Interview: Mike Pringle - One thing is certain .. I am not going to get any better

Published on Friday 25 June 2010 10:28

More than 50 years after he first fell victim to polio, Mike Pringle now has to deal with its terrible legacy

MIKE PRINGLE says the day he finally gave in to the inevitable and reluctantly started to use a walking stick was one of his life's defining moments.

That was when he'd been forced to concede that 50 years after he thought he'd seen off the worst that childhood polio could do to him, it was back.

Worryingly, there was no telling where it would lead him this time.

Now, several years on, the Edinburgh South Lib Dem MSP and his walking stick are inseparable.

He says: "There was a while when I could get around reasonably well and not bother too much about it, but not now.

"I'm at the stage where I find myself hoping I'm not required to walk the fairly short distance from my office to the parliament debating chamber.

"In fact, I'd not willingly walk from my house to Morningside Road – a distance of less than 200 yards.

"Walking any distance at all is difficult. I get tired quickly because the reality is that I'm walking on one leg and a stick, not on two legs."

The return of a childhood virus after so long is a bitter pill to swallow. Sporty in his youth, determined and hardworking throughout his life, tenacious in his political career, he could have been forgiven for thinking the polio that struck him as a four-year-old growing up in Northern Rhodesia was just a distant, bad memory.

Just as many Scots childhood sufferers of the condition have later found, polio is a vicious and cruel lifelong companion.

Around 120,000 people currently living in the UK had polio as children, many succumbing to the virus as it reached epidemic proportions in the 1950s.

The British Polio Fellowship says around 80 per cent of them will either already have or will develop PPS – Post Polio Syndrome – with symptoms that include muscle wastage, muscle and joint pain and mental and physical fatigue, as well as impaired circulation and difficulty breathing.

As PPS can lie in wait for around 40 years, many of that polio generation are now finding their latter years blighted by illness, and the complexities of their symptoms mean many may be either misdiagnosed or dismissed by their GPs.

"It (PPS] is often difficult to recognise as symptoms may develop slowly and may be mistaken for other conditions and we are communicating with GPs to make them aware of the symptoms to look for," says Dr John Hooper, chief executive of the British Polio Fellowship, speaking in the run-up to British Polio Week.

"We have found that 55 per cent of GPs are unable to diagnose the debilitating effects of PPS which affects an estimated 120,000 people in the UK. We have also found that only 18 per cent of GPs know how to treat PPS when diagnosed."

It is thought there are at least 200 PPS sufferers in Lothian. Like Mike, many would have spent decades imagining the childhood condition was a thing of the past. Its return can be hard to comprehend.

Mike's family were living in Northern Rhodesia – now Zambia – when he became ill.

"Anyone who got polio was very ill in the early stages," says Mike, now 64. "My mother, who had nursed in London, immediately knew what it was. But the doctors in Luanshya in Zambia were worried that if they admitted I had polio it would cause a panic. Eventually, though, they had no choice but to admit it."

Amid fears he might be paralysed from the neck down, the young Mike was placed in an iron lung – an artificial respirator that helps inflate the lungs – where he remained, encased and unable to move, for around a month to help his recovery.

He eventually emerged with damaged muscles in his right leg. As a child he wore a caliper and a raised shoe to help him walk and, typical of many polio patients, refused to let it hold him back.

"In fact, I look upon myself as one of the luckier ones," explains Mike, who entered politics in 1992 when he became city councillor for Morningside.

"Some people were left with great disabilities, some didn't survive. My right leg was affected – it was slightly shorter – but I was still able to have pretty much a normal life."

Still, polio devastated his hopes of playing rugby at Edinburgh Academy – he couldn't run the distances required.

However, surgery at 16 at the Princess Margaret Rose Hospital to lengthen his leg – a process that took several painful months and involved breaking the bones and slowly pulling them apart to encourage new bone growth – eventually enabled him to enjoy badminton and squash.

"Right through my twenties, thirties and forties, I was absolutely fine. Then, around 15 years ago, I felt things weren't quite right, I didn't have the stamina that I was used to.

"The doctor at the Princess Margaret Rose Hospital said 'Oh, there's something people have discovered in America, they've identified that people who had polio can then suffer Post Polio Syndrome'. It was the first I'd ever heard of it."

American researchers discovered that polio sufferers could find symptoms returning between 15 and 40 years after the initial disease. For some, the symptoms can be massively debilitating and can be mistaken for other conditions.

Dr Hooper says: "PPS is a neurological condition which can occur in people who have had polio. After a long time without any significant change in their condition, people may develop new or increasing weakness, stamina problems, fatigue and pain."

For sufferers, there is no cure – the only hope is relief treatments to ease symptoms and the hope that, eventually, PPS will hit a plateau and their condition will not worsen.

Mike has already seen a worsening in his condition. He used to use a walking stick as an occasional aid, but today it's a constant companion.

"I no longer have movement in my toes – I can't force the muscle into moving no matter how I try. I know I'm gradually getting worse. I don't know how long it will take to reach a plateau and stop, but one thing is certain – I'm not going to get any better."

• For information about Polio and Post Polio Syndrome, contact the British Polio Fellowship on 0800 018 0586 or go to www.britishpolio.org.uk

VIRUS THAT CAN LEAD TO PARALYSIS

POLIO – or poliomyelitis – is an acute virus that invades the central nervous system and can led to paralysis within hours.

It can strike at any age, but mainly affects young children.

The disease was prolific in Britain during the Fifties when it left thousands disabled and claimed the lives of many.

Effective vaccines were developed and national immunisation programmes have wiped out the disease in many developed countries. However it remains endemic in Afghanistan, India, Nigeria and Pakistan in particular.

Famous victims of polio include musician Ian Dury who was crippled by the disease at seven and went on to become a Unicef ambassador promoting vaccination campaigns, film director Francis Ford Coppola and singer Joni Mitchell.