Dinosaurs still roam the earth...with PPS

Sioux City Journal ^ | John Quinlan

[WaterDragon]

When dinosaurs roam the earth, these days, they often do it in wheelchairs.

Just ask self-styled poliomyelitis-saurs Sherry Flansburg and Joan Bruhn, polio survivors whose increasingly weakened muscles, symptoms of Post Polio Syndrome, have forced them into wheelchairs recently, decades after contracting polio.

Flansburg first heard she was a dinosaur about 20 years ago, around the time PPS began to be recognized in the medical community. "I had a very good doctor tell me that if you need something, Sherry, you let me know and we'll talk about it because you're a dinosaur, and they don't teach us how to treat dinosaurs in med school," she said.

Both women say they have heard the same thing over the years when they meet doctors who don't know what to do with them. "It's not that the medical community doesn't want to help us," Flansburg said. "It's that they don't even know what to look for, or they don't even know the questions to ask us."

[Hydroshock]

I have an Uncle who walks with a cane to this day because of polio.

[Clara Lou]

My mother got polio during the epidemic of the 50's. She was 30. She died at 86. The result was that it atrophied her left arm and hand. She seemed to be otherwise unaffected. In her mid-70's she was diagnosed with fibromyalgia. I wonder if it wasn't actually PPS.

[Think free or die]

We seldom hear about this problem. About 15 years ago, I worked with a woman who had survived polio. She also had significant and progressive muscle weakness which appeared years after her bout with polio. She especially had trouble walking.

[Dumb_Ox]

I've had a recalcitrant health condition myself.

Is there a "House, MD" equivalent for real-life ailments that continue undiagnosed and untreatable even by specialists? Where do you go when the doctors don't know what to do with you?