper dentures and chronic gaggers aren't made for each other.

If budget is not a concern, dental implants are the perfect (and even better) alternative to dentures. They look more life-life, permanent, and don't move when you eat or talk.

Another way around this, specially when you're already wearing dentures is to have your dentist cut or remove a portion of the upper dentures' posterior flange so they don't touch your soft palate. This will give you no gag reflex since the denture won't be able to touch them anymore.

Yet another way is to have two implants on opposite sided of your upper mouth and have your denturer drill holes on your denture so the implants can hold it. This way, you can have your dentist remove the whole artificial palate of the denture while keeping the denture firm and in-place without the need of its palate.

The dentures' palate by the way is the one that hold the whole thing in-placed on your upper mouth.

We're suggesting these work-arounds since not most people who uses denture have the time to train their gag reflexes to ignore the pressence of the upper dentures. This way you experience no gag reflex even when you have very sensitive gag reflexes.

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