11 ms·

Mysterious illness that paralyzes healthy kids prompts plea from CDC

244 points by smacktoward 7y ago

openureyes2 7y ago
Yet another side effect of vaccines that it will take them 20 years to admit.
adamvalve 7y ago
I have a coworker who's son just got this diagnosis. This stuff is scary. They caught it fast and were able to treat it but he still lost most control of his left arm. Long road to recovery but it seems some kids aren't as lucky.
- 14 7y ago
  I just got news that one of my kids Taekwondo instructors may have this. He was a healthy 21 year old male. Everyone is feeling devastated as he was so young and not completely reliant on life support for his breathing. No one knows if he will recover and it is terrifying. As someone with several kids this is really worrying.
  - ajross 7y ago
    Are you guys sure? Per that wikipedia page, there were 233 cases known as of last year. Total. It sorta strains reason that people close to two of those cases just happen to arrive at a thread in a niche forum site and report infections at the same time. Maybe there's a confusion of which diagnosis is which? It's extremely rare, just barely at the level where epidemiology can inform decisions, which is the point of the linked article. Reporting is spotty and they're trying to get doctors educated.
    - dleslie 7y ago
      They're talking about relations with one or more degrees of separation. A coworker's kid and an instructor of their own kids. Including several degrees of separation allows one to find matches much more readily. Perhaps you've played six degrees of Kevin Bacon?
      - darkpuma 7y ago
        If all the world is six degrees or less from everybody else, then we could perhaps say people have an average of 45 or so first degree connections to other people (45^6 == population of the world, approximately.) So at two degrees, there 45^2 = 2,025 people. That passes my sanity check. So you've got less than 30 people in this thread accounting for let's call it 60,000 second degree connections in a world with 7,700,000,000 people and less than 300 people world-wide with the illness. I don't know, even with birthday paradox stuff it still seems pretty unlikely to me. Even if we say half the population are losers with no friends and should be excluded from the calculation and therefore bump that 45 figure to 90, 90^2*30 is still a mere 243,000. If you knock it up to three degrees of separation with 90 first degree connections per person, then for 30 people you're passed 21 million which is getting somewhere I guess. The numbers in the Kevin Bacon game grow very fast, but they still start out relatively small. And two degrees is relatively small.
        Retra 7y ago
        They're not only checking two degrees though, they're checking as far as they can and just happen to find them within two degrees. So it's not "how likely are they to find them in two degrees", but "how likely are they to find them at any depth, and then given that they've found them, how likely are they to lie with two degrees."
        feral 7y ago
        > If all the world is six degrees or less from everybody else, then we could perhaps say people have an average of 45 or so first degree connections to other people (45^6 == population of the world, approximately.) So at two degrees, there 45^2 = 2,025 people. That passes my sanity check. 45 is probably much too low. Your model there doesn't take into account any clustering which is really important. You want to think of a higher number of first degree connections (higher average node degree), but where there's a large overlap in the second degree connections each first degree connection provides (so you can't just do N^6).
        Cass 7y ago
        On the web, there's usually a ratio of readers/lurkers to commenters of somewhere between 100 to 1 and 1000 to 1. So if 30 people comment on this article, that means 300 to 3000 are reading it. That means your second degree connections need to be two or three orders of magnitude higher.
    - 14 7y ago
      As this is someone who is not my family and only instruct my kids I would have to say no I am not sure but it is a candidate. It happened so fast I guess. I just checked out his gofundme and he just passed this morning I am a little in shock. If I hear more I will update. Here is a link to the gofundme if anyone can help out. https://www.gofundme.com/f/n6kda7-for-nick https://www.gofundme.com/f/n6kda7-for-nick
  - Waterluvian 7y ago
    As a parent I've come up with a mechanism to help when things like this worry me. I have basically no power to protect against things like this. But I have tremendous power to protect against far more likely causes of harm like diabetes and heart disease and obesity. So any time I'm having a moment of worry about their well being I find an extra hour to carve out of my day and take them to the park. It's therapeutic and makes me feel less helpless and feels like I'm gradually equipping them with the life trait of being an active person.
    - couchand 7y ago
      > But I have tremendous power to protect against far more likely causes of harm like diabetes and heart disease and obesity. Not to mention cars, guns, and drowning.
      - dhxjsbd 7y ago
        Guns? Cars? Small stuff ;) I’m worried about medical malpractice. Quality stats are hard to come by, but it’s estimated to be up a top 3 killer after cancer and heart disease in the US!
        adrianN 7y ago
        Probably not a top killer of children and young adults though.
        barry-cotter 7y ago
        Could be. Children and young adults go to hospital too and if medical errors are third only to the two biggest killers, which children will not generally suffer from, medical error could plausibly be the biggest killer. More likely it’s trauma from doing stupid things but if medical error is that prevalent it certainly kills plenty of children.
    - mlrtime 7y ago
      This is the stoic mindset, worry about only things you have control over.
turk73 7y ago
Is this illness "mysterious" because it was brought in by illegal immigrants?
tzs 7y ago
Here's a graph showing the clustering mentioned in the article [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acute_flaccid_myelitis#/media/File:Paralysie_flasque_aigu%C3%AB_acute_flaccid_myelitis_US_CDC_graph_2018_en.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acute_flaccid_myelitis#/media/...
- beagle3 7y ago
  Seems to peek every two years in september. Interesting.
  - eli 7y ago
    When kids start school?
    - xvector 7y ago
      Why every other year, then? Cursory research tells me that this sort of cycle is super uncommon. This sort of thing strikes fear deep into my heart. There’s nothing I can do to stop it. We can’t abandon our weak fleshy human bodies soon enough.
      - nonbel 7y ago
        > "Cursory research tells me that this sort of cycle is super uncommon." No, this is common. Look at measles: https://wiekvoet.blogspot.com/2014/03/looking-at-measles-data-in-project-tycho.html https://wiekvoet.blogspot.com/2014/03/looking-at-measles-dat... You can see two things: 1) It is very seasonal, peaking in the late spring. My personal guess is it has to do with the relative humidity. 2) It is not uncommon to have 1-2 skipped years between large outbreaks. This is because the susceptible people accumulate until there is an outbreak. See SIR models: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compartmental_models_in_epidemiology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compartmental_models_in_epidem... If we are seeing that in this case, that means the virus is infecting many more kids than the few being detected due to these symptoms. Basically the virus is circulating freely but this is a rare complication.
tau255 7y ago
Is there any way that propagation of polio related viruses is linked with reduced immunization rate? Like opening new "natural" reservoir for it to exploit/mutate in?
- maxerickson 7y ago
  I wonder if it is the other way around, with the elimination of polio making a disease that has similar impacts on many fewer people more visible.
  - tau255 7y ago
    Yes, that's good point. Before polio immunization all similar cases may have been attributed to polio directly and now that polio cases are filtered every such case stands out. Did not think about that.
- bayesian_horse 7y ago
  The suspect isolates are NOT descended from any known poliovirus isolates. Vaccines against polio do not cross-immunize against other enterovirus species. There are no vaccines against most of these "cold" virus.
hurrdurr2 7y ago
So it looks like best guess is some sort of mutated polio virus? Also seems to cluster from June to December range... I hope they figure out what exactly this is soon.
- halfarmbandit 7y ago
  Notice, this isn’t just June to Late November, it’s also occurring every 2 years, not every year. This has me wearing tinfoil hats.
  - tzs 7y ago
    I'd reach for the insect repellant before the tinfoil hat. Anyone know offhand an insect with a two year life cycle that has some significant stage that peaks around September?
    - nemonemo 7y ago
      Even if such insect exists, they would have alternating two groups that would appear like annual, like cicadas.
      - dmckeon 7y ago
        Or appear every 13 or 17 years, like some cicadas. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Periodical_cicadas#Lifecycle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Periodical_cicadas#Lifecycle
        nemonemo 7y ago
        This is a great natural wonder. Thank you. It also invalidates my logic. Maybe there could be some vector with biannual periodicity.
        Marionnorris 7y ago
        Greetings my name is Marion Norris. I’m from Atlanta few weeks back I was in a tribble situation that I urgently needed to fix my credit. I contacted various credit Agency I met online to help me fix my credit but could not pull through. I disclosed my situation to a co-worker Marcus he recommended a Credit Specialist by name HACKNET CREDIT SPECIALIST he used some time that delivered a job for him HACKNET567@GMAIL.COM/ (949) 397 8437 I contacted him and explained the situation on ground hitting how desperately I needed a house but my credit rate wouldn’t allow me, after much discussion and findings I was okay to move on with the process I presented the necessary info he requested to kick start. He got my credit fixed in 12days It’s really amazing working with HACKNET with great professionalism I also made him my personal hacker you can hit him up on the address above tell him I sent you. Thanks.
selimthegrim 7y ago
Maybe it's like the cluster in India, in Bihar? https://thewire.in/health/what-is-encephalitis-whats-happening-in-bihar-heres-all-you-need-to-know https://thewire.in/health/what-is-encephalitis-whats-happeni...
Alex3917 7y ago
I had something very similar to this in September 2006. I still have all my medical records from the time and a digitized version of my MRI because it was such a weird thing that no one was ever able to convincingly diagnose. I checked though and it doesn't look like there is any way to submit it since I'm not a doctor, and since it was before 2014, heh.
nemonemo 7y ago
Is there any geographical clustering? The article mentioned Colorado GBS cases, but I could not find any mentioning of AFM one. If this happens mostly during the hot season and some insect vectors are suspected, I'd expect to see some concentration around hot and humid areas.
- bayesian_horse 7y ago
  Apparently it's not that simple. They don't say so in the article, but the trouble with identifying the causal agent is that the suspect strains have an incidence rate which is multiple orders of magnitude higher than the number of AFM cases. But as far as I know those virus species are not routinely tested for or differentiated that far. It's mostly "just a cold". I think there are more specific causes for the GBS cases, so that may explain a local clustering.
mikeytown2 7y ago
This is a controversial book but worth looking into https://www.amazon.com/Moth-Iron-Lung-Biography-Polio/dp/1717583679 https://www.amazon.com/Moth-Iron-Lung-Biography-Polio/dp/171...
- bardworx 7y ago
  Just reading the first review on Amazon, I’m skeptical. They started with polio and ended with arsenic poisoning. One (polio) is caused by a virus we have vaccines for. The other (arsenic) is a poison that was readily available and know in 1800s. There is also misinformation in the description of the book, stating that polio just appeared in 1800s but it was around way before and identified in 1789. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polio https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polio This seems to be some great anti-vaccine propaganda or fear mongering for a few bucks.
anongraddebt 7y ago
Medical 'anomalies', while sad and terrible in some cases, can also be fascinating. I was seven in the summer of '94 and woke up one day with a completely immobile left leg. My sister came into the bedroom to relay a message from mom that if I didn't stop playing games and get ready for school, then I'd be in trouble. However, I simply couldn't move my left leg. The rest of the week I spent at home. Whenever I needed to walk somewhere, I'd just hop on my right leg, and drag my left leg along with me. That week I saw a number of doctors and specialists. Had the battery of tests and diagnostics that are de rigeur for anything where the medical community has no clue what is going on. Within roughly seven days from the onset of this temporary paralysis, my leg began functioning again and did so quite quickly.
- jader201 7y ago
  Don’t leave us hanging! Did you/your parents/the doctors ever figure out what was going on? Or did you just chalk it up to a fluke, hoping it would never return?
  - whatusername 7y ago
    My 5 y/o was unable to walk for a day or two last year. Diagnosed with this: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5429052/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5429052/
  - anongraddebt 7y ago
    No one ever figured it out. Obviously, I hope it never returns or if it does that only lasts a week;)
- devm0de 7y ago
  I had a very similar thing happen to me in the late 80’s when I was 5. I remember getting out of bed and falling to the ground as I couldn’t feel my legs. I lost function of both legs and couldn’t walk, my parents brought me into doctors and specialist and they had no answers. Less than a week later I regained feeling and function of both my legs like nothing ever happened. I don’t recall having a fever. I actually forgot that happened to me until your story just now. Crazy.
Havoc 7y ago
>CDC asks for help Welcome. You're now on the set of a Generic Epidemic Horror Movie A
uptownfunk 7y ago
Is this related to anti vax ?
- RandomGuyDTB 7y ago
  no
naveen99 7y ago
My son had this when he was 5. We had a difficult few years. Now mostly recovered. very scary disease.
wintercarver 7y ago
Regarding the mysterious biennial periodicity, I dug around for naturally occurring biennial events that have a synced timing. Didn’t find much, but I did find this article specifically about biennial periodicity in measles. “Periodicity, synchronization and persistence in pre-vaccination measles” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4938089/#!po=0.769231 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4938089/#!po=0.... >An analysis of data from more than 350 administrative areas in England and Wales using wavelets [9] showed that for pre-vaccination measles, (from 1944 to 1966) most locations are indeed synchronized and present outbreaks every 2 years...
bluepeter 7y ago
I've been following this closely. There's no real data on the following: - Is this happening in other countries? I cannot find really any established diagnoses outside of the US (though some countries have CDC-like pages on it). - What is the gender breakdown? - What is the age breakdown? (mean, median, SD) - What is the geo breakdown? (city vs rural, major geo areas)

244 points by smacktoward 7y ago

Yet another side effect of vaccines that it will take them 20 years to admit.

I have a coworker who's son just got this diagnosis. This stuff is scary. They caught it fast and were able to treat it but he still lost most control of his left arm. Long road to recovery but it seems some kids aren't as lucky.

14 7y ago
I just got news that one of my kids Taekwondo instructors may have this. He was a healthy 21 year old male. Everyone is feeling devastated as he was so young and not completely reliant on life support for his breathing. No one knows if he will recover and it is terrifying. As someone with several kids this is really worrying.
- ajross 7y ago
  Are you guys sure? Per that wikipedia page, there were 233 cases known as of last year. Total. It sorta strains reason that people close to two of those cases just happen to arrive at a thread in a niche forum site and report infections at the same time. Maybe there's a confusion of which diagnosis is which? It's extremely rare, just barely at the level where epidemiology can inform decisions, which is the point of the linked article. Reporting is spotty and they're trying to get doctors educated.
  - dleslie 7y ago
    They're talking about relations with one or more degrees of separation. A coworker's kid and an instructor of their own kids. Including several degrees of separation allows one to find matches much more readily. Perhaps you've played six degrees of Kevin Bacon?
    - darkpuma 7y ago
      If all the world is six degrees or less from everybody else, then we could perhaps say people have an average of 45 or so first degree connections to other people (45^6 == population of the world, approximately.) So at two degrees, there 45^2 = 2,025 people. That passes my sanity check. So you've got less than 30 people in this thread accounting for let's call it 60,000 second degree connections in a world with 7,700,000,000 people and less than 300 people world-wide with the illness. I don't know, even with birthday paradox stuff it still seems pretty unlikely to me. Even if we say half the population are losers with no friends and should be excluded from the calculation and therefore bump that 45 figure to 90, 90^2*30 is still a mere 243,000. If you knock it up to three degrees of separation with 90 first degree connections per person, then for 30 people you're passed 21 million which is getting somewhere I guess. The numbers in the Kevin Bacon game grow very fast, but they still start out relatively small. And two degrees is relatively small.
      - Retra 7y ago
        They're not only checking two degrees though, they're checking as far as they can and just happen to find them within two degrees. So it's not "how likely are they to find them in two degrees", but "how likely are they to find them at any depth, and then given that they've found them, how likely are they to lie with two degrees."
      - feral 7y ago
        > If all the world is six degrees or less from everybody else, then we could perhaps say people have an average of 45 or so first degree connections to other people (45^6 == population of the world, approximately.) So at two degrees, there 45^2 = 2,025 people. That passes my sanity check. 45 is probably much too low. Your model there doesn't take into account any clustering which is really important. You want to think of a higher number of first degree connections (higher average node degree), but where there's a large overlap in the second degree connections each first degree connection provides (so you can't just do N^6).
      - Cass 7y ago
        On the web, there's usually a ratio of readers/lurkers to commenters of somewhere between 100 to 1 and 1000 to 1. So if 30 people comment on this article, that means 300 to 3000 are reading it. That means your second degree connections need to be two or three orders of magnitude higher.
  - 14 7y ago
    As this is someone who is not my family and only instruct my kids I would have to say no I am not sure but it is a candidate. It happened so fast I guess. I just checked out his gofundme and he just passed this morning I am a little in shock. If I hear more I will update. Here is a link to the gofundme if anyone can help out. https://www.gofundme.com/f/n6kda7-for-nick https://www.gofundme.com/f/n6kda7-for-nick
- Waterluvian 7y ago
  As a parent I've come up with a mechanism to help when things like this worry me. I have basically no power to protect against things like this. But I have tremendous power to protect against far more likely causes of harm like diabetes and heart disease and obesity. So any time I'm having a moment of worry about their well being I find an extra hour to carve out of my day and take them to the park. It's therapeutic and makes me feel less helpless and feels like I'm gradually equipping them with the life trait of being an active person.
  - couchand 7y ago
    > But I have tremendous power to protect against far more likely causes of harm like diabetes and heart disease and obesity. Not to mention cars, guns, and drowning.
    - dhxjsbd 7y ago
      Guns? Cars? Small stuff ;) I’m worried about medical malpractice. Quality stats are hard to come by, but it’s estimated to be up a top 3 killer after cancer and heart disease in the US!
      - adrianN 7y ago
        Probably not a top killer of children and young adults though.
        barry-cotter 7y ago
        Could be. Children and young adults go to hospital too and if medical errors are third only to the two biggest killers, which children will not generally suffer from, medical error could plausibly be the biggest killer. More likely it’s trauma from doing stupid things but if medical error is that prevalent it certainly kills plenty of children.
  - mlrtime 7y ago
    This is the stoic mindset, worry about only things you have control over.

turk73 7y ago

Is this illness "mysterious" because it was brought in by illegal immigrants?

tzs 7y ago

Here's a graph showing the clustering mentioned in the article [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acute_flaccid_myelitis#/media/File:Paralysie_flasque_aigu%C3%AB_acute_flaccid_myelitis_US_CDC_graph_2018_en.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acute_flaccid_myelitis#/media/...

beagle3 7y ago
Seems to peek every two years in september. Interesting.
- eli 7y ago
  When kids start school?
  - xvector 7y ago
    Why every other year, then? Cursory research tells me that this sort of cycle is super uncommon. This sort of thing strikes fear deep into my heart. There’s nothing I can do to stop it. We can’t abandon our weak fleshy human bodies soon enough.
    - nonbel 7y ago
      > "Cursory research tells me that this sort of cycle is super uncommon." No, this is common. Look at measles: https://wiekvoet.blogspot.com/2014/03/looking-at-measles-data-in-project-tycho.html https://wiekvoet.blogspot.com/2014/03/looking-at-measles-dat... You can see two things: 1) It is very seasonal, peaking in the late spring. My personal guess is it has to do with the relative humidity. 2) It is not uncommon to have 1-2 skipped years between large outbreaks. This is because the susceptible people accumulate until there is an outbreak. See SIR models: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compartmental_models_in_epidemiology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compartmental_models_in_epidem... If we are seeing that in this case, that means the virus is infecting many more kids than the few being detected due to these symptoms. Basically the virus is circulating freely but this is a rare complication.

tau255 7y ago

Is there any way that propagation of polio related viruses is linked with reduced immunization rate? Like opening new "natural" reservoir for it to exploit/mutate in?

maxerickson 7y ago
I wonder if it is the other way around, with the elimination of polio making a disease that has similar impacts on many fewer people more visible.
- tau255 7y ago
  Yes, that's good point. Before polio immunization all similar cases may have been attributed to polio directly and now that polio cases are filtered every such case stands out. Did not think about that.
bayesian_horse 7y ago
The suspect isolates are NOT descended from any known poliovirus isolates. Vaccines against polio do not cross-immunize against other enterovirus species. There are no vaccines against most of these "cold" virus.

hurrdurr2 7y ago

So it looks like best guess is some sort of mutated polio virus? Also seems to cluster from June to December range... I hope they figure out what exactly this is soon.

halfarmbandit 7y ago
Notice, this isn’t just June to Late November, it’s also occurring every 2 years, not every year. This has me wearing tinfoil hats.
- tzs 7y ago
  I'd reach for the insect repellant before the tinfoil hat. Anyone know offhand an insect with a two year life cycle that has some significant stage that peaks around September?
  - nemonemo 7y ago
    Even if such insect exists, they would have alternating two groups that would appear like annual, like cicadas.
    - dmckeon 7y ago
      Or appear every 13 or 17 years, like some cicadas. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Periodical_cicadas#Lifecycle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Periodical_cicadas#Lifecycle
      - nemonemo 7y ago
        This is a great natural wonder. Thank you. It also invalidates my logic. Maybe there could be some vector with biannual periodicity.
      - Marionnorris 7y ago
        Greetings my name is Marion Norris. I’m from Atlanta few weeks back I was in a tribble situation that I urgently needed to fix my credit. I contacted various credit Agency I met online to help me fix my credit but could not pull through. I disclosed my situation to a co-worker Marcus he recommended a Credit Specialist by name HACKNET CREDIT SPECIALIST he used some time that delivered a job for him HACKNET567@GMAIL.COM/ (949) 397 8437 I contacted him and explained the situation on ground hitting how desperately I needed a house but my credit rate wouldn’t allow me, after much discussion and findings I was okay to move on with the process I presented the necessary info he requested to kick start. He got my credit fixed in 12days It’s really amazing working with HACKNET with great professionalism I also made him my personal hacker you can hit him up on the address above tell him I sent you. Thanks.

selimthegrim 7y ago

Maybe it's like the cluster in India, in Bihar? https://thewire.in/health/what-is-encephalitis-whats-happening-in-bihar-heres-all-you-need-to-know https://thewire.in/health/what-is-encephalitis-whats-happeni...

Alex3917 7y ago

I had something very similar to this in September 2006. I still have all my medical records from the time and a digitized version of my MRI because it was such a weird thing that no one was ever able to convincingly diagnose. I checked though and it doesn't look like there is any way to submit it since I'm not a doctor, and since it was before 2014, heh.

nemonemo 7y ago

Is there any geographical clustering? The article mentioned Colorado GBS cases, but I could not find any mentioning of AFM one. If this happens mostly during the hot season and some insect vectors are suspected, I'd expect to see some concentration around hot and humid areas.

bayesian_horse 7y ago
Apparently it's not that simple. They don't say so in the article, but the trouble with identifying the causal agent is that the suspect strains have an incidence rate which is multiple orders of magnitude higher than the number of AFM cases. But as far as I know those virus species are not routinely tested for or differentiated that far. It's mostly "just a cold". I think there are more specific causes for the GBS cases, so that may explain a local clustering.

mikeytown2 7y ago

This is a controversial book but worth looking into https://www.amazon.com/Moth-Iron-Lung-Biography-Polio/dp/1717583679 https://www.amazon.com/Moth-Iron-Lung-Biography-Polio/dp/171...

bardworx 7y ago
Just reading the first review on Amazon, I’m skeptical. They started with polio and ended with arsenic poisoning. One (polio) is caused by a virus we have vaccines for. The other (arsenic) is a poison that was readily available and know in 1800s. There is also misinformation in the description of the book, stating that polio just appeared in 1800s but it was around way before and identified in 1789. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polio https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polio This seems to be some great anti-vaccine propaganda or fear mongering for a few bucks.

anongraddebt 7y ago

Medical 'anomalies', while sad and terrible in some cases, can also be fascinating. I was seven in the summer of '94 and woke up one day with a completely immobile left leg. My sister came into the bedroom to relay a message from mom that if I didn't stop playing games and get ready for school, then I'd be in trouble. However, I simply couldn't move my left leg. The rest of the week I spent at home. Whenever I needed to walk somewhere, I'd just hop on my right leg, and drag my left leg along with me. That week I saw a number of doctors and specialists. Had the battery of tests and diagnostics that are de rigeur for anything where the medical community has no clue what is going on. Within roughly seven days from the onset of this temporary paralysis, my leg began functioning again and did so quite quickly.

jader201 7y ago
Don’t leave us hanging! Did you/your parents/the doctors ever figure out what was going on? Or did you just chalk it up to a fluke, hoping it would never return?
- whatusername 7y ago
  My 5 y/o was unable to walk for a day or two last year. Diagnosed with this: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5429052/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5429052/
- anongraddebt 7y ago
  No one ever figured it out. Obviously, I hope it never returns or if it does that only lasts a week;)
devm0de 7y ago
I had a very similar thing happen to me in the late 80’s when I was 5. I remember getting out of bed and falling to the ground as I couldn’t feel my legs. I lost function of both legs and couldn’t walk, my parents brought me into doctors and specialist and they had no answers. Less than a week later I regained feeling and function of both my legs like nothing ever happened. I don’t recall having a fever. I actually forgot that happened to me until your story just now. Crazy.

Havoc 7y ago

>CDC asks for help Welcome. You're now on the set of a Generic Epidemic Horror Movie A

uptownfunk 7y ago

Is this related to anti vax ?

RandomGuyDTB 7y ago
no

naveen99 7y ago

My son had this when he was 5. We had a difficult few years. Now mostly recovered. very scary disease.

wintercarver 7y ago

Regarding the mysterious biennial periodicity, I dug around for naturally occurring biennial events that have a synced timing. Didn’t find much, but I did find this article specifically about biennial periodicity in measles. “Periodicity, synchronization and persistence in pre-vaccination measles” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4938089/#!po=0.769231 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4938089/#!po=0.... >An analysis of data from more than 350 administrative areas in England and Wales using wavelets [9] showed that for pre-vaccination measles, (from 1944 to 1966) most locations are indeed synchronized and present outbreaks every 2 years...

bluepeter 7y ago

I've been following this closely. There's no real data on the following: - Is this happening in other countries? I cannot find really any established diagnoses outside of the US (though some countries have CDC-like pages on it). - What is the gender breakdown? - What is the age breakdown? (mean, median, SD) - What is the geo breakdown? (city vs rural, major geo areas)