EXTREME gag reflex

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In most cases, my gag reflex doesn't act up at all. Going to the dentist is not a big deal for me. Not even having my wisdom teeth taken out was a big deal. Although I did gag with the pink goo used to make teeth molds, but that was only the first time. After that, the dental assistant told me a neat trick that has helped me ever since: she told me to remember that even when my mouth feels uncomfortable, I can still breathe using my nose. Sounds simple I know, but it's unbelievably helpful (for me at least).

However, even though I am really good about not gagging at stuff that makes other people gag, there is one thing that makes me gag a lot, and that is anxiety. For some reason, whenever I get anxious, my throat tightens up and I sometimes start gagging.

I can remember this happening to me many times as a child, and recently it happened multiple times in a single day when I accidentally had too much caffeine and was experiencing non-stop panic attacks. Today it almost happened again when I heard on the news that radiation from the nuclear disaster in Japan could drift over to the USA as early as tomorrow.

The good thing about anxiety-induced gagging is that it's pretty easy to get rid of - all I have to do is distract myself by engaging in a special interest or chatting with one of my friends, and I start feeling better.

I have a bad gag reflex, due to my strong sense of smell, which used to really be a problem when I was a kid. (As some of you surely know, I used to puke like crazy as a toddler. I made a thread about it a while ago.)
Also when I used to visit the dentist, I couldn't stand having their hands in my mouth, partly due to the taste of the gloves, and I used to wretch really bad which was a real problem. And every time we went to the dentist my mum had to tell them about my gag reflex and they had to be extra gentle with me, or else I would panic and make it hard for them to do their job. I wasn't especially nervous about visiting the dentist but I just couldn't handle the oral probing. Luckily as I got older, the gagging has calmed down a bit, but it's still something I have to watch out for.


I also gag when I have something in my mouth which I'm not going to eat (such as chewing gum or mouthwash etc.)

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I never gag, even when something looks or smells extremely disgusting - I just get a weird "knotted" sort of feeling a bit further down, behind the top of my sternum. I have a very strong gag reflex with anything on the back of my tongue, however, and unexpected textures in food too. Anything touching my tongue further than halfway back into my mouth [besides food that I'm swallowing] makes me convulse, but not actually vomit, thankfully. I have to be really careful brushing the insides of my molars. Also, when I'm chewing meat of any kind and my teeth cut into one of those horrible tough gristly spots, I have to really concentrate to be able to swallow the bite without getting those painful gagging spasms.

I can totally relate to gagging at certain things like accidentally touching my sister's dogs saliva, & another thing that makes me gag is excessive cardio. My mom has told me that gagging during excessive cardio might be because I'm starting to develop asthma which I totally believe because both sides of my family have a history of asthma.