A widespread idea, among those for whom epilepsy is something distant and unknown, is that a person suffering a seizure can choke with his tongue. And they mistakenly believe that in the face of a seizure they should try to open their mouth and introduce some object, and this, far from helping, can be dangerous (for the one who thinks it helps and for the one who is suffering the seizure). <\/p>\n\n
The truth is that most of the seizures\nepileptic seizures do not cause accidents (including the most intense ones:\ngeneralized tonic-clonic seizures) if injuries to the tongue, cheeks or lips, or\ntrauma caused by falling while hitting. <\/p>\n\n
The false belief that during a seizure\nthe patient can choke on his own tongue, and trying to open his mouth,\ncauses some patients with epilepsy to suffer lacerations of the lips,\ngums and even broken teeth. <\/p>\n\n
Currently the recommendation is that you should never\nattempt to open the mouth of a person who is suffering a crisis, it is\nvery unlikely that we will be able to stop them from biting their mouth, and very likely that\nwe will cause them greater harm. <\/p>\n\n
During a crisis, the lack of breathing\nis due to the disordered contraction of the respiratory musculature, and not because\nthe tongue prevents the passage of air. Thus the opening of the mouth does not\nbring any benefit. <\/p>\n\n
We leave you a link to an old post in\nin which we give the basic recommendations on how to act in case of an epileptic seizure\n: <\/p>\n\n