“Summer Grippe”, “Mild Case of Polio” and Type Two Poliovirus
Question: What’s happening in New York is raising awareness of children who have the poliovirus but only have flu-like symptoms, are not being diagnosed and thus can spread it. The more I learn about Polio and PPS the more interested I get. I was sick in 1954 with the Summer Grippe. Recovered on my own, no doctors. My drop foot gradually appeared over the years. How many of us were not diagnosed (initially) with polio, but with the Summer Grippe? Albert Sabin described it in 1946.
Additional Post: Polio hit me like a ton of bricks and I've always been puzzled by people in these groups who don't know when they got it and were never in a hospital. I have run into people who never had to wear special shoes or like you said never went to the hospital but yet they say they had polio. I know polio affected us all differently, but the fact that my foot dropped, toes curled, and noticeable limp and size of leg, makes it hard to imagine not knowing!
Additional Post: I can see why someone might not ever know they had polio at the time. I had a girlfriend who had gotten it in one of her legs. Her leg never was shorter, she never had to wear a brace or different size shoes. When she was reaching age 50, then she needed a brace because her foot on that leg was starting to drop. We are all so different, yet the same.
Additional Post: My whole family came down with "Summer Grippe" in 1948. Seven kids, I was the youngest at 1 year. No doctor was called till I started walking again and dragging one foot. We were some of the lucky ones; no iron lungs or long hospital stays. Dealing with PPS now is tough, having all sorts of problems with pain in the back and legs. My siblings have also had PPS problems. I'll always wonder how many Summer Grippe children have developed muscle weakness issues that have never been attributed to polio.
Dr. Bruno’s Response: All three types of poliovirus caused paralysis. The Type I poliovirus is the epidemic virus that paralyzed(es) most people. Albert Sabin discovered that it was the Type II poliovirus that apparently caused "the Summer Grippe” (and it was also the cause of the polio epidemic in Iceland the next year).
Unfortunately, we will never know how many Summer Grippe children there were nor how many children went undiagnosed with "non-paralytic" polio.
(There are numerous articles about this under the topics of “Summer Grippe” and “Non-Paralytic” listed in the Index of the Encyclopedia of Polio and PPS.)