Of course, Casey1505 should be familiar with how strong his wife’s gag reflex is . . .
Should. Good choice of words.
Should, but isn’t. 
(let the pity party begin now…)
Forget Little Shop of Horrors, rent Marathon Man.
And I’m not even going to ask why she had all her teeth removed…
Seriously, I third the notion that impressions are absolutely painless. She shouldn’t need any anesthesia at all. My 10 year old had one made and she didn’t complain at all.
Since she is so afraid of dentists, she never went. She didn’t look like Austin Powers or anything, but she’d develop cavities and never have them filled, stuff like that. It’s not that she had no dental hygene at all, she just feared the repair aspects, and paid the price for it. She knows that her fear cost her a set of teeth and feels badly about it, so she’s really strict about teaching our son that the dentist is a good guy, won’t hurt him, etc. She makes sure he brushes his teeth every day, and puts dentist prescribed flouride drops on a weak spot on his tooth. She doesn’t want him to have to go through what she’s going through.
Does she have a Walkman? Sometimes it helps to listen to music or a book on tape, as a distraction.
This is one of the reasons I’m phobic of dentists. I had the impressions done when I had braces put in at age 12. Goop in, bite down, right? Well, he insisted that I also had to lay back in the chair.
Laying back with a cool, slow moving goo slowly, ever so slowly sliding towards the back of my throat. I have an overly sensitive gag reflex at the best of times. Took them several tries because I couldn’t keep the stuff in my mouth. My dentist was pissed off and wasn’t afraid to show it. He finally let me sit upright and do it, with the same tone of voice he would have used if he was forced at gunpoint to let me bang his daughter.
I sometimes wish I had such vivid memories of the happy and carefree times of my childhood.
Oh, and when I figure out how to overcome my own phobia, I’ll come back and offer something useful. I promise. 
Casey1505, I’m from your area. Dental care in Scranton is, to be fair, horrendous. Good luck to your wife.
Tell her to ask for a children’s size impression tray. I have a very strong gag reflex and that is what they gave me.
I had the same problem with Dentists as a child. Jamming needles carelessly into my jaws, hurting me and making like I’m a big baby for my trouble. For more than 10 years, I didn’t see a dentist. Had no trouble in that time.
Then I moved and had the odd dental emergency. Since there was a Dentist only 4 blocks from my house who advertised “pain free”, I decided to give him a chance. BUT, I decided to take command of the situation and interview him ahead of time. Key question; Did he use Nitrous Oxide? He said yes.
So I get into the chair for the work and he starts to go into my mouth with the big needle, no gas. I stopped him and reminded him that I said he wouldn’t be doing this work without gas. He said he didn’t use it, it causes cancer. I calmly but forcefully repeated that he had told me he did and agreed to use it. He flippantly blew me off with “Well I’m not going to”.
I got up out of the chair and was half-way out the door before he changed his mind. One more follow up visit and I never went back. Didn’t feel I could trust the man.
Went to another Dentist about 10 blocks from my house. Interviewed him too. He rarely uses gas, but he assured me that he had some good topicals. And he did. They work great, numbing it up for the shots very nicely. He also doesn’t twist the fucking needle around inside to get at other spots like some other bastards have.
But since day one, I’ve always gone in with the attitude that I control the situation and can walk out or raise objections or stop them at any time.
Only had one problem there, when a…mind blank…‘tooth cleaner’ stopped and (literally) yelled at me for “twitching too much” after she spent a little too long picking at a sensitive spot. I stopped her, turned around in the chair and read her the riot act about her unprofessional behavior. Had half the staff watching from the hall by the end of it.
Since then, the staff has gone out of their way to be nice to me.
Remember, you are the boss, not them. They’re like demons in that respect, they want to convince you that they are in control.
The real question is whether you let them be.
I had the same dentist-phobia. Even going in to the dentist to schedule an appointment would have me in tears. I was so scared of the dentist I’d endure hellish toothaches and walked around with giant holes in my teeth rather than get them fixed. After years of not having any dental work done, I realized I was at the end of being insured, and one of my teeth broke in half. Things were in bad shape and I needed lots of painful work. Multiple root canals. Goodness knows how many fillings. It was something like ten visits with five different dentists in all.
I couldn’t afford to be knocked out, but they did give me Xanax. I’d take the bus to the office, and arrange for a ride home (you could also consider a cab). As they worked, I put on headphones (thank goodness for my portable MP3 player with hundreds of songs- I made a calm “dentist mix”). I was so calm, I’d actually drift off. It was even pleasent to hear the hum of the drill, the vibrations of the nerve-sucking tool and all that. I was in total happy dreamland.
And that is the only way I could have ever gotten so much work done. That literally saved my teeth. After so many pleasent untraumatic drugged-out visits to the dentist office, I’m not even scared of the dentist anymore. Even if you are against unnessary drugs, they are worth it if that is what it takes.
I have had dental impressions recently and hated it. It HURT.
Nitrous Oxide make me more sensitive to pain (and paranoid; I was convinced the dentist KNOWS he is hurting me).
Using the topical anesthaestic PROPERLY does work; it has to be given minutes, not seconds, to work. The only dentist to NOT cause me great pain was a student; the instructor made him wait long enough (it was at least five minutes) for the lidocaine to really kick in.
The bullet that needs to bitten here is: if she is relaxed enough to go to the dentist (if there’s no Xanax, try Nyquil), she will not be able to drive.
By the way, you are a saint; my spouse does not believe I have a lower threshhold for pain.
Tell her you went out, found that dentist who busted off the needle, and busted off a tire iron in his head.
When they gave me dental impressions, they told me if the stuff did roll down my throat, don’t worry, it will harden before it separates, and they pull it out. It’s not fun having dental goo rolling down the back of my throat, and then having it pulled back out again.
She is certainly not alone in her phobia. I take xanax and that helps – until I’m actually on the way to the dentist. But his office understands the problem and has nitrous oxide ready to go. They allow me to get very relaxed before they start and provide continual reassurance that I’m doing fine. Finding a sympathetic dentist has made a lot of difference.
I’ve not had any problem with the goop running down my throat and they rinse it out of my teeth.
BTW, don’t ever let your wife see Marathon Man.