Polio survivors also need to be alert to the medications they take as well as to possible side effects of medications. There are other late-effects of polio that can be unrelated to changes in the motor unit. People who ignored that pain, and pushed through fatigue and pain for many years before they realized they had a problem, seemed to have more problems later in life. There is also no firm evidence of a persistent viral infection of polio being present. Overuse, aging, and pushing through pain are factors but there may also be other neuromuscular factors that are not yet understood.
Stress erodes performance and can make everything worse.
The Single Fiber EMG study uses a finer needle and measures a single nerve ending instead of the standard EMG which measures the average of a group of nerve endings. The first thing to be addressed should be pain control. Besides medications, there are many non-drug choices for pain relief including acupuncture and magnets. If the site of the pain is in the pain receptors of the skin, muscle, or joint then non-drug treatment choices might be hot packs, ice packs, ultrasound, stretching, massage, acupressure, or biofeedback. Ice packs and TENS devices are choices for treating incoming nerve pain.