How do you confirm polio?

How do you confirm polio?

Doctors often recognize polio by symptoms, such as neck and back stiffness, abnormal reflexes, and difficulty swallowing and breathing. To confirm the diagnosis, a sample of throat secretions, stool or a colorless fluid that surrounds your brain and spinal cord (cerebrospinal fluid) is checked for poliovirus.

Can you have polio without knowing?

Polio symptoms generally appear between 3 and 21 days after infection. However, many people infected with poliovirus have no symptoms and may not even know they are affected. In mild polio cases, symptoms include: fever.

Can polio be cured once you have it?

There is no cure for polio, it can only be prevented. Polio vaccine, given multiple times, can protect a child for life.

How long does it take for polio symptoms to show?

If symptoms do occur, they usually appear about seven to 10 days after exposure to the virus. But symptoms can take as long as 35 days to show up. Early symptoms of polio are like those of influenza (flu) and last about two to 10 days: Fatigue.

How long does it take to recover from polio?

How Long Does Polio Last? People who have milder polio symptoms usually make a full recovery within 1–2 weeks. People whose symptoms are more severe can be weak or paralyzed for life, and some may die. After recovery, a few people might develop “post-polio syndrome” as long as 30–40 years after their initial illness.

Does polio cause brain damage?

Autopsies in some polio patients have found damage to the brainstem and motor cortex as well as to spinal motor neurons. Alternatively, polio may have spared the motor cortex, but the cortex reorganized in different ways to compensate for the loss of spinal motor neurons.

What polio does to the body?

Polio, or poliomyelitis, is a disabling and life-threatening disease caused by the poliovirus. The virus spreads from person to person and can infect a person’s spinal cord, causing paralysis (can’t move parts of the body).

Is there a test to see if you had polio?

Because there are no tests that confirm a post-polio syndrome diagnosis, your doctor may use certain tests to rule out other conditions, including: Electromyography (EMG) and nerve conduction studies. Electromyography measures the tiny electrical discharges produced in muscles.

Can you catch polio twice?

Does past infection with polio make a person immune? There are three types of polio virus. Lifelong immunity usually depends on which type of virus a person contracts. Second attacks are rare and result from infection with a polio virus of a different type than the first attack.