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Hello - wondering if anyone has experienced anything like this re: post-stroke involuntary biting of tongue while unconscious.


My mom is recovering from a massive right hemisphere ischemic stroke


She's made significant progress but still mostly unconscious (able to open her eyes and follow simple commands like blinking, opening her mouth, and squeezing at times) but this has been inconsistent


One recent complication is she's started biting her tongue to where she's cutting into it with her teeth


Her partial dentures are not in so she tends to have her tongue rest between the spaced out teeth in her mouth and on top of another jagged tooth.


Nurses/Drs have offered no solutions so far and have been unable to fit any kind of mouth guard or apparatus to prevent this due to obstruction and aspiration risks (she has not demonstrated 100% the ability to control her swallowing yet). We've also contacted her dentist to no avail


Nurses are physically moving her tongue away that side of her mouth when possible. We're told putting in the dentures would still result in her biting down and the teeth aren't any less sharp


The one elongated bite guard they tried she has a tendency to push out of her mouth or it comes out when coughing


Today Drs have prescribed starting her on gabapentin (anticonvulsant) - no details yet


She currently has a tracheostomy tube and a gastrointestinal tube fyi so feeding is not occurring from her mouth at this time.


This is causing her pain and stress no doubt, as well as her family and the hospital staff treating her. Any advice, help, suggestions, or solutions would be appreciated so much.

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I’ve had problems biting my tongue all my adult life, probably because I had a crowded jaw and teeth ended up not in the ‘instinctive’ place. Bad bites, lots of blood. The only good thing is that the tongue heals easily.

I’ve used mouth guards, mostly at night, but they are very expensive ($1000 plus). For traveling, I use sports mouth guards, about $10 from the pharmacy, much cheaper if you lose them. They are soft and bulky, and I cut them down using a sharp knife to be more comfortable. You could probably cut out gaps for where the remaining teeth are. It might be worth experimenting with one of those. Best wishes, Margaret
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