BBC News Online: Health

The lifelong fight against polio

BBC News Online hears from a PPS sufferer.

Lucile Harford is almost totally wheelchair bound and she blames poor advice from doctors in her home town of New York for her debilitating condition.

Mrs Harford, who is now 88, first contracted polio when she was just 12.

Therapy

Her legs and arms were paralysed and it was nearly two years before she was allowed to return to school.

Doctors at the time seemed unsure about how to treat Mrs Harford's polio, which was then known as infantile paralysis.

"I couldn't walk, I couldn't use my arms. I couldn't even sit up. It was a very painful disease, too.

"No physical therapy was available, like there is now. I was treated at home. My doctor didn't have a clue how to help me.

"The emphasis was to get me to walk again. That perhaps was a poor judgement call.

"I walked before my hips and knees were strong enough, causing irreparable damage. I have never since been able to climb steps without holding onto the railings or rise easily from a chair."

Mrs Harford finally learnt to walk again with the use of a cane. She went to college, had a successful career and married.

But half a century after she first contracted the disease Mrs Harford started to suffer from PPS.

"It got slowly worse. Not overnight, but over months, years. It was very frustrating I went from using one canes to two canes, then a walker and finally fulltime to a wheelchair."