Undiagnosed Polio
Question: I have a friend who at the age of 79 is now developing weakness in her hips. She was around me when I got polio and her cousin was the carrier. The question is can she have a normal EMG and still have had polio? The doctor told her that she could not have had polio because her nerves are fine.
Dr. Bruno’s Response: 10-15% of polio survivors have NORMAL EMGs because their nerves were damaged but not killed. So, there are no sprouts to show up on the EMG.
From THE POLIO PARADOX:
“Almost 10% of patients who had a history of polio and with muscle weakness, and who were reporting new pain, fatigue or weakness today, had normal regular EMGs, meaning that there was no EMG evidence that they ever had polio.
On the other hand, it has been suggested that every polio survivor get an EMG to identify muscles that were NOT affected by the poliovirus to identify which limbs can be exercised without worrying that they will become weaker. One pre-exercise study using regular EMG found that almost 25% of paralytic polio survivors' limbs had no evidence of motor neurons having been killed. Those limbs were classified as having "no clinical polio" and therefore could be exercised like anyone else's muscles. However, neurologist Carlos Luciano using a special "macro" EMG found oversprouted motor neurons in 85% of muscle that were thought to have had "no clinical polio." And research by David Bodian and Alan McComas showed that seemingly unaffected muscles had lost 40% of the motor neurons....”
Look under the topic "EMG" in the Index of the ENCYCLOPEDIA of POLIO & PPS. (Everything is listed by Subject.)