You can swallow your tongue during a seizure. It's physically impossible to swallow your tongue.

You should force something into the mouth of someone having a seizure. Absolutely not! That's a good way to chip teeth, puncture gums, or even break someone's jaw. Just gently roll the person on one side, and put something soft under the head to protect them from getting injured.

You should restrain someone having a seizure. Never use restraint! The seizure will run its course, and you can't stop it.

Epilepsy is contagious. You can't catch epilepsy from another person. It is a disorder, not a disease.

Only kids get epilepsy. Epilepsy happens to people over age 65 almost as often as it does to children ten and under. Anyone can develop epilepsy.

People with epilepsy are disabled and can't work. People with epilepsy have the same range of abilities and intelligence as anyone else. Some individuals with severe or frequent seizures may be limited in their ability to work, while others are successful and productive in challenging careers.

People with epilepsy should not be in jobs of responsibility and stress. People with seizure disorders are found in all walks of life and at all levels in business, government, the arts, and other professions.

Today's medication makes epilepsy a solved problem. Epilepsy is a chronic medical problem that can be successfully treated for many people. Unfortunately, treatment doesn't work for everyone.

Epilepsy is rare, and there aren't many people who have it. There are more than twice as many people with epilepsy in the U.S., as the number of people with cerebral palsy (500,000), muscular dystrophy (250,000), multiple sclerosis (350,000), and cystic fibrosis (30,000) combined.

You can't die from epilepsy. Epilepsy is a very serious condition and people do die of it. Prolonged seizures (status epilepticus) are the cause of 22,000 to 42,000 deaths in the U.S. each year.

You can't tell what a person might do during a seizure. Seizures commonly take a characteristic form and the individual will do basically the same thing during each episode. The behavior may be inappropriate for the time and place, but it is unlikely to cause harm to anyone.

People with epilepsy are physically limited in what they can do. In most cases, epilepsy is not a barrier to physical achievement, although some individuals are more severely affected and may be limited in what they do.