Question: Does PPS cause muscle loss later in life or is atrophy caused by the initial polio attack?
Dr. Maynard: Initial polio infection damage to nerves may result in a muscle’s atrophy (smaller or shrunken size) if a sufficiently large percent of nerves to an individual muscle died off. However, further dying off of damaged but not dead nerve cells from PPS can lead to new muscle atrophy in either or both muscles that were thought to be unaffected but had subclinical involvement, as well as muscles that were known to have been affected and weakened (this is known as ‘progressive muscle atrophy’ or further/additional atrophy).
An anecdotal story might help illuminate the answer above. A woman who was known to have had polio as a young child grew up to be an Olympic gold medalist. In later years, she developed PPS,
which confirmed that she did have some residual nerve loss or damage from polio. Just think how fast a runner she might have been if she had not had polio. Or maybe she wouldn’t have tried so hard to develop her maximal strength.
Post-Polio Health (Vol. 39, No. 1, Winter 2023)