was anyone here alive during the Polio pandemic? My aunt had it and their home was quarantined

[demtenjeep]

My mom used to tell us they felt like lepers.

My aunt was like 4 . For the rest of her life, she had a useless arm that was crooked.


Do you think the "iron lungs" will make a comeback?

[marble falls]

1. Yeah, and no.

[TreasonousBastard]

2. It was horrible. I went to school with some kids who had it, and they were permanently...

disabled. and they were some of the lucky ones.

You have no idea how the nation breathed a sigh of gratitude and relief when Salk gave us the vaccine.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

3. I remember before the Salk vaccine came out

we weren't allowed to swim in public pools or swimming beaches and we were kept away from big gatherings. When the vaccine finally did come out, my mother, a nurse, couldn't get us to the doctor fast enough. She remembered kids in iron lungs from her work as a nurse, but we won't see those again because of the Salk and the subsequent Sabin oral vaccines.

[Squeaky41]

4. Polio Vaccine

During high school in the fifties in Maine I was a guinea pig for Salk Vaccine with 3 other classmates. Many around had already suffered.

[GeorgeGist]

5. I was among those children on whom the Salk vaccine was first tested.

It may have saved my life.

[CanonRay]

6. I remember being scared to death of polio

and was quite happy to get jabbed in the arm.

[gibraltar72]

7. I was

and there was so much ignorance people didn't know what caused it. My dad was convinced dust from dirt roads carried it so everytime we hit a dirt road the windows had to go up in the car. My cousin had a light case. A friends mom got hit hard and actually lived out her life in an iron long. Grandparents neighbor girl took a hard hit and lived in a wheelchair for many years until her death.

[maxrandb]

8. My dad contracted it as a child in the 1930's

It cost him the use of his leg and he had to wear a brace for the rest of his life.

I learned a lot about empathy, compassion and dealing with adversity from my dad.

In fact, I think he described Moscow Mitch perfectly with one of the things he told me.

He said; when you have a disability, it can cause you to become more understanding and more compassionate, or it can cause you to blame the world and be consumed with hatred, vitriol, self-pity and loathing.

BTW - Moscow Mitch received treatment for his polio at that "evil socialist" FDR's Warm Springs Polio Treatment facility.

[Wellstone ruled]

9. Do remember the Polio outbreak.

One of my Classmates Sister was a victim in 1946 and do remember her Brother carrying her up the Stairs each morning at our School. Elementary was on the main floor and the High School was on the Second floor. Once on the second floor she used her Crutches.

One of my best friends came down with a mild version in 1949 and was treated at Sister Kenny Institute in St Paul. He spend about 8 months at Kenny were he was in a Iron Lung for the first two months and was able to fully recover with only on side affect,couple years later all his hair fell out. Some type of scalp infection he had contracted at Kenny. But it all grew back even thicker than before.

[Submariner]

10. I got polio as an 8 yr old in 1954

temporarily paralyzed my legs for a few weeks. Salk came out with the vaccine soon thereafter.

It is 65 years later now, and the polio came back a few years ago as PPS (post-polio syndrome). The same nerviest/muscle bundles affected by the original polio, are now getting weak if I try walking too far, or trying to pedal a bike too far. It's not painful, just a weakening of formerly much stronger legs.

I was lucky. Many neighbor kids ended up in Forrest Gump type leg braces or iron lungs.

[abqtommy]

11. I was vaccinated against polio at age 6 in 1955 and never contacted polio. When my family

moved to a new city in 1957 one of my new classmates at school wore a heavy "polio" brace on one
leg. Yes, I remember polio...

[GusBob]

12. How about TB ?

What happened then

[appalachiablue]

13. We were spared but I knew 2 kids in HS who had it when young,

one had a slight leg weakening, the other with one arm. My parents and their families were careful and so survived, but they always talked about how serious it was. In the early 1960s Mom took us to get vaccinated, she was wonderful.

- List of Polio Survivors: Politicians, Artists, Others

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_polio_survivors

[WestLosAngelesGal]

14. We had an outbreak and they lined us up at a high school for oral polio vaccines.

I dutifully ate my sugar cube with the purple stuff squirted on it, as did my brother and sister. One of my friends down the street had parents who were religiously against vaccines or medical care. My friend Suzi almost died. She was crippled, unable to walk for months and she had a commode chair next to her bed that she had to be lifted on and off of it. For Christmas Eve, my parents let me go and visit her in her house since I was vaccinated and we played Barbies together. Her parents hired performers to come over and they set up a Christmas puppet show in her basement for the two of us. Because she could no longer ride a regular bike, even though she tried so hard, we didn't play outside together ever again. She had to be carried places by her older brothers because her parents wouldn't let her have a wheelchair and she was left back in school. I still think of her, more than 50 years later. With love and admiration for her efforts of riding a stationary bike and crying the entire time because she wanted her life back. She told me she only wished for one thing from Santa and that was to walk again. I hope she did... someday. I moved away so I don't know what happened to her.

Edit: I remember her crawling across people's backyards when her brothers failed to come and get her in time for dinner. She didn't want to get in trouble for being late.

[marlakay]

15. There was a kid in my class in early 60's

Who wore braces from it.