Question: Is the weakness associated with PPS generalized or can it be muscle specific?

Dr. Bruno’s Response: Both, sort of.

    Weakness is caused by failure of individual motor neurons, not all of your motor neurons at once. And not all motor neurons were damaged to the same extent by the poliovirus. When you do manual testing of a given muscle, weakness is “specific”. When you're living your life, muscle weakness can feel “general,” or maybe “generally” in the legs or the arms. Also, it’s hard to separate “general” muscle weakness from fatigue, which is caused by brain neurons browning out.

BOTTOM LINE: Don't work until you feel “specific” or “general” muscle weakness. Muscle weakness and fatigue are your body's way of saying, "You've done too much.”

Richard L. Bruno, HD, PhD

Previous
Previous

Local Anesthetics

Next
Next

“Normal” EMGs in Paralytic Polio Survivors