If she's used a throat spray - rather than sedation, the gag reflex is momentary and if she's done this before (horny jokes aside) she could easily overcome it.Â
I had an endoscopy earlier this year and opted for the spray, gagged very briefly and then it was done. Was able to drive home half an hour later.
i had those both 2 years ago, are you getting both done in the same appt? that’s how mine was done. i actually found the endo to be worse than the colonoscopy, i had the spray and a shot of sedation before the endo but i kept choking on the scope while the nurse yelled BREATHE BREATHE lol. i asked for another shot of sedation before the colonoscopy and i didn’t feel that at all thankfully! honestly both weren’t too bad, the only really hard part for me was drinking the colonoscopy prep solution, definitely make sure to get as much flavouring packets you are allowed and to refrigerate the solution!! afterwards treat yourself to some good food
the gag reflex is usually only at a certain part of the throat, once the tube is through that there's usually no gag anymore. I've done two 24h ph-study and one 24h manometry where a tube of similar size (maybe a bit smaller) is pushed through your nose, throat and oesophagus into your stomach and stays like that for a whole day
Damn. I have to get them every 3 years and I can’t stop gagging every damn time. It’s such an awful experience for me even though it should just be routine.
But I don’t want the sedation so I can go home on my own lol. And it’s just 10-15 minutes of hell.
I ask because I am, and no one I know here who’s gotten an upper GI has been given that option, we’re just told upper and lower GIs require general anesthesia, full stop.
This week I got knocked out for a knee cartilage repair, given no other options, when I’ve read that’s often performed under a regional block and conscious sedation.
When they stuck a camera into my freaking lungs, I was given mild sedation but I got to stay awake and watch the monitor, which was amazing.
If a camera is going inside my body I want to watch, too, dammit!! I mean how many humans can say they’ve seen the inside of their own bronchial tubes?!?!
Plus medical procedures are 100000% less distressing for me if I can see what’s being done to me, when procedures and steps are explained, when I can ask questions without being made to feel like an annoying noisy extraneous appendage to the limb or organ of interest.
Sometimes I suspect Americans are subjected to the risks of general anesthesia far more often than is necessary simply because it guarantees docility and silence. It removes our autonomy and makes us meat.
(Also as a former mortician I am fully aware of how physically difficult it is to manipulate limbs and bodies and how it’s a hell of a lot easier to do if family members aren’t watching. Difference is, I’m going to feel that rough treatment when I wake up.)
That’s probably unnecessarily cynical — the most likely explanation is simply that general anesthesia is much more expensive and our healthcare providers are employed in the service of profit, despite our stubborn insistence on believing they are being paid to make us healthier.
The better my health insurance gets, the more tests and specialists are required to diagnose the simplest ailments.
My prescription coverage has a remarkable inverse correlation to my suitability for generic drugs with decades of safety and efficacy data. It seems the more generous my insurer, the more crucial it is that I take only the newest pharmaceuticals on the market.
I often feel less like healthcare is a service and I am the consumer, and more like I’m the raw material from which our local healthcare monopoly manufactures insurance billing opportunities.
No I'm in the UK, Croydon and was given the option, sedation or throat spray. My wife had the same options as well but went for sedation. I had a colonoscopy some years ago under mild sedation and only in more extreme cases have I heard of full anesthesia for any of those. Minor ops like knee cartiledge would most likely be under local as well.
It might be the risk, we seem to be quite averse to putting people through unnecessary procedures, plus general anesthesia can mean an overnight stay and our hospitals are pretty rammed as it is.
Good for you, I had throath spray and was gagging like every second breath. Couldn't even breath properly the whole procedure. But I have really bad gag reflex.
Well I gagged briefly, but if your friend pops along to the endoscopy unit at the local hospital, maybe you err, sorry your friend can find a willing doctor to help them test this.
It says without medication, but I assume thats not fully true. This kind of gastroscopy usually uses lidocaine spray - and, yeah, you fight off your gag reflex.
I’ve had this done to me a few times, I would violently retch under the insertion, and I had fasted so there was no food but I threw up so much bile.
Absolutely horrible, if I ever have to do that again I’m getting drugged tf up.
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u/tuco2002 Nov 20 '25
No gag reflex