I took the day off work so that’s pretty good. There’s going to be a problem after the tooth is pulled; the oral surgeon always puts gauze where the tooth was and starting about two years ago that gauze makes me gag and it might make me throw up. I don’t want to throw up right after having a tooth pulled, that might make it harder for the gum to make a blood clot and worst case scenario is I could get a case of dry socket which I’ve heard is very painful.
So I put the question to ChatGPT, I said I gag on gauze after having a tooth pulled and what can I do about it. At first I was hopeful, ChatGPT said instead of gauze I can get sutures to stem the bleeding or I could get collegen plugs that fit in the hole that stop the bleeding. I asked it a week later and it said even with those two solutions I’ll need to have gauze in for at least 15 minutes.
Last time I had a tooth pulled I almost threw up after about 5 minutes of having gauze in my mouth, I pulled the gauze out and luckily everything still went right and it healed properly. I don’t think I’ll be that lucky again.
So there’s different tricks to stop gagging, folding your thumb under your fist for example or breathing through my nose and a couple other tricks. The thumb thing seemed silly to me and didn’t work at all last time. The whole situation has me worried and to me having a tooth pulled has been a simple, no pain procedure in the past but now I have anxiety that I’ll gag and anxiety makes the gagging worse. I don’t know how having this tooth pulled is going to work out. Has anyone else had this problem and if so, how did your whole procedure go? I hear it’s actually a common problem.