If a person contracted "lockjaw," does the jaw lock in an open position, or closed?

Question

My grandmother is 101 yrs old. She told me that when she was a little girl in NJ, another girl up the street contracted "lockjaw." I asked how the girl was able to eat, drink and talk (thinking they could wedge a straw between her teeth or something). She said, they had to pour food in because when you get "lockjaw," the jaw freezes in an opened position. I was horrified at the image in my mind and told her so. She said yes, it was horrifying, the girl always looked like she was in mid-scream! Could this be true? Or, is my grandmother mis-remembering something else, and perhaps, embellishing it a little?

Answer 1

"Lockjaw" is Tetanus. What happens is that all the muscles in the body get rigid. Even light hurts the person. It is very sad to see and not very many people survive if they contract it. I've only seen 2 cases of it while working in various hospitals for 45 years.
Those two people didn't have their mouths open. No one was supposed to touch them unless absolutely necessary because the muscles under where they were touched would contract even more. If you run "Tetanus" on your search engine, you should be able to get a better picture of "lockjaw". Unfortunately, it isn't only their jaw that is locked.

Answer 2

Lockjaw is an infection that causes extreme muscle stiffness and spasms . Due to widespread immunization, tetanus is now a rare disease. It is mostly caused by a contaminated wound. This is why parents are always saying to clean a wound, you dont want to get lockjaw. And I believe that the jaw is held shut by the spasm, hence the term "Lockjaw".

Answer 3

Tetanus (lockjaw) causes the masticator (chewing) muscles to lock in a closed position. The further the disease progresses, you then develop a condition called opisthonus (where the back muscles contract and your head could touch your feet backwards if the spine were limber enough).

Answer 4

"Lockjaw" is associated with a bacterial infection by the organism that causes tetanus. The toxins produced by this bacteria cause the muscles in the face and neck to contract severely causing the mouth to be "locked" closed.

Answer 5

Lockjaw, or trismus /ˈtɹɪzˌməs/ (Greek τρισμος, trismos, "a grinding") is a pathological, sustained spasm of the neck and masseter (jaw) muscles that can make it difficult or impossible to open the mouth. It is most often associated with tetanus.

Answer 6

yeah, its true, and you get the "sardis ridicous" (spelling) which means ridicoulous smile or sarcasitc smile (i forget) or something like that; the muscles in your jaw, and everywhere else in your body freeze up so they have a dumb looking smile on their face. your muscles everywhere in your body freeze up so often people can breath and suffocate to death, and they get horrible spasms, there have been cases documented where people have broken their own backs from the spasms. the spasms can start from even a small stimulus like turning the lights on or touching them. she wasnt embellishing much if at all, its a pretty horrible way to die. luckily its pretty rare in the western world (still a major cause of death in developing countries) since there is a vaccine for it nowadays, and they have antibodies for it that they use in the few cases that are still around that neutralize the toxins so people rarely die from it if they have access to healthcare

you could probably do an image search on yahoo or google and figure it out, i think it is slightly open since it has the characteristic "smile" appearance

Answer 7

It appears that lock jaw can occur either when the mouth is closed (muscle becomes defensive and locks up) or when open ( a very large yawn locking the mouth open).

Answer 8

Lock jaw is in closed position.

Answer 9

there are multiple types of toxins that can either cause muscles to stay contracted or relaxed. she very well couldhave had a friend with her jaw locked open.

Answer 10

locks in closed position

but in those days, they may have forced her mouth open to feed her