What is polio?
Polio is a contagious viral illness. In its most severe form, polio can cause paralysis, difficulty breathing and sometimes death, according to the Mayo Clinic.
The majority of people infected with the polio virus don’t get sick. In same cases, people develop nonparalytic polio, which causes symptoms similar to the flu and other viral illnesses, such as fever, headache, fatigue, pain or stiffness in the neck, back, arms or legs and muscle weakness.
In rare cases, the infection leads to paralytic polio, the most serious form of the disease. The polio virus invades the brain and spinal cord, causing paralysis, loss of reflexes and severe muscle aches.
And for some, the effects of the virus last a lifetime.
Post-polio syndrome is a cluster of disabling signs and symptoms that affect some people several years — an average of 35 years — after they had polio. Common signs of post-polio syndrome include progressive muscle or joint weakness and pain, general fatigue, muscle atrophy, concentration and memory problems, breathing and swallowing problems and sleep-related breathing disorders, according to the Mayo Clinic.