Did FDR Have Polio?
Question: Did FDR have PPS in his later years?
Dr. Bruno’s Response: FDR's son, James, attended the first PPS conference in Warm Springs. We had a conversation about the presentations and James declared, "My father had the late effects of polio".
James' conclusion is probably the most significant reminder that PPS is a diagnosis of exclusion. FDR smoked, had severe, uncontrolled hypertension, an enlarged heart with episodes of congestive heart failure and probably a malignant melanoma seen over his left eye.
Fatigue was described in early 1944: FDR "seemed strangely tired, even in the morning hours; he occasionally nodded off during a conversation once, he blacked out half-way through signing his name to a letter, leaving a long scrawl".
FDR did appear nigh unto death while attending the Yalta summit, understandable given his medical conditions and the overwhelming stress of years spent fighting the Depression and then World War II.
Did FDR have PPS? How could he not? But, given all of his other diagnoses, how can we ever know?